Another Simmental Spring Breeding Question!

My Genex rep just called (Tammy Wallace), said he is $20 but has not frozen yet. They just leased him and he has to pass all his tests first. But, the good news, he is just up the road about an hour from me at Strafford, so I am going to go up on Saturday to see him! I wonder if Grizzly is gone? I took my animal science up there in December for a tour, and he was out in the pasture just as happy as can be (and fat!).
Thanks for turning me on to him, I really like the fact that he has a great milk number and he is an Upgrade. Like AltSimmy said, Upgrade does not have good milk number so I hesitate to use him even though many others are. Mind you, that may change when these younger bulls get females into production.....
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Very cool! I would love to hear about your visit. That's the thing about living in south Texas is I can't pop over and see the hot new bull at stud.

I will be interested to see what Upgrade's milk EPD does once he gets some daughters in production. They put it so low because of the high growth numbers and the negative correlation between growth and milk. Hopefully Upgrade proves that correlation wrong or maybe the growth numbers are a wee bit inflated....I hope I don't open a can of worms on that.

Agreed , this new MCM Top Grade bull is definitely one we should be watching.

I love the look of Top Grade in his photo and will be looking at him this spring as well. Was going to mention taking a look at "Olie" who is the sire of Upgrade...He makes em pretty nice and will hold up his end of the EPD profile. While the cow's numbers aren't bad, they are a little plain... I wouldn't want to handicap the calf by using a bull that's far off in the wrong direction on any number that's fairly important to you. Since we've started focusing on API, we've seen noticeable progress in a relatively short period of time. Our best calves last year were an Olie heifer out of a 1/2 blood 2T22 daughter, and we had some good Manifest bulls. That bull will work on cows that are smaller framed with plenty of depth, and the calves will flat grow! Our Bettis calves aren't bad either, but not as uniform as I want, and I don't think he improved every female we used him on. Actually, I KNOW he didn't... Our best fall babies are a heifer out of Blazin Hot and an Angus cow (I probably wouldn't use a baldy on a baldy but those calves are pretty nice!) and a heifer calf by KNH Added Value out of a first-calf Mo Better daughter. She's super fancy and doing well, but his growth numbers kinda tanked with this last EPD calculation. I think he'll be a heifer bull and may not have enough grow to use in a lot of situations. I'm using more Blazin Hot, Shear Pleasure, Hooks Titus (1/2 blood), and Triple C Singletary who is a full brother to Bettis. I thought his calves at Triple C's dispersal were pretty stout, but from what I saw, I expect them to have a little front end and some loose hide. That's my 2 cents... Or 3!

BTW Lucky Man would definitely NOT be on my list for this cow with the goals you have in mind. We've had some decent calves out of him, but not great ones, and they're not particularly pretty to look at. And he's a spotter...that mating would scare me. Bad.

Thanks Everyone! I really like MR Justice and Top Grade for her, but I am concerned about EPD accuracy. Don't want them to tank after a few calves..

Any feelings on Hook's Shear Force?

Shear Force is a Legacy son, and our best cows are Legacy daughters. He's a great calving ease + maternal + carcass option, but his growth numbers sure won't help you any. We've never used Shear Force because he's heterozygous black, but I wouldn't mind having a good daughter if I ran across one that would fit our program. In lieu of using him, I've opted to use some of his homozygous black, higher growth EPD sons like Bettis, Singletary and Added Value (whose growth EPDs didn't hold up in the last calculation). I still like the "Olie" bull, too, who would be a homozygous black and polled son of Legacy that has more performance than Shear Force.

leanbeef said:

Shear Force is a Legacy son, and our best cows are Legacy daughters. He's a great calving ease + maternal + carcass option, but his growth numbers sure won't help you any. We've never used Shear Force because he's heterozygous black, but I wouldn't mind having a good daughter if I ran across one that would fit our program. In lieu of using him, I've opted to use some of his homozygous black, higher growth EPD sons like Bettis, Singletary and Added Value (whose growth EPDs didn't hold up in the last calculation). I still like the "Olie" bull, too, who would be a homozygous black and polled son of Legacy that has more performance than Shear Force.

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Thanks for the input! There's so many options out there!  ;D