Breeding advice for my Simm heifer.......

I have a Remington Lock n Load heifer from a Star Power cow.  She is my first simmental female, and I am looking for any advice on what to breed her.  I woulld like to stick with a pb.  So far I was looking at Upgrade as my leading choice.  Open to suggestions!!

Do you happen to have any pictures of the heifer? What are your plans for the calf? How important are EPDs, color, or other considerations?

I wasn't completely sure about my concerns, so I wanted to do a little research before I addresses issues that might not be issues. Looking at the current EPDs of the first two sires, Lock N Load & Star Power, both bulls have the same weaknesses on paper: MCE, Milk, Marbling, and API. I do like Upgrade; I don't think there is one bull that is the best choice for every female out there. Particularly in regards to the below average MCE and the fact that she is a heifer, I would be looking more at a real calving ease bull for the first calf. I know you mentioned you would like a purebred, but iI wouldn't discount the Angus faction too much...SimAngus cattle are extremely popular, and there are probably more options that will improve the areas you might want to improve. If you have your heart set on a purebred calf, I would look at some bulls that compliment your heifer's pedigree, and I'd really pay attention to the calving ease, birth weight, and MCE EPDs. Take a look at Top Grade, for instance...he seems to be a really easy calving, light birth weight Upgrade son, and he's a 3/4 blood so your calf would still be a purebred.

I'm just throwing out some of what I would be thinking about if I was choosing a mating on this female. I would still think about her phenotype and your plans for the calf in addition to everything I've mentioned in regards to pedigree & EPDs.

Upgrades are not deep enough do you hav a pic of your heifer? Take a look at combustible

I was also looking into using Top Grade on some heifers so I called my Genex rep to inquire about what he was hearing on his calves. The report I got was him was that his calves were coming bigger than Upgrade's calves. I have used alot of In Dew Time before and have never had a problem calving any heifer bred to him, but I also would not over look the Angus option. When breeding a heifer, the most important thing is getting a live calf on the ground with as little or no problems as possible so she will breed back and become a profitable cow for a long time.

We had about a dozen Top Grades this spring, and all of them have been small and come easily. A couple out of heifers, and none that were what I would call remotely big.

Breeding some of mine to Bettis and Stetson. Really like the looks of Shear Envy, hope to try him sooner rather than later.

We had a few Bettis calves & some of them were pretty nice. No barn burners, and my biggest complaint was that they weren't really consistent. One bull in particular was pretty plain, and he was out of a really good cow. That was disappointing. In general, they can get a little tall and narrow. I've seen a handful of Stetsons, and I'm not impressed with them at all. I bought one heifer bred to him last year, and if I was thinking about using him before, that calf would have changed my mind about that. He's definitely calving ease, though. I just don't think there's enough to em.

I have not bred many PB Simmi's, but I have used Built Right and bred him to my Heat Wave heifer a couple years back and got a 60lb heifer that came real easy if that tells you anything, I am confident in his CE. I don't know who Star Power and Lock N Load are out of, so I don't know if that have close to the same pedigree or not without looking them up, all I'm saying is I am very happy and confident in Built Right's CE and how he makes them, the heifer I have now out of him is built nicely and his milk numbers don't look to bad either. I usually stick with Angus when it comes to clubby heifers but I took a guys advice at AI school a couple years back and used Built Right on a Heat Wave heifer and could not be happier, will use again on clubby heifers or any heifers for that.

Well I see that Star Power and Built Right are both sired by Dream On, so might not be the best choice for your heifer, but still like Built Rights CE for heifers.

I've always liked the Built Right calves...I wish he was homozygous black. I'm not sure about the color of this heifer we're all talking about, but I'd say there's a decent chance she's a baldy since both Lock N Load & Star Power are baldy bulls, and Lock N Load is also heterozygous black, so if this heifer is black, she has at least a 50% chance of carrying a red gene. She could be red...I don't know that.

