Steer Planet - Show Steers and Club Calves Forum

Hi All. Do any of you have any info on the Shorthorn sire Waukaru Patent 8161? I would really appreciate your thoughts and input.

Awesom pens in Denver by him

Here is a bull calf out of Patent's full brother ( Top Shelf).  Not the best pic, but he is very impressive to me in person (I like him more every day, he has diffenitely exceeded my expectations so far).  He is a early March calf.  He is a growing machine, very calm, dark red.  His momma was lot 5 in last fall's Waukaru sale.

Nate, I like your Top Shelf bull a lot!  Personally I liked Top Shelf at 18 months of age more than I liked Patent at that age. I have not seen Top Shelf since the Waukaru sale last fall. As I mentioned previously, Patent looked very impressive on pasture at Shadybrook last week. He was running with all Shadybrook's sale females, and I would say their sale females are the best set they have sold yet. Some pretty awesome females on offer this September!

I think that Top Shelf calf looks very promising
I saw Patent when JIT did and what impreesed me most was Patent's length and thickness. They had a very nice son of Patent with another group of cows. i agree with Grant that he is really stamps his calves.

Thanks for all the replies and photos guys. I personally am not a huge fan of the majority of the Waukaru cattle but Patent 8161 has always stood out to me as a good one. The video of him on Youtube suggests he is very thick and muscly, and he seems to walk out well. He also appears to be extremely quiet. I have seen photographs of his mother in a sale catalogue and she looks as if she could have a better head. Patent 8161 seems to have bred very well every where he was sampled. His daughters seem to be long and growthy with big square hips while the bulls are masculine and muscly.

The Patent calves in Australia have been pretty special. I really admired the bulls and females Waukaru had in the pens at Denver; they're the ones I wanted to pack in my suitcase!

I think bulls need to have a head with a shorter wider muzzle. I have culled a bull once because his head was just not at all what I like to look at. It was not proportionate enough. I believe head shape is very important. The wider the muzzle the bigger the bite. Less time grazeing. I have no clue if it's even true just makes sense to me.

I agree. If you see an animals head coming towards you - you usually can tell what's coming behind it. I've yet to see a bad animal with a good head!

There is a well known and successful sale manager here in Canada, who often says he could select cattle for any sale he is managing, if the owners would just send him a picture of the animal's head. I agree that an animal's head can tell a person a lot about it's overall quality, but it is not the only factor that needs to be considered. That said, it is an important consideration.