Shorthorn History Buffs

Help Support Steer Planet:

Joined
Oct 7, 2016
Messages
7
For those interested in Shorthorn history check out the new historical section on the Heritage Shorthorn Society website (www.heritageshorthorn.org) that is being written by Dr. Bert Moore.  He is presenting what he considers to be the most important Shorthorn bulls and cows, along with pictures and extended pedigrees, for specific time periods starting with the pre-1890 section.  So far he has done 3 sections with many more to be posted over the next year.
 

beebe

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 29, 2014
Messages
520
Yes Joe is doing a good thing.  It appears that there is growing interest in native Shorthorns.
 

kiblercattle

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 2, 2011
Messages
380
Interesting read a few of the bulls I really like the looks of are butte lee leader 63rd, kenmar leader 13b, and hubs director. Does anyone have any info on these bulls other than what is listed or any different pictures?
 

oakview

Well-known member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,346
Butte Lee Leader 63rd was one of the better Leader 21st sons to be used in the midwest, mostly Missouri and Iowa.  I helped Larry Reap show Kenmar Leader 13B back in the day.  He was also a very good bull, one of the better Leader 9th sons I saw.  I liked Ralph Stirm's Kenmar Leader 21A just as well, though.  Leader 13B ended up in Texas.  There are some photos of him in old Shorthorn magazines that are quite impressive.  Hub's Director was a 100% dual purpose bull raised by Virgil Wegener and Steve Washburn in Kansas.  In my opinion, he was the best bull they produced, though several others were good, too.  Hub's Impact II, Hub's Dominant, and Hub's Exceptional come to mind. 
 

kiblercattle

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 2, 2011
Messages
380
My grandparents and dad owned a bull sired by director in the early 80s named hubs dasher. They felt that he didn't leave a very positive impact on our herd as compared to the other bulls they were using at the time. What was anyone else's experience with director cattle?
 

oakview

Well-known member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,346
I never used Director myself, but thought he was an excellent bull when they showed him.  I had some calves sired by his full brother, Hub's Doctor, out of the cows I got when I bought the K & K herd (small herd, 10 cows) and they were decent, but nothing great.  Pa Do bought several females from Hub's and I have several descendants of the Fantastic line that go back to some cows I got from the Stouts.  I've got semen from Leader 63rd, Leader 13B, and President 26A.  Maybe I should try it on my Fantastics.
 

Medium Rare

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 18, 2013
Messages
459
Location
Missouri
Enjoyed the read.

I've been kicking around the idea of using Director on some pedigrees that appeared to mesh well in the past. Not sure how well the progeny would fit into today's markets, but good working cows always have palace here.

I have two et calves out of a dover cow and a son of 26a that look like they could sure do some good in a commercial setting. Deep dark red, sound, and well made. It's a shame 26a's growth epds look like someone threw them down a well.
 

oakview

Well-known member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,346
I assume by "threw them down a well" you mean the EPDs are not as high as you would like them to be?  I hope they are lower than the growth EPDs of the bulls we commonly use today.  You have to remember that the era bulls like President 26A  were developed in was the era of 400 pound weaning weights.  Leader 21 and his descendants were used in an attempt to improve performance, as well as win a few shows I might add.  IF reliable EPDs were available in that time period, they would have been highly favorable for bulls like President 26A compared to most bulls in use then.  Likewise, the carcass EPDs for most of the old bulls should be poorer than those in use today.  The most common criticisms of Shorthorns back in the day were too much fat and small ribeyes.  From visual appearance, I would think that President 26A was well above average in carcass traits for his era, but I hope we have made some progress in that arena.  The first Shorthorns we bought long ago from the Fitzgeralds were more of the dual purpose type, though they had chosen to keep them in the beef herdbook when the big split occurred.  We were so "smart" that we had to "Scotchicize" them.  We used a son of Louada Caesar followed by a son of Louada Keynote followed by Hi View Royal Cameo.  Within 6 or 8 years we had successfully lowered our herd levels in both performance and carcass quality.  It was probably a good thing that the calves were short legged because their dams' udders had been lowered with each generation.  But, our calves sure had nice heads.  When the type change came, we bought a son of Boa Kae White Tornado and performance improved.  Leader 21 became available and performance of the herd improved drastically.  An example of how growth traits of years gone by compare to the genetics of today has been graphically illustrated in our own herd.  I used Diamond Zulu 3Z and a son of Kinnaber Leader 9th simultaneously  The Zulu calves were noticeably higher performing, also a little larger at birth, as you would expect.  There is no comparison between the two lines in muscling.  I have kept a son of the Leader 9th bull out of a Deerpark Leader 18th cow and the performance lever has risen compared to the previous generation.  I like the appearance of his calves better than his sire's.  Fortunately for me, the calving ease I was counting on through the use of Leader 9th genetics has been more than maintained through the use of his son.  I guess I like the traits some of the old genetics offer to compliment what we have today.  Somewhere between 400 pound weaning weights and 8 frame score tube shaped cattle seems to be a good place to be.   
 

