Any Thoughts on Kappes Tahoe & WLE Right On

Looking at these Two Sires to breed on some heifers, a few register purebred black simmental heifers but mostly commercial red & gold 1/2 and 3/4 blood simmental heifers. Thoughts or experience with the bulls wanted? 

-12.9 on Docility EPD!... Are you wanting to raise rodeo stock?

Kind of an interesting pair to be considering...they're pretty different! I like the Tahoe bull on paper, but that DOC number would scare me off him completely. I remember the picture of Right On...pretty bull. Not much in the performance department EPD-wise. I have a lot of respect for Gil Yardley's program...they're not the best numbered cattle around, but they'd sure work where I'm from. I'd love to have a truck load of females from there to see what I could do with em! I've been out there to visit a couple times...cool program. Of course, Right On didn't COME from there, but Barry Wesner has raised a few good ones, too.

I like the Kappes program on paper. I've never been out there, but they seem to do some things right. Again...that docility EPD...Yikes!

Yeah Leanbeef, I've seen that EPD too and that's what held me back from ordering any so far. I have a hard time believing his disposition would be that bad or wild, but at the same time I hate wild crazy cattle. Thought the Lucky Dice son might click with my pedigree's and hold a chance to throw a little white on the progeny, and be a CE sire for heifer's. With WLE Right On I was again thinking of the CE for heifers and the ability to throw some white on the calves and the pedigree match. All of my heifer's are solid colored Black, Red, and Gold therefore I don't think I'll get to much white with the mating, although one heifer is a Star Power & Dream Doctor Grand Daughter. Anyway I've been looking at sires with at least a bit of white in the pedigree, that have a CE of 10 or higher that are no closer than a Grandson to Dream On and with that being in only one direction. 

Well, i would be careful with those pedigrees unless you like to play the lottery and you're not worried about what to do with a loud marked one! The spot gene is recessive and will crop up when you mate two carriers that may not have much or any white. If I were gonna take that chance, I would at least use a baldy & try to get a blaze face. I guess if you're breeding golds to blacks, you either know the heifers are non diluted or you're not worried about smokes either?...

You might check out a bull called Fitz Pol Boxcar. He's a Lucky Dice son with pretty good numbers...white belly, and I'm sure a spot carrier. He's been in the CMP & I think may have put up some pretty decent data.

We had a non spotter Lucky Dice son that we raised & sold & bought back to use. We used him for several years & talked about collecting him, but we never did. His calves grew right with our performance-oriented AI calves. He's retired now...we have a few daughters, though, and like them quite a bit. One of our best older cows happens to be a Lucky Dice as well.

Btw regarding the docility EPD--or in this case, the HOSTILITY EPD!--I'm kind of a believer. We raised a bull a couple years ago that we really liked, and we decided to keep him to clean up some heifers. He wasn't wild or stupid, but he always had a little attitude. We just always handled him quietly (like we do all our cattle) and he was fine. Well, we ended up with four calves out of him this spring, and all four of them are borderline 3s on disposition scores...4s LEAVE...And 3s need to grow out of their stupids or I have a hard time getting along with em. I'm hoping they quieten down...two of em are pretty dang good! But I don't know em staying if they don't settle down.

We've got a Lucky Dice Daughter that we purchased at a Family Tradition Sale and she had an attitude problem, but also very nice calves. So we kept her and she settled down for us after a while, but we give ours plenty of attention. The first two years though was hard working with her and her babies, but now it's about like all the others.
I haven't sold myself on using either bull yet and I've only got 7 to AI. The gold and red heifers are commercial heifers 1/2 or 3/4 Simmentals out of a Heterzygous Black Dream On son. Matter of fact 3 out of the 4 red & gold heifers were from a black dams as well as a black sire. I know their cow families pretty well, they've been on the farm for decades. I think I'll have only 1 that may be a smoke colored calf, but again they are commercial heifers so their calves are likely going to the market or will be kept as commercial replacement heifers for us so it doesn't bother me much if they aren't jet black. Really looking for the one sire that would click with the 2 Register Heifers pedigree that has decent EPD's mainly CE, BW, WW, YW, MM, and a little white in the pedigree. The 2 Reg. Heifers are Solid Black Star Power, Dream On, Dream Doctor, Daisy Mae Grand Daughters.
Yeah, I remember seeing the Boxcar bull somewhere I had looked, I may try and look him up. I also am looking at the bull DRAMA at Accelerated Genetics a bit, but I don't like certain things about him.
Thanks for the replies leanbeef, and I'll keep studying and thinking what the heart, mind, and pocket book wants, lol. 

