List of top Simmental bulls used ....

Spring EPDS on top used sires based on progeny born between 7/1/2010 and 6/30/2011. Grandmaster made the top of the list! 


https://herdbook.simmental.org/simmapp/template/evalstats,top50sires.vm

Would've never guessed Club King, Dual Focus, and Rookie in the top 10!

Anyone have any experience with these 3 bulls?

husker1 said:

Would've never guessed Club King, Dual Focus, and Rookie in the top 10!

Anyone have any experience with these 3 bulls?

Click to expand...

We got a Club King, and all I can say is yuck! She is out of a preferred beef x Bold Future (Cottonwood) cow, and the heifer has less muscle than her mom. She is a yearling, and just plain ugly and plain. We were hoping for some extra power on her, but nope. But, that is just one calf. Would like to hear what others have to say about him...

Kinda interesting ! I bred my first calf heifers to Grandmaster. I think that Club King bull is just plain fat and ugly in his picture !

I love my Grandmaster calves. I bought a heifer last year and although she has not calved yet she is looking great.
I had 6 GM calves last year and all calved unassisted, then grew like weeds. After a couple months they fit right in with the clubby bred calves as far as look and thickness.  They do need a little time, they dont blow your socks off right away. I had 3 bulls and 3 heifers. I am keeping one of the bulls for a heifer bull. The other two were good but I have no bull market and they didnt quite make the cut for show steers. The heifers were all good, I am keeping one for a replacement, one didnt make the second cut and got sent to town, and the last I am selling in a sale during Denver. She would not be getting sold except my daughter is taking a year off showing and this calf needs a good home.
We used him again on some heifers.

I was glad to see something other than Dream On at the top of the list, and I have to say pretty surprised it was Grandmaster. I do remember a lot of people jumping on that bull when he first came out because of his unbelievable EPDs (which didn't hold up), but we didn't use him. I always liked Black Joker, but his carcass profile isn't very good so that pushed him out of our line up. I never thought Grandmaster was as complete a package as the sire catalogs tried to promote him to be, and I've heard more people say they were disappointed with their calves than pleased. I'm sure there are some good ones...I just can't get real excited about him.

Never been a fan of Club King. He looks completely terminal in his photo, and the first daughter I saw turned me off completely. Probably some decent ones around somewhere, but I haven't seen any that would make me think about using him.

I have seen several Rookies at Gibbs, and those calves are pretty nice. Some of em can get a little big for me; I think anything with yearling numbers like that has the potential to sire frame in the name of performance. I went to their sale last fall and saw about 40 Rookie daughters in one group, and after looking at all the other heifers they had, the Rookies were what I wanted. I got 3 including my first pick of all their heifers and I REALLY like her. I would have bought more of em if they hadn't been so dang high! I've used him just a little, and the calves come small and vigorous, and they're pretty stylish. I was glad to see his milk number pick up as much as it did. Those EPDs are pretty good! I"ll use him some more.

Haven't seen many Dual Focus calves. I think he's pretty usable, but he hasn't made our line up.

Grandmaster has worked great for us so far.  We have used him on heifers with good success.  My biggest concern is his growthiness....some of his calves have grown well, others not as well. 

What surprises me most from the list is that Rendition and Fat Butt did not make the list.  Are there reasons they weren't more heavily used (especially rendition)?  I'm thinking about getting some rendition semen this spring so any insights are welcome. 

I've had a few Renditions and I do like them so far. They're just fall babies, but they came easily and they're growing. Not sure how much promotion has been behind him or if that would make any difference. I almost didn't use him because his EPDs aren't that special and he's heterozygous black...kind of puts him in a category with a lot of other bulls that are pretty decent, but are they worth the short list? I guess it depends on the criteria you use... I wanted a purebred baldy bull and had used a little Built Right, so just looking to try something else. They're nice babies. So far...

Club King and Dual Focus don't surprise me on the list because they're heavily used by the commercial oriented producers.

This will be my third year using Dual Focus and he makes just flat good cattle. They're not flashy by any means but they look good enough, are sound, big bellied, adequate to above average muscling and are the type that look to be easy keepers. He's a fantastic heifer bull, after 2 years in a row of calving out heifers to him not a single problem and they are vigorous at birth. I just got some carcass data back and his calves were at the top. My best bull calf this year is a Dual Focus.

I tried out Club King this year. I've heard mixed reviews so guess I'll have to wait and see.



This Dual Focus heifer is 5/8 SM 1/4 AN and 1/8 BR. I think this was taken when she was a little over a month old.