Medium Rare

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 18, 2013
Messages
459
Location
Missouri
Yes. I understand there were some, a lot?, of absolutely terrible bulls in past eras. However, I believe the system has punished bulls across the board based on their birthdate, or their sire's birthdate, rather than actual performance. A good portion of these old bulls have absolutely no weaning weights showing in the database, so what put their numbers where they are with the narrow standard deviation bars around them as if they are accurate? I just assume it's the assumption that cattle have improved yearly as epd creep would lead us to believe. I don't know what year our system uses as "0", or if it still does now that BOLT is running.

As far as pasture performance, I've had Cherry Fillet calves wean off over 600 pounds without creep, yet his epds are absolutely buried due to his sire being Weston Trademark 3rd. The 26a grandsired bull calf is going to push 600 without creep in the worst drought my area has seen in at least 50 years. A Leader 18th et heifer ready to wean who must to be around 575. A DMH Maverick calf who will no doubt hit 575lbs. All these calves come from old genetics carrying absolutely terrible growth epds, yet year after year some of the older genetics perform almost as well or better than other ai sires in the same pasture. I have commercial Patent sired calves along with some big numbered red angus sired calves in the same pastures as some of these old genetics this year. The actual differences in performance in no way reflects the vast differences on paper.  How about Columbus or Chieftain9th? Knowing what you know about Columbus, and possibly Chieftain 9th, how do their growth and even milk epds correspond with your knowledge? Loving has turned in quite a few scans on Kaper 4508 calves showing ribs well over 1"/100lbs, yet his ribeye number is buried from what I assume is due to being 26A's son. Burying a bull into the bottom 5% of the breed takes many generations to recover from leaving only the people willing to laugh at the numbers to use them. Sweeping good bulls under the rug in the name of assumed progress just doesn't seem like a good idea, especially considering some of them actually have a set of good nuts under them when compared to some modern popular lines.

I've had some calves out of the full sib to your leader 9th son and will say, while they were all out of heifers, their growth was as their epds might suggest. He served his low bw purpose quite well though. I would also be interested in using your 9-18 bull on heifers if there's semen available.

As a side note, I've tried to give the association commercial contemporary group data from previous heifer groups in an attempt to let the numbers correct on some of these bloodlines. BW, WW, YW, and pelvic scores, the whole works. They didn't want it, or at least I was left at.... How much money would I be willing to pay to turn it in. Turning it in has no value to me. I assumed it had value to the breed.

 

aj

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 5, 2006
Messages
6,420
Location
western kansas
Dad bought Hubs Impact 1. We sold some heifer calves in on of Hubs Production sales out him. I was just out of high school but I think that there was some confusion about Hubs impact two's sire. I'm thinking that they decided that Impact 1 bred his mother and was the actual sire? There was some kind of a deal anyway.
 

aj

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 5, 2006
Messages
6,420
Location
western kansas
The computer says hh robins impact......the bull that dad owned and Hubs impact two were out of the same cow.....Clara.
 

oakview

Well-known member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,346
I have no doubt that some of the old time bulls can sire some real performance, but, in my opinion, some of it is probably due to the performance capabilities of their dams compared to the female side of what was available 45 years ago.  I have in front of me the 1971-72 Midwest Breeders beef sire directory.  They have three Shorthorn bulls available.  Weston Fullback, a direct son of Leader 21 shows a 205 day adjusted weaning weight of 566 and an adjusted yearling weight of 1,032, index of 118, significantly above average.  The footnote states that Leader 21 is one of the great performance bulls of the breed.  Fullback had exceptional indexes even though most of his contemporaries were half brothers or sired by half brothers.  Also shown is Smallflower Leader 2nd, a grandson of Leader 21st.  He shows a yearling weight of 1,005, though no indexes are listed.  The third bull in the directory is Ball Dee Perfect Count.  There is no performance data shown, only his mature weight of 2,620 pounds.  It is interesting to note that the semen price on the first two bulls was 2.50 and the Count semen was 10.00  I also have the ABS bull directory from the same time period.  In progeny testing, 2 herds, 19 different bulls used, 129 contemporaries, the Leader 21 calves averaged 492 pounds at 205 days, group average was 450.  ADG was 3.30 and 2.77, respectively.  Kinnaber Leader 9th himself shows an adjusted 205 day weight of 577, birth weight of 70 pounds.  His progeny had an average 205 day weight of 467, group average was 452.  ADG figures were 2.66 and 2.55, respectively.  Cruachan Max Leader 551 is the only other Shorthorn bull with performance figures in the book.  He shows individual performance of 601 pounds at 205 days compared to a group average of 588.  Max Leader weighed 1,580 at 23 months.  From this data, you could conclude that these lines were among the higher performing Shorthorn genetics available at that time.  I am also looking through the August 15, 1966 issue of Shorthorn World.  Colomeadow Sting Ray, owned by Dale Petty of Iowa.  Sting Ray is promoted as the breed's first and only certified meat sire.  Progeny rib eye area per 100 pounds carcass weight was 2.16 sq. in., not just significantly over 1 sq. in., well over 2 square inches per 100 pounds carcass weight.  PRI minimum standards were 2.00.  In that magazine, there are very few breeders that advertised performance.  Those that do are crowing about any weaning weight over 500 pounds or yearling weight over 1,000 pounds.  I don't know if any of this proves anything, but it sure is interesting.  In my opinion, the GOOD bulls of times gone past have contributed to genetic performance improvement and you'd expect them to sire at least decent performing calves on the genetics we have today.  Likewise, if you used some of the poorer performing bulls of the past, their calves would be just as slow growers today as they were 50 years ago.   
 

