Shorthorn calving ease issues or not?

Quote from: justintime on Today at 09:15:33 AM
"Here is a picture of a son of HC Princess 60L that we used on our heifers. He is HC Neutron 152N and he was sired by CF Varsity X who was a Trump son. He proved out to be extremely easy calving and we used him on heifers for two years and never assisted a calf sired by him. Bill Huber( Huberdale Shorthorns) was so impressed with his calves that he bought him from us, and he was used in their herd for several years. Bill told me recently that Neutron was probably the easiest calving sire they have ever used in their herd. Another son of Princess 60L, HC Remington was sold to Bender Shorthorns, Neudorf, SK and he also proved to be a calving ease sire. ( I guess we never received the memo regardling everything from the Trump and Rodeo Drive lines being cow killers.... Remington was sired by HC Merger who was a Rodeo Drive son and Neutron was a Trump grand son ... both were super easy calving bulls) The picture of Neugtron was taken in late summer as a two year old after he had been running with 40 females for over 3 months."

Justintime, I've heard you make the point about Trump x Rodeo Drive being calving ease many times. I know those genetics have been used in many different ways. The most recent and popular genetics have been the NPS Desert Rose 004 bulls like Solution and Bloodstone. Desert Rose 004 is a double bred Ka'Ba Rose T90. T90 is sired by Deerpark Improver 57 which has a Calving ease epd of -10.2 and a maternal calving ease epd of -13.1. Usually when you see a bulls CE epd and it's not good, the MCE is a little better. In his case it is not. Not sure if there is something to this or not.

Thanks for starting this thread JTM. I had just started one on this topic when I saw that you had just started a thread.

First of all, I do not know the answers to this question, and I am only referring to my personal experiences with some of these bloodlines. From my experience, I do not think I can honestly place all cattle from particular bloodlines in the same basket in regards to BW or calving ease. I have seen numerous references to the Rodeo Drive and Trump lines being lines that propogate large BWs and calving problems in several discussions on this website. I do not think it is possible to do this, as I have used sires from these bloodlines that have been extremely easy calving. 

Over the years, I have used three direct sons of Rodeo Drive in my herd. Two of these sires where amongst the easiest calving sires ever used here. One of these bulls, GR Rodeo 4000 ranks as one of the easiest calving sires I have ever used. He is the grand sire of Shadybrook Optimum 75F who is, one of my favorite sires to use on heifers. I have used Optimuim for years, and have never assisted a calf. Unfortunately, I never collected semen from GR Rodeo and I truely wish I had done so, as I would be using him yet today. His calves were moderate framed, with lots of style and muscle shape, as well as being 100% unassisted at birth. When we used Rodeo 4000 in our herd, he was used on a real cross section of genetics including females with lots of BW in their background. I also used two ET flushmate bulls in our herd, and they were different as night and day. HC Merger  93M was the harder calving of the three Rodeo Drive sons we used and we never used him on heifers, however, we never had any problems when we used him on cows.  Merger had tremendous growth and his offspring had an amazing early growth. His sons were very popular with commercial producers and I know of several of them that were used on heifers with no major issues. The HC Remington bull, that I referred to in the previous thread, was used on the heifers at Benders Shorthorns and they had no calving problems. The flushmate to HC Merger 93M was HC Midas 80M. Midas was very moderate framed and 15 Lbs lighter at birth. He was used here for one season before he died unexpectantly and from the calves we had, I would say that he was a true calving ease sire in the same league as GR Rodeo 4000. We used Midas on heifers and never assisted a birth.
I have not had as much experience with the Trump line but I have had some easy calving sires with Trump breeding in their genetic make-up. Like I mentioned earlier, HC Neutron 152N ranks as one of the easiest calving sires we have ever used, and did this both in our herd and at Huberdale. Neuton was a grandson of both Trump and Improver 57th. We had two crops of calves from heifers here and all were unasisted at birth. I think Hubers used him of 3 or 4 years and they consider him one of the easiest calving sires they have ever used.
This year most of my heifers are being bred to a son of Pheasant Creek Leader 4th who is out of a Charmer X Trump dam. This bull had a 75 lb BW abnd I am expecting he will also be a calving ease sire, as he has a body shape depictive of calving ease. Time will tell.
So,what makes some of these bulls calving ease sires and others with similar bloodlines not calving ease sires? I know part of the answer is in how the genetics match or click, but I have seen very major differences between flushmate full brothers with identical EPDS. .... night and day differences. I'm not trying to open a can of worms here, I am just saying that my experience does not suggest that all these sires from the same genetic background can be considerewd the same way

