template for the club calf business.

After studying the deal and observing the business the last 5 years I have come up with a template to success. If I am wrong some tell me. To compete in crossbred,shorthorn, or maine anjou steer deals your calf has to be a th carrier. I have never heard it admitted, but has a calf ever won a show in these divisions that weren't a th carrier? I think it is similar in the heifer divisions except maybe in the Shorthorns where they usually use larger cattle(seems like to me that th carriers are usually smaller framed.) Has a major steer won a deal that wasn't th? Are there th carriers out there are big framed? Wasn't even the old Improver bull pretty moderate framed? Secondly if you are going to do the showring deal and especially the show steer deal you have to use big bwt bulls. Seems like someone said heatseeker had a 140 # or something(maybe it was heatwave). Any way you have to use him to compete and it is a bigger bwt line. I would say in the commercial world 5 % of baby calves are pulled where as in the club steer deal at least 30% of calves are pulled(cows). Am I wrong on that figure. I think the square over the hip phenotype can create calving difficulties shape wise also.I think this is where the nutritional aspect of bwts comes in cause club calf people are puching the envelope on bwt's anyway. I very seldom hear of a good commercial herd having calving problems because of over nutrition in their cowherd. Are there bull that don't fit this blueprint to use for club calves? I have heard like the maine witchdoctor maybe doesn't fit it. To me jakes proud jazz is a miracle cause he isn't big bwt, is th and pha free, and sires some stlye and is a little square over hip. It just seems like if they are not th they just don't have the look. I know I have had kids have first pick of my heifer calves before and 100% of the time they picked the th carriers. Now I am down to about a 5 % th carrier rate in my calves and they just don't have the fancy look. Just thought I'd throw it out there. I am sure that non-carriers are needed sustain the carrier herds but am I wrong in this generalization?

I think this a common belief. With so many of the club calf bulls being carriers we haven't gotten to the new generation of non carriers.
I used a carrier bull on one of my cows twice, nice calves. Then I've bred her back to a purebred Maine. Better calves. Of course I'm not into the club calf biz as I am into maternal genetics.
Also w/ the Maines not registering an carrier bulls as of next year I think we'll seebetter calves in the long run.
JMO

Red

On the maine deal is th or pha or both they are restricting?

when you say square over the hip, do you mean a more cubic shape to the pelvis (definately a heatwave and heatwave son steer clone look), wider hooks, wider pins.  now that i think about it, with a more cubic shape, you might track with that desired wider track.  i wonder if it really translates into more meat or just the appearance of more meat.

any bulls out there with an extra vertebrae on just longer segments?  any studies on space between segments versus segment length with regard to strength of top?

aj said:

On the maine deal is th or pha or both they are restricting?

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any carrier bull, even non-maines have to be clean. Those that are already in the sytem before 2009 will still be in system.

Red

I like your post. I have asked myself many of the same questions. My conclusion is that in market steer shows, the problem, if you can call it that, is Heatwave. The reason that so many of the best steers are th is because Heatwave is so dominate. There have been some winners sired by clean bulls such as Friction and Hairy Bear, but they seem to be exceptions. I think there are people working at this moment to produce a clean bull that will  be as dominating as Heatwave. I hope. I also hope that we can find some bulls that breed and pass on some soundness. If we didn't have goals, what fun would there be in breeding cattle? JMHO

I don't think you are wrong in your assumption, you may be over-simplifying it just a bit.  Look at Who Made Who, he blows the th theory out of the water and he had several winners in his day.  The birthweights are a combination of nutrition and genetics (on both sire and dam).  I'm mostly fall calving, but I've never pulled a heat wave calf.  I know the spring borns come a little larger, but I've still never pulled one.  I would get out of the business if I had to pull 30% of my calves, its just too frustrating.  

Your model is probably closer to accurate for "hair" shows, but it doesn't hold true at all for slick shear shows - although Heat Waves do fine.  There are lots of black and colored calves down here that win the exotic classes that don't come from any of the TH lines - Lifeline x Hoodoo crosses being the most common example.  But there are lots of others.

You are starting to see haired calves out of TH free bulls win also.  It's just going to take a little time.

The birthweight thing is blown way out of proportion.  As others have said, its more cow management than genetics.

You pretty much have to have a TH carrier to win a respectable steer show.  I'm sure a clean has snuck into the top 5 every now and then, but I wouldn't buy a steer that didn't look like he was a carrier... 

As far as the Bw thing goes.  Roughly half of the bw comes the cows genetics and how she is managed.  But, the 130 lb calves that come out the side are usually pretty stout and good...

Dusty said:

  But, the 130 lb calves that come out the side are usually pretty stout and good...

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there just has to be a way to put a larger exit there so you don't have to do surgery.  going through the hip is so, old school.

we have fistulated steers, why not fistulated uterous'?

then, i guess the next BW issue would be the calf literally coming out sideways and you would need a new epd for a stretchy fistula and a phenotype for the calf to have more sideways flex in his spine.

knabe said:

Dusty said:

  But, the 130 lb calves that come out the side are usually pretty stout and good...

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there just has to be a way to put a larger exit there so you don't have to do surgery.  going through the hip is so, old school.

we have fistulated steers, why not fistulated uterous'?

then, i guess the next BW issue would be the calf literally coming out sideways and you would need a new epd for a stretchy fistula and a phenotype for the calf to have more sideways flex in his spine.

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I think this where the term, "ol zipper sides" comes from

I think 80% of big bwt's are genetics,genetics,genetics. <party>