Yes...Built Right and Star Power are both Dream On sons...I personally wouldn't be completely turned off by that...it's a few generations back on both sides. Lock N Load is an On Target if I remember correctly...On Target would be a solid black Red Label son. Lock N Load's dam is a red baldy cow that was supposedly a pretty good cow. There's a pretty decent picture of her floating around out there as an older cow.

The heifer is a black with a white face. I hope I can get the picture I am trying to load on here of her at a recent show. I would like to try for a show quality calf from her. Someone else had expressed the fact that breeding this heifer again to a blaze bull may result in more white than I would be ideal. So I was leaning towards a solid black bull. I appreciate all of the input!

She's nice! I like her quite a bit... And yes...a blaze faced bull is a HUGE gamble if you don't want more chrome than what she has. You could get a baldy, or you could get solid black...you could also get a LOT of white! White legs, belly & tail would not surprise me at all, and neither would a little white down the top or belts on the rib or flank.

I wouldn't hate the thought of Upgrade if you're ok with a breed average birth weight bull on this heifer. I still think Top Grade is a safer choice for the first calf, and you'd still have a purebred calf. I would also look at Angus or SimAngus bulls and think about making a 1/2 or 3/4 blood out of her...could be pretty neat! Something like W/C United or S A V Brilliance maybe?... I have a baldy Shear Pleasure heifer we're breeding to Connealy Capitalist this time around...

I'd go with Grandmaster myself. We have a ripping good grandmaster bull calf out of a first calf heifer, and he has really come along in the last week, he is about a month old now. We consigned his dam, a club king heifer, to our sale and are now regretting it!!! He is a great bull prospect... I'll try to get pictures before he leaves.

Kerry Lawrence has a simmi called Heads Up. I bought semen on him to use and he is supposed to be calving ease. he is sired by upgrade which shocked me about being calving ease but Kerry they have all been 60-75 pounds. a son Uprising sold in denver half interest for 73k! so he would be valued at 146k

Anybody use OLF Odin U5 on any heifers?  Looks like he could calve them out well enough and help on the REA.

I like the looks of the Heads Up bull, and I've seen a photo of Uprising...he's a nice calf! If you want to protect yourself from extra chrome, though, I would stay away from any baldy bull and anything that's known to be a spotter. Your heifer probably carries a spot gene, and having that on both sides means about a 25% chance of a big surprise at calving time! I believe Heads Up would be Meyer 734 on the bottom side...that's where the white comes from.

I remember photos of Odin...he's an "Olie" son and from what I remember looked pretty good. I suspect he's one of those pretty good bulls that never got promoted very much. We have one of those ourselves! And ours is also an "Olie" son that was the Lot 1 bull from Christensen's sale the year after Upgrade sold there for $50,000.

I walked through our calves at home yesterday, and I have to say I'm pretty happy with the Top Grades at this stage. Still a lot of growing left to do, but considering they came as small as they did, they're growing pretty well, and they're all pretty fancy fronted. I'm waiting to see how much rib and bone they end up with...they aren't the stoutest babies in the field when they hit the ground, but then again the calving ease bull babies never are!

My Top Grade calves have grown out very nicely, he may end up as my heaviest sire group or second. There's only a couple duds in the entire group and I blame the cow more than I do Top Grade. I used him again and with how things are going so far I foresee still using him.

@ Leanbeef

Would a bull like Ranch Hand work on a heifer like this? Nice heifer BTW. Is there a bloodline that is known to click with Dream On genetics?

OH Breeder said:

@ Leanbeef

Would a bull like Ranch Hand work on a heifer like this? Nice heifer BTW. Is there a bloodline that is known to click with Dream On genetics?

Click to expand...

I can't really comment on the Ranch Hands...I haven't seen enough of them. He's not "my type" I guess is all I should say...

The common denominator I've noticed about the few Ranch Hands I've seen is that they were really short necked. I think he'd need to be used on a cow that was really long EVERYWHERE...not just her neck! He might work wonders on some hard doing cows that needed softening up...but again...I'm definitely not an expert on him.