how do you breed your cattle?

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snagboy

Active member
Joined
Mar 11, 2010
Messages
33
Location
covington ga
a couple of friends and i were sitting around talking about  what bulls were thinking about breeding our club calf herd to most of my buddies share the same idea the pick 2 to 3 bulls and use them to breed the whole herd including heifers. they joke about my ideas i use about 11 to 12 bulls and play "mad scientist " as they call it  i like to take every cow and break them down to  try to figure out what i want to see out of that cow. i was interested as to what everyone does with your herd. do you keep it simple or play "mad scientist"
 

Show Heifer

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 28, 2007
Messages
2,221
Gotta put the puzzle pieces together, and you can't do that with one puzzle piece!  

 

evermoor

Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2009
Messages
20
While I do not bred club calves, i Have worked  for guys that produce good show cattle and find that the shotgun blast doesn't pan out as well.  Think of the heritability of certain traits that you want and how to achieve them.  Find a good proven bull, that can provide them, that is marketable (or three) use it across the herd, retain quality females and the uniformity of the herd will increase.  I would drive a ways to look at say 25 monopoly or heatwave calves than 25 different sired calves. Experiment with new young bulls carefully.l JMO
 

BIGTEX

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Joined
May 7, 2008
Messages
1,091
Location
North Texas
I would breed everything to Monopoly(or another "hot Bull" ) Name Brands bring more money regardless of quality.
 

Brice8

Active member
Joined
Feb 15, 2010
Messages
26
mad scientist. however i do like using bulls like heatwave and monopoly, these "hot bulls" work well on more different types of cows thats why they have sired so many champioins.
 

BadgerFan

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
431
It depends on the goals for your herd.  The 1 or 2 units of dozens of bulls doesn't give you any idea what the bull really needs to be mated to, what the cow can produce, and gives you an inconsistent set of calves.  If your goal is to sell all your calves as club calves maybe that's ok, but if you are selling predicatability in the form of breeding stock (bulls, heifers, cows) you can't probably constantly experiment with a new hot bull and new matings every year.  Even in a club calf scenario, I think it's best to use 2-3 bulls per year with one being a new bull, but that's just me. And it's easier to say than do, but do your homework, pick a bull based on the right reasons (not a photo).  If it's a hobby and your goal is just to have fun and make each calving exciting, breed to a new one each time.  Depends on your goals.

 
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