T90 was by LEN RU T A LEADER. I went to look up NPS Desert Rose and there are many,very prolific. One bull I have always liked the look of is the TH  free
NPS Durango 774, also by Deerpark Improver 57 and out of Ka'Ba Rose T90. I think we should remember that E in EPD is for expected and sometimes the way the genes are inherited you you get something unexpected. That unexpected animal might breed true and opposite to it's ancestors just because of the way the dice rolled. I'm not saying to totally ignore EPD's but use caution, I wouldn't suggest using two animals with negative calving ease together as the odds are probably against you.
I remember when ARSULU POPPIN GOOD P150 ET, x3896000 was young and his EPD's showed quite a lot of performance, he was endorsed in the Shorthorn Country as a young sire to use. Later he had great birth and milk EPD's but low WW and YW. We had a son Woodland Solution, x3950840, he also had low BW -0.1 and milk of +4 but negative growth. The calves came quick and easy but any performance came more from the dams.

I think the reason JIT has not had any trouble with those lines would be his cows are a bit bigger and can have that type of calf easily. The calving problems really show up when you cross these lines on angus. Im not going to bash em. Just my expierence.  I will say I think more is being done to help fix this now then ever before. Yes, I do believe shorthorn has a calving ease issue. Go ask any commercial producer. I would say most dont want a thing to do with em. why? They will say to hard calving and to hard keeping. Is this fair? No, not really. But it is what it is. Okotoks is right. EPD are a estimate. But they are so messed up at the moment, I dont really pay attention to them anymore. I think there are more calving ease options available now then ever before. Hopefully in a few years we will talk about this issue and laugh just like we do now about the 8 + frames from the 80's.

Okotoks is right , T90 was sired by Leader. I would say her most popular cross was to 57th, which may be where JTM got confused. That cross produced Mattis, Mirage, & Durango just to name a few. I also agree with JIT on full sib bulls siring differently. Take case in point Solution , Bloodstone & Primo. No matter what the EPD's say , Primo is definitely the easiest calving of the 3. I have even used Primo on hfrs with good success. What I find amusing is people say they have no faith in our EPD's & for the most part are bogus, but yet are sure quick to crucify a bull when he has a 3.5 BEPD or higher. Look at Peak View Ranchs' ad in this years' herd bull issue. They have 1 bull with a BEPD of 3.5, ww 29, yw 44 & mepd -2 & that is the bull they are trying to sell semen on. Now if you look at their other bulls they BEPD's of -2.4 to - 4.4 with ww & yw epd's of the highest being a +8 with some epds in the negative. The highest mepd is +1. Now this is a commercially oriented herd & must be successful with what they produce but yet I would think most commercial guys wouldn't look at bulls with negative ww & yw epd's.

trevorgreycattleco said:

I think the reason JIT has not had any trouble with those lines would be his cows are a bit bigger and can have that type of calf easily. The calving problems really show up when you cross these lines on angus. Im not going to bash em. Just my expierence.  I will say I think more is being done to help fix this now then ever before. Yes, I do believe shorthorn has a calving ease issue. Go ask any commercial producer. I would say most dont want a thing to do with em. why? They will say to hard calving and to hard keeping. Is this fair? No, not really. But it is what it is. Okotoks is right. EPD are a estimate. But they are so messed up at the moment, I dont really pay attention to them anymore. I think there are more calving ease options available now then ever before. Hopefully in a few years we will talk about this issue and laugh just like we do now about the 8 + frames from the 80's.

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Anyone who has seen our cowherd, would say that they are very average in size. We have a few bigger framed cows but they are defiinitely the minority. Back when we used our first Rodeo bull, our cows were actually smaller than average. The GR Rodeo 4000 was from a very large framed Millbrook cow that probably weighed 1700 lbs +, yet he sired very low BW calves. There just seems to be major variations in some animals with identical bloodlines.