Medium Rare

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 18, 2013
Messages
459
Location
Missouri
Some interesting numbers. I assume most of the bulls that made up the bottom end of their time are not still sitting around in tanks to currently show some of the poor growth of the era. Can't help but wonder how much of the above data is in the database and how it could contribute to sorting some of those bull's descendants now that bolt is in place. A quick scan of a few of them shows next to nothing made its way into the current system. If Leader 21 had Weston Fullback's and other progeny's contemporary group indexes in the database would he still be buried in the bottom 5% of the breed? Some of those numbers also make the current sire test figures look, well... Interesting.

I was speaking in 1"/100lbs live weight via scan data. I have so little purebred kill data I can't make many comparisons with old/new without some really fuzzy math.



 

oakview

Well-known member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,346
We have had various sire testing programs over the years.  I participated in one in the 70's through the ASA and Padlock Ranch.  Every bit of data available was collected on progeny of maybe 20 bulls or more for several years.  I doubt if any of that data has been included in the current figures.  It would be interesting to see how and if any of that would correlate to today's numbers.  It's difficult to compare cattle from era to era just like it's difficult to compare Babe Ruth to Henry Aaron to Barry Bonds.  Were steroids around in the 20's or just Budweiser?  The best I can do to compute the Colomeadow Sting Ray data to a live weight basis would be about 1.36 sq in.  I'm glad I misinterpreted the data cited earlier.  1.3 sq in per 100 pound carcass weight would not make as big a steak on my plate as I'm used to! 
 

