Angus bull "Pioneer"

heard about him.. don't know anything else though.. never heard of him before??? 

I have used him some an have just got heifer calves, very easy calving an females are very good looking females ...

Sold for 65,000. Most used bull of his calf crop. HOG fat in his photo. Out of Final Answer which was a decent bull. Pioneer weighed 965 at weaning and had 17.7 inch ribeye. with a 42 cm scrotal. YW was 1544. positive marb, positive RE.  Dam is a Boyd New Day daughter and a high milker. He is sold thro Genex. His first calves sell at Schaff's in Febuary.

We've had a couple heifer calves by him.  Both heifer calves weighed 78 #s.  About average for us last year.  Have heard of a few bigger ones.  Both females are real nice.  You can be a little disappointed when they are young but as they mature and fill out they are real deep, sound and relatively thick ended.  We will be selling one in March at the Minnesota Angus Breeders Sale this year so watch for updates.  She is a maternal sib to Jorli Hauge's class winner at the National Junior Angus show in Denver this past summer.

The one thing I would mention is they can have a little attitude.  Nothing like an EXT or 004, but they keep your attention.

Now I must also say our 8 yr old son won his showmanship division with his Pioneer heifer at MN Beef Expo this fall so its sure not a big deal.  But we got a little spoiled with the BC Lookouts and the PVF ALL Payoff's as far as docility goes.

I'll post some pictures when we get them done.

Ron
<cowboy>

rtmcc said:

The one thing I would mention is they can have a little attitude.  Nothing like an EXT or 004, but they keep your attention.

Ron
<cowboy>

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I didn't realize that the 004's had a rep for bad attitudes.  I've got four 004 females (different ages)  and haven't had an issue with any of them. Two of them actually follow us around and want to be petted if we're out in the pasture.  Maybe we've been lucky!
I did buy a young Pioneer heifer back in November.  She was halterbroke when I got her but hasn't been worked with alot.  I haven't had her on halter again yet, but I can tell she's going to take a little work to "make friends".  Nice heifer though...deep and correct.

Bawndoh said:

Yeah...them 004's sure must be rank considering the bull himself stands to be scratched.  As a Genex employee, we constantly make inside jokes about the fact that all of you completely naive people think they are SO darn rank.  Interesting what people will say when they become cornered and jealous, and are simply uneducated.
Here is 004 himself in Sept '08.  I do have some of Pioneer from that day if you want to see him.  No, he (Pioneer) is not just a lardy P.O.S. bull either.  He actually has natural thickness, is squaremade, yet smooth.  He does throws lower BW calves, but they are very thick, so he is not a Bet the Ranch calving ease bull...but he can certainly still be used on heifers.  He is already backordered this year, and is on the list of bulls that we cannot volume discount.  He will probably be in the top 3, if not, the actual high selling bull this year.  Great bull, from a Great operation, backed by a Great semen company

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So you make jokes about your customers?  Sounds like a nice company to do business with!

Typical keep your womens office gossip at home and people won't bash your bulls. I'd be surprised if your comments don't lead to fewer sales. (Classy)

Bawndoh said:

Yeah...them 004's sure must be rank considering the bull himself stands to be scratched.  As a Genex employee, we constantly make inside jokes about the fact that all of you completely naive people think they are SO darn rank.  Interesting what people will say when they become cornered and jealous, and are simply uneducated.
Here is 004 himself in Sept '08.  I do have some of Pioneer from that day if you want to see him.  No, he (Pioneer) is not just a lardy P.O.S. bull either.  He actually has natural thickness, is squaremade, yet smooth.  He does throws lower BW calves, but they are very thick, so he is not a Bet the Ranch calving ease bull...but he can certainly still be used on heifers.  He is already backordered this year, and is on the list of bulls that we cannot volume discount.  He will probably be in the top 3, if not, the actual high selling bull this year.  Great bull, from a Great operation, backed by a Great semen company

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You should probably stop why you are only this far behind cowboy.  It only takes a couple of statements like this to then infer that if a company is only willing to hire an inferior saleman, they may only have an inferior product to sale.  

I don't think he was trying to be malicious, just trying to pound it in that the bull isn't crazy. I didn't interpret anything he said as rude, you get the same opinions from breeders, in regards to their cattle...........but then again, I'm not overly sensitive so......... I imagine it gets old hearing peoples misinterpretations of the demeanor of the cattle especially when he obviously has a good relationship with the bulls. I'll bet you have seen some rank bulls that have been advertised as docile. Thank you for the post of the photo, it's nice to get a little insight and the opportunity to see them not as fluff balls

Just my observation here because I don't have a dog in the fight, but Bawndoh could have made more friends by eliminating the sarcasm and just being a good salesman showing what a great bull 004 is and dispelling the rumors.  That being said, the picture shows 004 liking a scratch.  What it doesn't show is what he acts like if he gets stirred up nor does it show his progeny's tendencies.  Don't have any 004, so I don't have any opinion on that.

