Shorthorn weaning weights.

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3 Eagles shorthorns

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I am curious to what purebred shorthorn breeders are getting for weaning weights without creep. Has anyone had luck producing a big spread (epds) bull? These older genetic cows I purchased from wally are a nice set of cows, good udders, gentle, moderate framed, traveling the big pastures good, and have a nice set of thick little calves on them that appear to be put together about right, but lack the explosive growth that I'm getting out of my simmy, saler, or angus calves. I just recently bought 9 replacment heifers from him that are sure by a clipper king USA son. The heifers are very deep bodied set of heifers. So in all I am pleased with the shorthorn female and would much rather handle them then I would my other cows but I am concerned on growth.
 

r.n.reed

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You can't make a good comparison at this point.You need to give your cows a couple years to adapt to the new range and management style and breed your Shorthorns to the bulls being used in the commercial herd to make a better comparison.Besides that you will still need to factor in the advantage of heterosis the crossbred cows will have over the Shorthorns.
Weaning weights without context are meaningless.% of mature cow weight again with context is a better indicator of profit.
 

mark tenenbaum

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Unless you cross these type Shorthorns with the other breeds-YOU ARE NOT going to get any major growth changes breeding them to the Wally 50s early 60s type bulls. Since they are old genetics-you could 1: selectively use some of the ORIGINAL non-milker bulls that brought them up back in the day-and are still available like-Deerpark Improver 2nd- GS Irish Sweepstakes (Universal semen sales-Montana) Mill brooke Ranson 2975- YEA YEA some had bad udders more didn't, (I have semen I will sell you), Byland Goldwalk if Wayne Temple has some , and whatever Canadian bulls JIT etc would recommend. YOU COULD 2: Breed them to currant bulls with those kind of growth curves- FIRST ON THE LIST WOULD BE-WAUKARU PATENT-hands down 1st choice. Zane Martin-Promised Land Cattle-Montana has what would be another very good choice- the Gold Standard bull.JIT has several-Including HC Bluebook, The triple clean white bull Manimal that (although fed hard) had Under 80 BW- 850 weaning,1290 yearling-Saskvalley Pioneer on a real Stout Jungles proud jazz x stacked performance cattle going way back to Byland Dazzler.He should be at the junior Nationals-and won some divisions as a calf. If you think breeding them to the purist native cattle will give them grow-FORGET ABOUT IT unless you really reasearch them-AND IF THEY DO- MAKE SURE THEY ARE THICK AS WELL AS GROWTHY.I saw lots of them back in the day that looked like giraffes. O0
 

3 Eagles shorthorns

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I bought some gauge semen that select sires had. Right now they are with what I think is a well put together Royal oak son. He has WO dividend on the bottom side which Zane Martin told me could had a good deal of growth but also might throw higher birthweigths. I am pleased with the cows and they seem to have more then enough milk. I am not trying to breed "native" stock, just am hoping to breed some moderate birthweight high growth weight calves at some point. My goal is to be at 100 head of PB shorthorns in the next 5 years.
 

mark tenenbaum

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In that case-and if you want to use walking bulls-there are some good sources close by. I would think that you would still  want to try AI too-with 3-5 different bulls that have moderate bws and grow-and see what works best and or produce your own bulls to come back with that will continue the deal. O0
 
J

JTM

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r.n.reed said:
You can't make a good comparison at this point.You need to give your cows a couple years to adapt to the new range and management style and breed your Shorthorns to the bulls being used in the commercial herd to make a better comparison.Besides that you will still need to factor in the advantage of heterosis the crossbred cows will have over the Shorthorns.
Weaning weights without context are meaningless.% of mature cow weight again with context is a better indicator of profit.
Very well said.
 

mark tenenbaum

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JTM said:
r.n.reed said:
You can't make a good comparison at this point.You need to give your cows a couple years to adapt to the new range and management style and breed your Shorthorns to the bulls being used in the commercial herd to make a better comparison.Besides that you will still need to factor in the advantage of heterosis the crossbred cows will have over the Shorthorns.
Weaning weights without context are meaningless.% of mature cow weight again with context is a better indicator of profit.////// I would agree-but he wants to build a herd a herd of usefull Shorthorns which I applaud regardless-And the cattle he has there-already come from that environment-so in the case of walking bulls-why not pull from the same environment? O0
Very well said.
 

3 Eagles shorthorns

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I have always ran purebred bulls. I ran salers the for a few years, angus for a few years, and Simmental for a few years, so the cows are all 3 way cross if not more as there are some stockyard cattle in there as well. Wally talked me into buying a few cows and then I decided to get more into it.  I am not knocking the breed, like I said I really like the cows.
 
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JTM

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Like Gary said and I can speak from experience here. Those three way cross cows are going to perform better in every way. Crossbred cows are the best when it comes to creating more milk but retaining fertility. They will also add hybrid vigor to the mix when bred to a purebred bull. If I were you I would look at these Shorthorn cows as a piece of the puzzle, a very important piece of the puzzle in a crossbreeding operation. Now if you are going to go solely purebred Shorthorn and be a seedstock Shorthorn breeder then that is different. You need to make sure you are comparing similar age groups also. You can't compare two year old Shorthorn heifers with their first calves to 5 year old crossbred cows. The 5 year old crossbred cow will blow away the 2 year old with a weaned calf. I am not familiar with the genetics you are talking about so I don't know the context in which we are talking but my suggestion would be to do your homework and proceed with a plan. Look at what other commercial seedstock Shorthorn breeders are doing. Which ones do you want to mimmick? Then call them up, pick their brain, buy their best heifers and best bull and go for it!
 

