Gold Mine and Ranch Hand

Can anyone tell me there experiences with these two Simmental bulls? Which is the best option for angus heifers?

I have used both bulls.  They are easy calving, low birth weight bulls suitable for use on angus heifers.  That said, I think they work better on larger framed simmental cows.  Of the two I like the Goldmine calves the best.  My pick for angus heifers would be Mo Better.  I have several females out of that cross that are some of my best cows.  Added bonus: you will get some baldies out of the deal.  Good luck!

Thanks, I would prefer baldies. If Mo Better is available in Canada, I haven't found him.

worthabit said:

Thanks, I would prefer baldies. If Mo Better is available in Canada, I haven't found him.

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I found him. Genex has him down as only 2 stars for calving so I didn't take notice.

I have a calf out of DJ Salution, very sound and the best demeanor of any animal we have raised.  He throws great calves.

Couple of things:
I would NOT recommend using Mo Better on heifers! We bought a bred (Dice breeding from HL) and she had a 100 pound bull calf that was a hard pull and that later died due to complications of birth. But I would use him on cows, just bred our first calf heifer to him last week.
I have seen several calves of both bulls, and I prefer the Ranch hand calves. He throws more muscle in general than Goldmine. But both bulls are good!

worthabit said:

worthabit said:

Thanks, I would prefer baldies. If Mo Better is available in Canada, I haven't found him.

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I found him. Genex has him down as only 2 stars for calving so I didn't take notice.

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Yes, he is a Genex bull.  We had absolutely no problems with him on angus heifers.  He marks a lot of them with a white face and the females have nice udders and plenty of milk.

We've used Mo Better on heifers and had no trouble with them.  He's not a bull I'd say to use if you arent' going to watch your heifers tho.  Calves are a touch bigger & more bone at birth..  and then they grow.      Goldmine is probably the easiest calving bull of the three you mentioned.. but the calves don't have near the amount of grow.  His heifers do make good cows tho.  Ranchhand is probably somewhere between the two in both CE & growth.  They seem to get better & better with age..  The ones we have are starting to make good cows. 

I kinda liked our Ranch Hand's after they have grown up...but that were too small at birth.  Now that might sound strange to some, but when they get below that 65# mark, there's not much to them.

I used Ranchand an caloves were really small but grew pretty good, some of the RANCHAND calves have developed bad dispositions, Power Genetic  users noticed this, there not as easy keeping as I hoped for ...  One of my friends said use  NEW ERA , really impressed with the calves ,he was raised by a guy in North East Ne.
an then he died right around Habergers funeral ,they were good friends ...  I GUESS THE calves were tremendous calves ..........

kinda liked our Ranch Hand's after they have grown up...but that were too small at birth.  Now that might sound strange to some, but when they get below that 65# mark, there's not much to them.

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That's the way our Goldmines were..   just kind of puny.     Probably the easiest calving Simmi bull we've ever used was Rains Limit Up, but can't say that we ever really liked the females we kept.  They also didn't stay in the herd very long ... just too frail & hard doing.      I'd say the RanchHands we have probably really start looking pretty decent around a year or so, not much to them up to that point.   They still are pretty moderate.   Haven't had any disposition issues with the RanchHands yet..  we've shown a couple of them over the last couple years.    JMO

We've got a halfblood Ranchhand son from Power Genetics.  Had just a few calves born this fall out of him.  Interesting on the disposition.  Ours has been out with cows a week and already has gone visiting the neighbors.

hes one of those smooth fulltime lovers 8)

Mo Better spends his winter months about 20 miles from us, he is getting up there but still an outstanding pasture sire and certainly a great AI stud.  We bred some heifers to Mo and had great results, calves came easy to moderate frame heifers.  The grow good too.

Haven't used RanchHand personally because we still have a few straws of Teddy in the tank (RanchHand's sire).  That being said I have seen a lot of RanchHand progeny this year and they all looked good.

We had some Goldmine's a few years ago, they did fine because we bred him to growthy cows so they evened each other out some on the calves.  He will certainly put the least pounds on the calves of this group of bulls but is still one to consider as he has thrown some dandies in his day.

Putting a Simmental bull on Angus heifers is good to put more legs under their progeny and add muscle and bone as well.  Like I said I have had success with Mo Better on heifers but there could be exceptions like firesweep mentioned.

Best of luck to you. 

If I had to pick between the 2 I would go with Goldmine.. that being said.. I don't like either of them... At All..

Both are small.. neither have much growth .. I've had some trouble out of Ranchhands calving wise..

My suggestion would be Mo Better.. Adds bone and TONS of body.. with a baldy face.. I've used him on heifers...heifers that we showed up til 2 weeks of calving on full feed and had NO problems with calving or high birthweights.. and they grow like weeds.. super easy keepers...and milk well

Here are a couple of pictures of one of my MO Betters out of a 7.2 frame..slightly shallowed bodied, choke fronted, and sound cow.. There's a picture of her at one month,one at 8 months, one at not quite 2 years and one as a cow(4 month old calf on her)... she's only on pasture and her calf weighs about 520....

JMHO
LinZ