Maine Anjou------What's up?

I attended The Iowa Beef Expo Maine sale yesterday. Not a fact, just my observation, but the quality was way down, as were the bull prices. What has happened with the Maine breed to cause the commercial man to back off in these good times for the cattle industry ?  Or is this just an Iowa problem ? Is it not a problem at all ? Maybe just a fluke.

Apparently all the commercial bull buyers were at the IA Angus expo sale, and spent all their money earlier in the day!  It was crazy the way they sold those bulls.  Congrats to the IA Angus consignors on a great sale!

Not sure why but the prices of Bushy Park bulls was way down tues as well.Vidios looked ok but it was an all online sale,  maybe that had something to do with it.  Did anybody see them in person or at Dinver?

It'll be interesting to see how the GVC sale goes. Looks like there will be some great cattle Dennis' sale.

not trying to offend anyone but..... from speaking with other cattle folks the Maines have a reputation of being hard-doing, bad-structured, hard-calving that don't do well at high altitudes - bred too much for the showring it would appear - just what I am told - you see fewer and fewer of them - but I must say the good ones appear to be darn good - same as any breed I suppose - commercial guys are concentrating on live calves that grow and make money in any environment without any hassles - they don't have to be fancy - I know that most folks on this site have a show ring orientation but the commercial world that is the perception -

Maybe the commercial cattlemen do not need bulls, as hard as they are culling cows and selling heifers for market they might not need any.

They sure are selling a pot load at the OH expo. Like 90 something lots.

I believe the numbers and quality is down because so many of the Iowa breeders actually have there own sales. 

The point brought up that they are hard calving, hard doing cattle...are you in 2011?  Years ago they were hard calving, hard doing cattle but any breed has that and many have worked hard to correct that problem.

Idk the real reason, but that use to be one of the strongest expo sales in the country, its sad its not what its use to be.

I would say having some of the right Maine influence in your herd would increase milking and weaning weights. The IBE maine sale however is pretty show orientated from what i see.  So even if 75% of the maine bulls sold there are show and the other 25% are commercial orientated few commercial guys are going to show up and pick through and wait around for one of those bulls.

The bull prices were low on the shorthorns at NCC as well. Every other breed's champion would bring $10,000 or around there. The shorthorn bulls didn't bring over $3,300. Idk what the problem is

The Maines are some of the most improved cattle of any breed,and some of the best bulls have been around over 10 years.Top of my head> a couple  good functional ones might be:-TLM Bouncer.Ali.DMCC Bodybuilder(Bouncers sire),DMCC Limited Edition (arguably one of the better balanced commercially acceptible bulls of ANY BREED) HAA Wisdom,DMCC Lamborghuini (is there a pattern here?) Oklahoma Storm, MAJORS MONEYMAN-and a bunch of others. And I dont even have any Maines.US Shorthorns have begun to see the light-in what could be construed as "the other extreme"-But at the moment: the better they look-the less they seem to meet the commercial grid of acceptance-for lack of a better YATTA YATTA O0

I thought someone posted Bushy Parks sale avg. $5373 for 42 head and they all sold. Thats pretty good to me.

I see that Mike Hartman is dispersing his entire Maine herd.  He seems to be moving in the Simmental direction.  Is this a Maine Anjou issue or something else?

http://www.hartmancattleco.com/

subtle little simmental ad at the bottom.

people seem to love or hate him.  sad to see him go.  probably no one got people talking about the breed than him.  

time for others to pick up the ball.  the altitude question is an interesting one as is immune system.

probably be a discussion if it's a true dispersal and if he's going a specific direction and found something out.

I doubt he sold all his maine herd.  The flier I got was from the group Hartman and Associates.  Its down at Glen Oaks Farm in MO.  I know he's "dabbling" in Simmentals now. 

I have watched Fred and Mike Hartman for several years. Cattle,llamas,donkeys etc. no matter what it has been Hartman's seldom get in or out at the wrong time.

olsun said:

I have watched Fred and Mike Hartman for several years. Cattle,llamas,donkeys etc. no matter what it has been Hartman's seldom get in or out at the wrong time.

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Bingo!

hamburgman said:

I would say having some of the right Maine influence in your herd would increase milking and weaning weights. The IBE maine sale however is pretty show orientated from what i see.  So even if 75% of the maine bulls sold there are show and the other 25% are commercial orientated few commercial guys are going to show up and pick through and wait around for one of those bulls.

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Probably the best analysis you'll hear of the sale. If you look at the consignor list you will see a who's who of the show cattle business. Core, Bremer, Weaver, Braun, Blueprint, etc.  Vander Linden's always bring some real good beef bulls and they all sold pretty well. The show cattle were pretty good but there were some other cattle that didn't do the Maine breed any favors. JMO.

We have used five different Maine bulls over the last eight years and kept over 40 heifers. Our ranch is at about 7000 feet and our summer pasture is at about 8000 feet, we have never had any probelms with our Maines at altitude.

Some of the most successful Maine operations operate in high altitudes, I'm not sure where Sammmy got the info, but I can think of numerous Maine breeders in Colorado that would disagree with his statement!