Sweet, we have a WHR bull the last few years 3/4 brother to Sonny. And had no calving problems, used him on heifers and everything. No calving problems at all, now i got WHR Stonehenge out of Bloodstone and the great WR10 cow, pretty sure we wont have any problems there either.
When we line breed no problems, when we mix it up a little no problems. Been in this game for about 8 years and i just haven't seen any of these so called calving issues.

Wow, if I keep misquoting bloodlines nobody is going to believe me. This is getting bad. Maybe I shouldn't be posting so late at night. Haha. Anyways, I have had mixed results. Rose T90 does go back to Len Ru TA Leader and he I believe goes back to Deerpark breeding also. The CE and MCE are about the same on Leader and 57. I personally have seen a number of 120 lb calves in the last few years out of similar bloodlines. Mysteriously, a lot of them have been backwards also. I don't know if their is a correlation between backwards and very large calves or if both are genetic. The cows that are having these calves are hitting the road and we aren't using the bulls that anymore either. I do believe that calving ease and birthweight are too completely different things but they both must come together at a good ratio. The maternal calving ease is really what I am trying to judge my cows by. What are their daughters doing and have they calved unassisted for their first calf. This is my first year having a lot of calves out of a Bloodstone son by Byland Cindy Beauty. My past years averages have been around 88-92 on all calves including the big ones. This year they are closer to 100. Had a Solution and Bloodstone heifer that were both bred to a black angus in the top 1% for calving ease and top 2% for bw. One of them died because the heifer calf was 96 lbs and the other had a backwards 95 lb calf that we cut out. If nobody else is having issues like this then I am feeling pretty left out about now...

JTM,

Don't feel left out or like the lone ranger.  In our herd we were having too many 100# calves in the mid-90's.  From 2002-2009 by careful selection of herd sires for lower BEPD's, our 100# calves were born about 1/3 as often--of course, there were still plenty of genetics in the herd from the higher birth EPD bulls, so the real progress is huge.  Our selection for growth in the 1990's had caused birth weights to rise. 

We were not using bulls (almost all A.I.) with a BEPD above a +2.0 or 2.5 during the time our birth weights declined--many bulls had negative BEPD numbers.  After 2001 we did much better on birth weights for the next 8 years--again, this was by keeping close watch on birth EPD's.  For the last 2 years we have seen a rise in 100 # calves again as we started using some show genetics to produce 4-H calves for the grandkids.

Keep an eye on birth weights all the time.

JTM said:

Wow, if I keep misquoting bloodlines nobody is going to believe me. This is getting bad. Maybe I shouldn't be posting so late at night. Haha. Anyways, I have had mixed results. Rose T90 does go back to Len Ru TA Leader and he I believe goes back to Deerpark breeding also. The CE and MCE are about the same on Leader and 57. I personally have seen a number of 120 lb calves in the last few years out of similar bloodlines. Mysteriously, a lot of them have been backwards also. I don't know if their is a correlation between backwards and very large calves or if both are genetic. The cows that are having these calves are hitting the road and we aren't using the bulls that anymore either. I do believe that calving ease and birthweight are too completely different things but they both must come together at a good ratio. The maternal calving ease is really what I am trying to judge my cows by. What are their daughters doing and have they calved unassisted for their first calf. This is my first year having a lot of calves out of a Bloodstone son by Byland Cindy Beauty. My past years averages have been around 88-92 on all calves including the big ones. This year they are closer to 100. Had a Solution and Bloodstone heifer that were both bred to a black angus in the top 1% for calving ease and top 2% for bw. One of them died because the heifer calf was 96 lbs and the other had a backwards 95 lb calf that we cut out. If nobody else is having issues like this then I am feeling pretty left out about now...

