Shorthorn bull GS Thunder 6E 6J

There are 178 calves sired by Thunder on the ASA website.  All but 2 were bred by Cal-Dak Shorthorns of White River, SD.  The -11 MEPD is shown on his certificate, but certainly seems unbelievable.  Cal-Dak Shorthorns is still listed as a member if you want to contact them for more information on the bull.  I assume the Canadian calves sired by Thunder would not neccessarily be listed on the ASA website.  I always thought the sx on a Shorthorn pedigree meant polled sport, too.  Guess you learn something every day.  My full Irish Leader 18th cow is listed as sx, so I believed she was a polled sport full Irish female for all these years.  I was also told many years ago that a true sport would never have a horned calf.  As a matter of fact, my 'polled' full Irish cow has only had one polled calf.  Live and learn.

trevorgreycattleco said:

mark tenenbaum said:

GS Touche goes back to a bunch of Fullblood maines. Probably the most wellknown daughter was Walter Dicksons: Touche doner-that had calves at Cagwins-and a son (one of many ) at 3 C shorthorns I think Miss.or Alabama, That bull your taliking about -has no guts at all-and I dont believe the stats-hed have to be 7 feet tall. O0

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I agree Mark. I thought it was weird for a bull to grow like that with a mature pic llike that. Those are Schaff Valley Angus growth numbers. But the thunder bull looks nothing like they do. Cant find a hip height on him. I have heard of  GS Touche  before now that you mention it. 

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No bull calf grows like that w/o a load of feed.  840lbs at 210 days  :

The Sumption cattle had maine and limo etc-and seemed really stout. I think they used these types of cattle instead of the dual and Irish blood (not entirely on the Irsih,just not as much) on the stout older beef shorthorns-and produced sows when they werent in vogue-and kept at it. The Touche Carly of Dixons WAS NOT small-even in the time she was shown-and clearly got her size from full blood maines-as listed in her pedigree.That being said-there are some readily accessible documented bulls that go back to Byland Dazzler-and k-kim Gold count-that I think would work great on Angus,and are very functional 1:FF Redman-4160621-a young low BW balanced deal-with alot of performance cattleSire of lot 35 in Schrags sale-U need to see her.-Hes sired by a bull that has ALOT of Shalimar(real good performance herd with some maine in there) and out of a full sister to GB Daybreak express-arguably one of the more overlooked (Except by Werning Simmitals and a ton of club calf breedrs up north) really good Byland Dazzler sons-certainly the best breeding son.DAZZLER is one of the top Shorthorn commercial bulls(and sire of National Champs) in the last 23 years.2:3967376-GB Daybreak Express-cattle everywhere out of him North and west of Iowa-Byland DazzlerxMainexLINCOLN RED-A GREAT bull JMO 3:AR53294-PLCC Gold Standard-hiest bw epd of the three at a whopping 2.9 I havent seen the calves-but really like the way he is bred-out of a 20 20 cow (he came fromStangles, one of the top honest herds of performance cattle)and Gold Count-who goes back to some of the best GOODE breeding-and the Gold Bull. I really liked his picture-Just a couple ideas-these 3 bulls have about as good an EPD spread-and have sired as attractive an array of cattle (especially Daybreak) as any Shorthorn you could find. O0

Lucky_P said:

Bumping this one back up - wondered if you Shorthorn folks knew anything more about the bull in the almost 2 yrs since this thread last got a post? Anybody seen any calves by him?
Not real keen on his looks - but for a commercial producer, using SH on Angus cows, his WW epd looks pretty enticing. Own BW and BW/CED epds aren't too bad, either.
The negative milk doesn't necessarily put me off - my cows have Simmental & Holstein back in their ancestry; plenty of milk for my program in the mix already.

Anything about him or his pedigree that alarms you - other than the scur deal, and the fact that he's a polled bull out of horned parents? 
I understand that the polled condition could be a spontaneous mutation - that's how it originally arose -  and the fact that he's scurred indicates that he's heterozygous polled.
But, it does make you wonder whether the sire of record is the real one...

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I don't know much about the bull but the picture does make him look like he has some serious Fullblood Maine Anjou up close according to the look of the rear quarter. I don't really know what I think about this bull from the picture because it is such a poor picture. I agree that you should try contacting the breeder of the bull who had all those calves and ask them for more info. I like your thinking of using a Shorthorn bull on your cows though!  (thumbsup)