Bawndoh said:

Cattledog said:

Bawndoh said:

Yeah...them 004's sure must be rank considering the bull himself stands to be scratched.  As a Genex employee, we constantly make inside jokes about the fact that all of you completely naive people think they are SO darn rank.  Interesting what people will say when they become cornered and jealous, and are simply uneducated.
Here is 004 himself in Sept '08.  I do have some of Pioneer from that day if you want to see him.  No, he (Pioneer) is not just a lardy P.O.S. bull either.  He actually has natural thickness, is squaremade, yet smooth.  He does throws lower BW calves, but they are very thick, so he is not a Bet the Ranch calving ease bull...but he can certainly still be used on heifers.  He is already backordered this year, and is on the list of bulls that we cannot volume discount.  He will probably be in the top 3, if not, the actual high selling bull this year.  Great bull, from a Great operation, backed by a Great semen company

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So you make jokes about your customers?  Sounds like a nice company to do business with!

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None of MY customers think they are rank.  Its an American rumour.  I don't have any American customers!
Our customers are educated and KNOW the truth about the bulls.  It is the other companies that we joke about....for they are the ones who claim that 004 is so rank.

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You probably will not like what I am going to say here but you are not exactly telling the full story.  Personally I do not have any knowledge of the disposition on 004 cattle but generally as the saying goes where there is smoke there is fire and there definitely seem to be lots of people comment on this aspect of 004 progeny.

If you were totally honest could a big reason why none of your own personal customers has never complained about the disposition of a 004 calf be because you personally have never sold a straw of semen on the bull.  I am basing this off the fact that I do not believe he was ever available in Canada.  If I am wrong on this point I apologize.  Note that I am referring to 004 himself and not his sons that I know have been heavily used in Canada.

As for the picture you posted of the bull I agree that he appears to be good dispositioned himself.  However I know of more than one bull that was super dispositioned himself but whose calves were crazy and the opposite situation is also not uncommon.

@ the Genex annual meeting last spring in my region even the beef procurement and the management that was there said the 004's had some temperment issuses. Never used him myself just for that reason, Genex man tells me his bull can make em alil smokey I will just find another bull out of the what 500 available in stud.....

004 is not near like Lucy's boy was but look @ the new info we got on the Angus bull's, a docility rating. Emulation XXP is a -8 and they show a pic of someone sitting on him.........004 is also a -3 and Pioneer is a +3 on that rating......

Nice calves, however he can and will throw a big one.  Had to cut out 2 of them out oof heifers, if they were heifer calves came ok, but a bull calf gave us problems. JMO

Our few 004's here in Nebraska have been no problem, but they were diluted with Simmental too.

On a side note, hope Pioneer continues to impress in most cases.  As I sit here typing on the laptop, his granddam is about 100 steps out my back door.  We acquired the 1082 donor a couple months ago from Kelly.  She's certainly not wild!  Weaned the heaviest ever 205 day weight calf at SAV...well over 1000#.   Can't wait to flush her!  Her extreme  performance might just re-write the rules for the percentage Sim-Angus scene.

It sounds like everyone likes the Pioneer calves well enough.  I haven't seen that many but I thought that they were kind of plain.  I saw them when they were younger so it could be a different story now as one poster stated.  Guess I should look at some that are a little more mature.

im sorry to say but i help my dad clip quite a few peoples herds here in nebraska for the annual bull sales and i promise you that when you see a bull coming down the allie way and see the numbers 004 on the tag somewhere you already know that guy is going to hit the head gate hard and be nothing but a pain in the butt......... but i will say i do like the calves out of him the calves seem to been nicely muslced ;D

I sure didn't mean to open up this big debate when I mentioned temperament.

Let me qualify my statement about the temperament of Pioneer and 004 calves by saying that the calves out of both of these bulls, in my experience, is more than acceptable in a commercial and cow herd setting.  Thats what they are bred for and that is were they shine.

But at our place we have to get a few of them broke for an eight and a ten year old to handle them.  They are both very experienced but this is a different level of docility than I would demand if my cowboy crew didn't average 70 lbs.  And ya, they are also the ones that have to help me sort cows and breed and work them thru the chute so this is something we really watch. 

No, these calves are not killers by any sense.  But they can be a little more alert than some of the other genetics we have used.  You just need to pay attention a little closer.  Thats all.

I sure don't want to be involved in a bull bashing.  I simply wanted to explain our experience with the calves out of the bull the poster was interested in.  We ALL have cattle with different temperaments.

Ron
<cowboy>

Bodie with his Pioneer heifer winning the Junior Showmanship at the Minnesota Beef Expo.

Another one.

Ron

We've used the 004 bull since he hit the sire book and have had absolutely no problems with the cows or bulls... Matter of fact we have a high percentage of 004 in our bloodlines and can't say that there is anything to even be aware of.... Now we have some Oak Hollows that are a differant story.. Like the calving ease, but they are a little high headed and wild for us..... Now saying that.... Someone else might use him and get along fine... It's all in the cross breeding....

(clapping), congrats Bodie. Nice looking heifer and son Ron. Brent