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JTM
Dont feel left out. I cant believe this is even a topic" Rodeo X Trump and t- 90 are calving ease??!! But hey it's working at Horseshoe??
By now the knee pads have worn out folks... please give it a rest ... everyone of "the shorthorn world"  is looking for new stuff too, they are not going to buy from you cuz you said something nice about the "blood line' - the who of who of shorthorn is looking for new blood too.  Please stop it.
If you want to continue to win then use on mature shorthorn  bloodlines .

sue said:

JTM said:

Wow, if I keep misquoting bloodlines nobody is going to believe me. This is getting bad. Maybe I shouldn't be posting so late at night. Haha. Anyways, I have had mixed results. Rose T90 does go back to Len Ru TA Leader and he I believe goes back to Deerpark breeding also. The CE and MCE are about the same on Leader and 57. I personally have seen a number of 120 lb calves in the last few years out of similar bloodlines. Mysteriously, a lot of them have been backwards also. I don't know if their is a correlation between backwards and very large calves or if both are genetic. The cows that are having these calves are hitting the road and we aren't using the bulls that anymore either. I do believe that calving ease and birthweight are too completely different things but they both must come together at a good ratio. The maternal calving ease is really what I am trying to judge my cows by. What are their daughters doing and have they calved unassisted for their first calf. This is my first year having a lot of calves out of a Bloodstone son by Byland Cindy Beauty. My past years averages have been around 88-92 on all calves including the big ones. This year they are closer to 100. Had a Solution and Bloodstone heifer that were both bred to a black angus in the top 1% for calving ease and top 2% for bw. One of them died because the heifer calf was 96 lbs and the other had a backwards 95 lb calf that we cut out. If nobody else is having issues like this then I am feeling pretty left out about now...

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JTM
Dont feel left out. I cant believe this is even a topic" Rodeo X Trump and t- 90 are calving ease??!! But hey it's working at Horseshoe??
By now the knee pads have worn out folks... please give it a rest ... everyone of "the shorthorn world"   is looking for new stuff too, they are not going to buy from you cuz you said something nice about the "blood line' - the who of who of shorthorn is looking for new blood too.   Please stop it.
If you want to continue to win then use on mature shorthorn  bloodlines .

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For those that don't know JIT you should try to get to know him if you have a chance. He has a wealth of knowledge and some dam fine cattle. JIT did not say those were calving ease bloodlines but he did say some animals with those genetics were, from both his and others personal experience.
How about*x3917054  MEL-BAR RODEO DRIVE 347 
It would seem this is another exception to the rule. Besides Byland Mission he sired several calving ease sires including descendants at JR Ranches.

Salute is the number 2 most popular bull in the breed of  shorthorn. .. Trump x trumpx rodeo drive t- 90. 

sue said:

Salute is the number 2 most popular bull in the breed of  shorthorn. .. Trump x trumpx rodeo drive t- 90. 

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So a lot of breeders will be looking for the bloodlines to moderate birth weight. Lots of bulls will probably do this just like Saskvalley Pioneer has worked in combination with some Salutes. I think the ME'N MY HAWKEYE 22W bull is doing it and still siring eye catching calves. I only have two animals with any of the Trump bloodlines so have no idea exactly which bulls one would use but I'm sure a lot of Shorthorn breeders are up to the challenge.
To condemn all animals because they carry certain animals in the pedigree could be pretty short sited. Look at Byland Big Bud and Byland Pattern two full brothers. Big Bud had a CE of -2.1 and BW of +4.5 while Pattern had a CE of +9.2 and a BW of -2.1. Remitall Captain Jim and Remitall Gold Emblem were full brothers but Jim sired offspring with a lot more size off smaller females than Emblem did.
There will always be culling and selection involved but a cup half full is better than a cup half empty!
I do not understand all the negativity.

Sue and Okotoks, I started this thread because I have seen JIT post several times that he has not had any calving issues with Trump x Rodeo Drive genetics. I was just interested to see how many people would come out and say what they are dealing with when it comes to show genetics. JIT leads me to believe that his other breeding is either large enough to have 110 lb + calves all of the time like TGCC said or that his base herd is moderate but has better than average pelvic measurements. I just want to continue to learn and help others on this board continue to learn about what genetics are working in certain performance areas and what genetics aren't. It may be more of a "milk" type subject instead of "steak" but we all have to start somewhere.
JIT, you do have really nice looking cattle from what I see. I am interested in hearing what kind of birthweights you have been getting with the genetics you have mentioned. When you say calving ease, do you mean "breed to a 1000 lb replacement heifer calving ease" or just that the bulls had unassisted calves from mature cows? I'm interested in a little more detail if your willing to share. Thanks a lot.