justintime

Well-known member
Joined
May 26, 2007
Messages
4,346
Location
Saskatchewan Canada
As I have mentioned a few times in the past, there are several bulls from the past that should remain in the past. Some breeders think that if the bull had semen collected, he must have been a good bull. There are a few bulls from the past that were definitely ahead of their time. These are the bulls that can be useful today, but again, you must carefully mate them to good females, in order to produce offspring that can be marketed successfully. A few years ago, I did some flushes using sires from the 60s and 70s with dams from today. I mated TPS Coronet Leader 21st with two of my biggest framed, thickest cows. The resulting calves were very interesting. These calves were softer made and moderate framed. All of these calves did lose performance when compared with my other calves from today's genetics. I also used Pheasant Creek Leader 4th, who I consider to be the best bull ever from the Leader line, and I used him with two huge cows. Again, we got moderate framed thick and easy fleshing calves. These calves were considerably better than the Leader 21st calves. I had 4 ET full brothers and I kept one to use in my own herd, and I found that his calves were even better, probably because the older lower performance genetics were 1 generation more diluted in these calves. These calves were very marketable and we sold several through our sales at good money. One thing I did notice about these calves, was that they consistently had smaller ribeye areas that our bulls consisting of modern genetics. We were ultrasounding all our yearling bulls and this was consistent every year. These bulls from the older genetics in their background did have easier calving traits as well as easier fleshing ability.
In regards to the ribeye areas, we did extensive carcass evaluation in our own feedlot during the 70s and early 80s. Here in Canada, our federal department of Agriculture had a program called the "Blue tag program". This program allowed producers to purchase a blue tag for $1.00 and when the animals with these blue tags were slaughtered, their carcass data was sent to the producer. We probably did several hundred head while this program was available. We did all our Shorthorn and Shorthorn cross animals as well as a cross section of other breeds of animals we were feeding to get a comparison . It became very apparent why Shorthorns had lost favor with feedlot operators and packers in that era. I still have these carcass data sheets showing the Shorthorns of that era having excess fat, and very small ribeye areas. There were 1250 lb live weight steers with 8.0-8.5 square inch ribeye areas. This was considerably less ribeye area than the other breeds we collected data on.
One of the most significant things our carcass data collection did show, occurred when we collected the first data on our Shorthorns sired by Irish Shorthorn sires. Our first crop of steers sired by Highfield Irish Mist averaged over 4 square inches more ribeye area than those from current genetics of that day. This was something we did not expect to see, at least in such a major way. We brought the Irish cattle from Ireland to help improve testicle size and shape, rump structure and udders on the females. The Irish cattle we used did all of these things extremely well. At the time, Shorthorn bulls had major issues with poorly shaped testicles and many of them had tipped and/or twisted testicles. There were lots of issues with poor udder and teat shape, and I can still remember some of those horrible balloon teats on the cows. Another problem was that many of that eras cattle did not carry their thickness through their hips and rumps and there often was far too much fat deposited in these areas. Highfield Irish Mist added improvement in these areas in one generation. I never saw an Irish Mist daughter with a poor udder, even if their dams had bottle teats and swing bags. He added thickness from hooks to pins in his offspring and he certainly corrected testicle size and shape. His contribution to improving carcass quality was a huge added bonus that we did not expect at first. I still consider Highfield Irish Mist to be a "once in a lifetime" bull. He consistenty settled over 100 cows every summer, and always came in from pasture in better shape when he went out. He had perfect feet ( which was very unusual for an Irish bull ) and he never had his feet trimmed in any way. At 14 years of age, he could still out walk any person and if you were trying to keep up with him, you would have to occasionally have to run for a little ways to catch up to him. I have often wondered how long he would have been able to breed cows as he was still athletic and sound at 14 years of age. Just prior to turning him out at 14 years of age, he got a twisted gut and we rushed him the U of Sask Vet college. As they started to operate, he suddenly had a massive heart attack and died on the operating table. When they did an autopsy, his heart had completely blown apart, and they expected this occurred because of the stress the twisted gut had caused.
Today, we have Shorthorns that still have the maternal traits that the breed has been known for, for many decades. We also have  Shorthorns that can compete with most any breed for carcass quality and they are especially good at adding marbling. That said, I still maintain that there are a few sires from the past, that have some good traits that can add improvement to today's bloodlines. The trick is to be able to select which ones these are, and which ones should be tossed out.
 

aj

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 5, 2006
Messages
6,420
Location
western kansas
I think that if one used a bull like Coronet leader 21 on one of todays cow......you might be disappointed in the calf 50% of the time. On the other hand......if you bred him to 100 cows........you could get one or two great ones......maybe more. It just depends on how the two different lines of genes co mingle.
 

jaimiediamond

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 23, 2010
Messages
1,019
Location
Okotoks
As breeders of cattle in this time we are incredibly lucky to have access to genetics from the past, and present readily accessible through semen and embryos. We also have the ability to mass produce these genetics to try and ensure you get the traits you are aiming for, I personally have flushed females in the last year to sires from the 70s, 90s, and one from 2004 not to mention current sires. Something to consider is maybe a calf sired by a bull from the 70s in first generation will not have the performance but they do offer the ability to get back positive traits that may have been lost throughout the generations and are likely to pass on those characteristics and more growth to their own offspring.  Our job as breeders is to keep striving to improve our programs and sometimes that involves taking a step back in time. 
 

Cabanha Santa Isabel - BR

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
605
Location
Rio Grande - RS - Brazil
Well, a good post. Like it.
Maybe some bulls from past if had the chance to be mate and used massivelly as many ones today, their performance could to be better.
Also agree, some bulls on the past must to stay there, as well as must bulls from today never should to be entered on a semen company for collect.
Don't know if compare performance from bulls from 60's or 70's with actual bulls is right. Are different times, different markets for each age, different ways to see the business.
Some old bulls are able to add good characters on today cattle.
I have two Kinnaber Leader 9th daughters that are amazing shaped, decrease a bit my frame and add character on my herd.
Intend to use some old ones on 90's and 2000's genetics females to improve some things, in special meat shape and breed character.
 

JPS

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 11, 2011
Messages
46
Location
columbus
I agree with Jamie.  We ultra-sounded some president 26a calves last year and their ribeyes were comparable with the contemporary group.  I was very happy, that there was no performance loss in that trait. 

I also agree with some of the other posts.  Depending on the cow, it seems like more that 25% of some old genetics (60s and 70s) can ding performance.  However, some of the old genetics perform quite well at 50% of the cross.  Remember, that depending on how you have bred, the old genetics can be total outcrosses to modern genetics.  This means you see a heterosis boost. 

Rib shape and depth of body are areas that the older genetics seem to bring to the party.  I am also glad to have access to these older genetics, and yes their EPDS stink because there are not many progeny.  Turn in the data, and it will change over time.
 
Top