Thanks for the compliments.
I included the butt pictures because I think that this years calves are some of the stoutest I’ve raised. Most of the calves are mid - late march babies, with the exception of the Pure Gold ET bull calf, he is a mid February. None of them have had any creep feed what so ever, just sunshine and mama’s milk. The roan heifer calf on that little 19S cow is a TANK.
Mark, to answer your question as to what is the best calving ease Shorthorn sire out there right now the short answer is “I don’t know”. I’m not really sampling a whole bunch of different bulls right now and our selection of bulls available by AI is different here in Canada then it is in the states. Some of the AI bulls that we have used in the past on heifers would include, Shadybrook Optimum, GFS Creole 9590 and AF SL Sin City. We really have had very few calving issues in the last 10 years and few “wrecks” calving Shorthorns in general. That said, I can definitely remember some monstrous BW’s and hard calvings in the early to mid 90’s with some of the genetics we tried back then. Most times we found that our own walking bulls produced calves with similar BW’s to a lot of the so called “Heifer Bulls” that were available AI. If we had calving problems with walking bulls we just culled them, cut our losses and carried on been there done that. Similarly females with calving issues always seem to weed themselves out pretty quick. I’ve never been one to chase “ULTAR LOW” birth weights, I’ve always had more faith in a 85-90# calf getting up and sucking in a snow storm then in a frail 65# calf that just doesn’t seem to have enough strength or mass to keep itself warm and thrive. More importantly I think it’s pertinent to select cattle with proper structure such that females have adequate pelvic area and hip structure such that they have the “ABBILITY” to have a reasonable sized calf on their own, including first calf heifers and using bulls with appropriate skull shape and shoulder design that will throw calves that will pass through the birth canal easily. While I totally agree that we have a need to lower birth weights in the breed as a whole I don’t think we want to chase the pendulum too far either way because of the antagonistic traits that go along with lower birth weights, reduced pelvic areas in females, reduced weaning weight and performance in a calf crop as a whole, etc, etc. Everything in moderation I guess. I bought a Dr Frank’s calf jack three years ago and have still never used it. (knocking on wood) The only calf I touched this year at birth was a 3 year old that had a nasty breech twin, wasn’t expecting her to calve yet and I went out to check a recip that was overdue and found her straining hard and bawling, when I reached inside all I could grab was a little white tail, I lost the first twin by the time I could get him pushed in far enough to get his hind legs up, foolishly I had no drugs on hand for an epidural and I just wasn’t “man enough” to out push her fast enough to get the calf alive. The second twin was born properly presented and quickly and was up and going right away.
This year I bred my heifers to HC FL Touchdown, a bull that I own a part of with Grant Alexander at Horseshoe Creek he was 2009 Canadian National Champion. I think Grant posted a picture of him in a previous thread but I will attach one here as well that Grant sent to me of Touchdown out on pasture. I haven’t had any Touchdown calves yet of course but the report on the ones so far is very positive including a few calves out of first calf heifers, I think he will be a good choice for heifers and I’m expecting moderate birth weights and good calving ease.
I’m not sure what the reason is but this year most of my BW’s seemed to be quite low? I think it may be partly due to the drought conditions from last year and a very different weather pattern here in Western Canada this winter. I ran my cows in a big coulee 25 miles north of here all last fall that runs through three quarters of crop land and where they were eating stockpiled native grass and drinking from a natural spring that stayed running all winter. I was able to do this until mid December when the snow was just getting too deep. It was -37F ambient with a -50F wind-chill when I brought them home, so they were getting lots of exercise up until then. After that I fed a lot of wheat straw and some 2 year old hay that I was able to buy more reasonable as well as some baled oat green feed and supplemented with 16% AN protein tubs. I also got a small quantity of choice second cut alfalfa that I fed to the calves and to pairs when they first calved, I think that really helped as well. Then the weather was unusually mild through February and march which was awesome for calving but was then followed by severe snow storms and high winds with the last snow well into may. I’m just glad it’s summer now!
Anyway, sorry for the long rambling post just a few of my own thoughts and philosophies.