Those Docility EPD's are pretty spot on. We bought some semen on Dominator W1202 (red bull) before they had docility EPD's. We had two calves out of him last year, one was the red steer my daughter showed and won a bunch with, and was steered because of his nasty high headed attitude (he was a 4). The other calf was a sweet bull, but we showed him for 15 months (started as a pair) and so he was handled a ton from birth on. Bought a heifer by the same sire, and she is a bit high headed, not a wacko but not the nicest one in the group. We ended up not showing her because we did not like the attitude. I have decided to NOT use the rest of my semen because with the limited experience we had that was negative, and now seeing his docility score (-23.5!) we can see why we had problems! I just hope the bred heifer does not pass on the attitude to her calves. She is not bad, just stand offish. He sure has nice cattle, but not worth the risk of getting hurt or having one hurt themselves from trying to get away!

There are plenty of good ones that aren't stupid. I got no use for those.

Decided to go with BF Mr Confidence on the Register Heifers and RCR Stetson T17 on the commercial simmental cross heifers. Hopefully, I made a decent choice and that they'll stick when AIed. I guess time will tell, also thanks for everyone's advice and replies.

I hope you have better luck with Stetson than what I've had. Just had one...bought a heifer last year that was bred to Stetson, and all I can say is I haven't been impressed. I have seen a handful that were better than the one I got, but nothing too special. They're small when they get here if that's what your after...I just expect more out of em after they hit the ground. I think there are easy calving bulls with more punch.

Yeah, Stetson has some mixed reports, I've heard some dislikes and likes. I also find myself doing the opposite of alot of folks, lol probably should have just used Grandmaster. But yeah I decided on going a safe route on these heifers for their first baby without going to an Angus or another breed. Did consider Jumpstart but decided to get the semen from the same place. Heifers have good milking pedigree's therefore hopefully they'll wean out pretty well. Most likely they'll be sold as feeders but if a nice heifer comes out of the ordeal we'll keep her.
More than likely I'll sell the Reg. Heifers as breds this coming Spring because our Register herd is large enough. Really like the looks of BF Mr Confidence and I loved his sire Steel Force. I usually like to stick with purebred sires or no less than 3/4's, but I think these two matings should have sharp SimAngus progeny. But he's a young sire and hasn't proven himself yet, so I guess it's a gamble pick.

We had a calf two winter's ago by Stetson, and the calf almost killed the cow! 110 pound bull calf, on his due date. Probably just a fluke thing, but sure scared us away from using him at all!
Have you thought of Ranch Hand? We have seen some nice ones out of him. Lots of people out here use him for first calf heifers...
Our Grandmaster came small, 72 pounds out of a second calf heifer. Impressed since day one. Still our top spring calf.

110 pounds?... That's more than TWICE what my Stetson baby weighed when she was born!

leanbeef said:

110 pounds?... That's more than TWICE what my Stetson baby weighed when she was born!

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Yep. The breeder was just as shocked, since we only had possession of the heifer for 60 days prior to calving, and we were on fescue hay. Like I said, a fluke. There is a thread on here about it, but it was back in Dec 2010 if I remember correctly.  That incident is the main reason I bought a calf jack, at the recommendation of others on this board. No jack, my vet on vacation, and an unknown vet an hour away made for a messy situation. The breeder replaced the heifer (we shipped her - too many issues after the fact), and made it good.
I learned a lot from that incident, but when you get burned you tend to stay back from the fire, so to speak!

Replaced the heifer?... I wouldn't have expected that. And I doubt I coulda done it! But it's nice when somebody steps up & does more than is expected or more than they're responsible for. The heifer I had calved two weeks early, then I had to MAKE HER nurse it for a MONTH! Obviously, she's not a favorite around here, but I still have her. For now...

Yeah, firesweepranch I considered Ranch Hand but right now I can't think of why I ditched him aside unless I chose Stetson over Ranch Hand because of his sire Shear Force. But you have spooked me now with that 110 lb birthweight calf. But I'm sure it was just a combination of that particular genetic mating, like you said a fluke thing, lord knows we've had a few odd ball occurences over the years. I'm glad the ordeal ended positive for you. We've also have had a few mini calves, and yes they can be a pain too. A couple years past, we had a black bull baby born weighed between 40 and 50 lbs, thought he couldn't nurse, he wouldn't take the calf bottle, finally tried a little lamb nipple on a small slender coke bottle and he took a little bit. Never could tell the dam had been nursed and the calf would just lay around, thought he would die on us. We went back with the coke bottle for another go around and darn if we didn't see him get up and go nurse and boom he was done in a jiffy. To think the whole time we had been fooling with him he had been nursing, pissed me of a bit lol. But he just didn't need much he was so small. He did great though and finished in the top of his class, lol. He was a weight gaining fool. Hopefully I'll get average BW calves and both Sires and Dams will do fine. Any way I'll keep an eye on them like I do all of my heifers in a heifer lot at calving, I just hate checking on cattle during my sleeping hrs., but it pays off doing those night checks. I'm gonna AI them once and if they don't settle, I'll let either my herd bull an Invasion son or one of my young studs I'm raising take care of them. I'll try to remember to give updates next year, when they come along.