JTM said:

Sue and Okotoks, I started this thread because I have seen JIT post several times that he has not had any calving issues with Trump x Rodeo Drive genetics. I was just interested to see how many people would come out and say what they are dealing with when it comes to show genetics. JIT leads me to believe that his other breeding is either large enough to have 110 lb + calves all of the time like TGCC said or that his base herd is moderate but has better than average pelvic measurements. I just want to continue to learn and help others on this board continue to learn about what genetics are working in certain performance areas and what genetics aren't. It may be more of a "milk" type subject instead of "steak" but we all have to start somewhere.
JIT, you do have really nice looking cattle from what I see. I am interested in hearing what kind of birthweights you have been getting with the genetics you have mentioned. When you say calving ease, do you mean "breed to a 1000 lb replacement heifer calving ease" or just that the bulls had unassisted calves from mature cows? I'm interested in a little more detail if your willing to share. Thanks a lot.

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I'm not answering for JIT, just pointing out he said he got very different results from the different Rodeo Drives he used. You mention you have some females throwing heavy birth weights and I am not sure exactly what bull you would use to moderate that. I mentioned Byland Pattern above, a bull with high accuracy low birth weights and very positive calving ease. He was used at Bakenhus in Nebraska so probably had some functionality. I guess it really depends on the market you are targeting and then finding the bulls or bulls that will give you that product but also give you calving ease. There are the Len Ru bulls, Sneed bulls like 329, Captain Obvious, JPJ, Eionmor Marquis 86G sons. I was told at the annual CSA meetings by one breeder that she had great success dropping birth weights by using JSF CAPICHE 46U.

sue said:

Salute is the number 2 most popular bull in the breed of  shorthorn. .. Trump x trumpx rodeo drive t- 90.  

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Sue your point here is well taken. I just checked that top 20 sires list for the last 3 years at the ASA site and 12 of the bulls are Trump descendants! One bull is a double THC and PHAC carrier and two others are PHA carriers.
As far as calving ease JPJ is in the number1 spot, WAUKARU GOLD MINE 2109 is in the 10th spot and  RS DV729 01 034 04 is on there at in the 19th spot. Seems to me there is lots of room for the likes of 329, CO and SULL Red Saviour. I'm guessing and hoping that the top 20  list will look a lot different in a couple of years ???

For those of you who still don't understand why the Trump line is so widespread, I suggest checking the National Junior Shorthorn Show results posted on the ASA's website.  For that purpose, there is presently nothing better and there hasn't been for 15 years.  I have not had issues with calving with those bloodlines, but evidently some have because of the higher than average BEPDs.  If you want grass fed beef, great, you are free to use what works in that arena with no one's approval but your own.  If you want to use 50 year old genetics to recapture what once was, fine, have at it.  If you want to focus on producing 60 pound calves, great.  For the 95th time, use what works for you, but don't bad mouth what somebody else does.  Unless it somehow makes you feel better, it serves no purpose.

Here's a question I'd like someone to take a stab at answering.  Where does Jake's Proud Jazz fit in all this?  I see he is now the number 1 most widely used bull in the Shorthorn breed.  I have a Jazz son I'm using, so I'm definitely not trying to run him down.  If he is considered a show ring sire, why haven't there been any more winners in so many years of use?  Judging by his EPDs and personal observation, I doubt if he would be considered a performance sire or carcass bull.  Is his sole purpose calving ease?  Do people use him simply to sell the cute calves at a young age for a nice premium?  How does he cross with Trump line cattle?  Will they have enough grow?  Are there other lines that we could be using that calve easy, but don't give up so much performance?  Do the Jazz daughters make good cows in more than one or two herds?  I'm just trying to figure out how to use my white bull or if I should go easy for a while. 

Hopefully your calves by your JPJ son will look something like this JPJ son.(even a slight dash of a Rodeo Drive calving ease son way back in him)

oakview said:

For those of you who still don't understand why the Trump line is so widespread, I suggest checking the National Junior Shorthorn Show results posted on the ASA's website.  For that purpose, there is presently nothing better and there hasn't been for 15 years.  I have not had issues with calving with those bloodlines, but evidently some have because of the higher than average BEPDs.  If you want grass fed beef, great, you are free to use what works in that arena with no one's approval but your own.  If you want to use 50 year old genetics to recapture what once was, fine, have at it.  If you want to focus on producing 60 pound calves, great.  For the 95th time, use what works for you, but don't bad mouth what somebody else does.  Unless it somehow makes you feel better, it serves no purpose.