RyanChandler

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3 Eagles shorthorns said:
I am curious to what purebred shorthorn breeders are getting for weaning weights without creep. Has anyone had luck producing a big spread (epds) bull?
I think you need to look at some Waukaru bulls. I don't know of any Shorthorns with better spreads than those there. Orion would work perfectly over the type of cows you're describing but there are others as well... like I have a bull, Waukaru Forward 4003, that is only 1 of 4 purebred bulls in the entire Shorthorn breed with a CE of 10 and WW of 85.  I think with these type bulls, you're going to have results more similar to what you're accustomed to. 
 

librarian

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If you can't get Buster, Maybe Jaxson- Buster x Bonanza. 87 lb BW.
http://www.steerplanet.com/bb/the-big-show/a-couple-pictures-45616/

....maybe just make 100 extra good Shorthorn cows with decent growth and get explosive later with a terminal cross. You can always breed a few nice Shorthorn bulls from your top 5% cows if you want a Shorthorn bull for yourself or get inquiries.
 

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J

JTM

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librarian said:
If you can't get Buster, Maybe Jaxson- Buster x Bonanza. 87 lb BW.
http://www.steerplanet.com/bb/the-big-show/a-couple-pictures-45616/

....maybe just make 100 extra good Shorthorn cows with decent growth and get explosive later with a terminal cross. You can always breed a few nice Shorthorn bulls from your top 5% cows if you want a Shorthorn bull for yourself or get inquiries.
I like this idea. Start with the cowmaking bulls and go this route until you get your numbers where you want them. Then go for the high growth bull.
 

mark tenenbaum

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Want a cowmaker with grow? Waukaru Patent-Orian is a son. Byland Dazzler or sons like GB Daybreak express-who also has a shot of Lincoln Red.,CCC Goldrush,etc. Or Jungels bulls-although they do not have the grow the others do O0
 

RyanChandler

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mark tenenbaum said:
Want a cowmaker with grow?

I agree-  these aren't opposites nor do you necessarily have to give up one for the other.  Rather than suggesting personal favorites, I think it's important to suggest bulls that will satisfy 3 Eagle's expectations.  The Waukaru bulls aren't any higher growth than these other suggestions-- they're likely faster growth,, which is what he's wanting,, but I wouldn't say they're any higher. 
 

mark tenenbaum

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My personal favorite in the Gold Line is one I negleted to mention-HC Goldcard-and Orion Son -just havent seen the calves, but he and the cattle behind him fit my bill on these type of cows. PATENT HOWEVER HAS HUGE GROW-AND IS A HUGE BULL.He would make 2 of alot of the 5 frame Jungles et al bulls-not saying thats bad or good-just the facts.He was too big for Shadybrook which I heard from a relable source: but they have pretty big cattle to begin with.-But I think  he would be a meet in the middle sire on these type of cows, and with the depth the cows have-wouldnt be gawky looking etc.  O0
 

Lucky_P

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Commercial herd here; SimAngus base, dating back to 1980s genetics, with more recent infusion of Angus sires over that old linebred Fleckvieh-influenced SimAngus herd.  We went to Shorthorn sires for 'maternal' traits, but the steer contemporaries of those halfblood Shorthorn heifers we were breeding for were every bit as good as the Simmental-sired calves bred at the same time, and beat the pants off anything by an Angus sire out of the same group of cows.

We have used mostly Waukaru sires because they were readily available from OriGen through our ABS rep, with no extra shipping charges.  Also sampled Captain Obvious and the Rob Sneed '034' bull.  The CO steers just didn't have the performance we got from the Waukaru sires.  The 034s were pretty good, and I like the 034 daughters we got.
Waukaru Goldmine 2109... I'd use him on ANY heifer... they come slender and easy; steers grow off nice, and the Goldmine daughters may be the best SH-crosses I've got.
Waukaru GoldCard 5042 (WW epd ~92) was used on bottom-end cows, and only a couple of daughters stayed, but I'm beginning to think he worked better here than we thought - he just didn't go into good cows, for the most part.  Considering going another round with GoldCard.
Waukaru Coppertop 464 - did everything right here.  Daughters are good, steers were great.  Would like to have seen a modern genomic analysis on him - he had 4 of the 6 GeneStar tenderness gene markers and 3 of the marbling gene markers, IIRC.

Did a progeny-test breeding trial for Waukaru a couple of years back, comparing Orion 2017 (a PatentXCoppertop) to Coppertop.  3/4AN-1/4SM cows.  Orion steers weaned at avg. 697, Coppertop steers at 657; on mama's milk and grass only; no feed or supplement other than minerals.  Performance in feedout trial was good, with one Orion son bred here topping the trial.  JTM's seen the data on those. 

All but one of the Shorthorn-sired calves in this spring's crop are by Patent... all look great; time will tell as to how they'll pan out, but they're holding their own against calves sired by high WW Simmental sires.

I keep telling folks how good Shorthorn-sired calves are... and commercial cattlemen could (can!) benefit greatly from using the right sort of Shorthorn bulls in their breeding programs.
 
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