Here's a question I'd like someone to take a stab at answering.  Where does Jake's Proud Jazz fit in all this?  I see he is now the number 1 most widely used bull in the Shorthorn breed.  I have a Jazz son I'm using, so I'm definitely not trying to run him down.  If he is considered a show ring sire, why haven't there been any more winners in so many years of use?  Judging by his EPDs and personal observation, I doubt if he would be considered a performance sire or carcass bull.  Is his sole purpose calving ease?  Do people use him simply to sell the cute calves at a young age for a nice premium?  How does he cross with Trump line cattle?  Will they have enough grow?  Are there other lines that we could be using that calve easy, but don't give up so much performance?  Do the Jazz daughters make good cows in more than one or two herds?  I'm just trying to figure out how to use my white bull or if I should go easy for a while. 

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I understand completely why the Trump line is so widespread.......................SHOWRING. Lets leave it there. JPJ is the next "HOT" bull. No other reason. he will fade and another highly promoted bull will take his place. if I raised shorthorn show calves, I would be very confused at the moment. trump raises awesome females for the showring but his steers look like heifers.. Put Trumps on a grass only diet and watch the parade to the sale barn begin. Maybe Im just to hard on em, but man did they fall short of other lines. I had a beautiful Trump son, sampled several A.I. Trump deals. I didnt want to believe it. But oh how I finally did. Trump was a turning point for me. He proved to me I needed to try another direction. That was a bitter pill for me to swallow. I loved my cows but they ate me out of house and home and raised mediocre calves. SHOWRING. Period.

JTM said:

Sue and Okotoks, I started this thread because I have seen JIT post several times that he has not had any calving issues with Trump x Rodeo Drive genetics. I was just interested to see how many people would come out and say what they are dealing with when it comes to show genetics. JIT leads me to believe that his other breeding is either large enough to have 110 lb + calves all of the time like TGCC said or that his base herd is moderate but has better than average pelvic measurements. I just want to continue to learn and help others on this board continue to learn about what genetics are working in certain performance areas and what genetics aren't. It may be more of a "milk" type subject instead of "steak" but we all have to start somewhere.
JIT, you do have really nice looking cattle from what I see. I am interested in hearing what kind of birthweights you have been getting with the genetics you have mentioned. When you say calving ease, do you mean "breed to a 1000 lb replacement heifer calving ease" or just that the bulls had unassisted calves from mature cows? I'm interested in a little more detail if your willing to share. Thanks a lot.

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Please don't anyone mislead what I have said. Okotoks is exactly right when he says that all I am saying is that there some sires from these bloodlines that do turn out to be very easy calving sires. I waited to reply to JTM, because I was going to be in a meeting last night with Bill Huber and I wanted to ask him again about the Neutron bull ( a Trump grand son) that calved so easily in my herd as well as in his. Bill said that they missed weighing a few calves by him, b ut he said that he did not remember a calf out of a heifer that weighed over 85 lbs... and that all were born unassisted. That is exactly the results we had here as well. Looking back at the two calf crops we had from Neutron, almost all the calves were born with BWs of 80 to 85 lbs. These weights are not necessarily small for heifers, but they were born extremely easily. Neutron had a BW of 88 lbs( from a cow)  and as he developed I was very impressed with his shoulder shape and his head shape and it was becaue of these traits that I decided that he was a good candidate to use on our heifers. These traits probably played a bigger role in my decision to use him on my heifers than his own BW or his pedigree. He turned out to be an exceptional good choice for heifers. The GR Rodeo bull was very similar with a small head and well laid in shoulders. I don't think we ever ad a calf over 90 lbs from him and ev ery calf was born unassisted, from heifers and cows. . All I am saying is that every once in awhile some sires appear from some of these bloodlines that breed totally differengt from most others from this lineage. It appears that because I said I have used a couple of easy calving sons of RD or Trump that some people read this as my saying that ALL RD OR TRUMP SONS have no calving issues . That is simply NOT what I am saying at all.