Charolais Cows - Need some Bloodline Evaluation

[rocknmranch]

We purchased 15 head of Charolais cows recently. The cows are older, in really good shape, and a great buy couldn't pass them up. Anywho, I would like some opinions on bloodlines if any Charolais guru's would care to take a look.

Reg #
F721100
F720019
F777735
F777734
F850959
F720486
F718381

These are some of the bulls, that calves that are not reg are out of.
M393520
M435985
M514820

Thanks in advance for anything you can tell me about the cows and bulls.

 

[Mark H]

OK here goes:

F721100
GCR POLLED HANNA D401ET  This Guggenberger cow is the result of a purchased embryo and she is going to be 16 in August.  She has only produced 1 registered offspring in this time period- a heifer.  Mediocre EPDs.

F720019
GCR WHITE GEM D72  Another Guggenburger cow but this one is straight GCR breeding.  She will be 16 in September. She has only produced 1 registered offspring in this time period- a heifer.  Mediocre EPDs.

F777735
GCR MS MIRAGE F65 Another Guggenburger cow again typical GCR breeding. She will be 14 in July.  She has not produced registered offspring.  Average EPDs.

F777734
GCR MS MIRAGE F69 Another Guggenburger cow again typical GCR breeding. She will be 14 in July.  She has not produced registered offspring.  Below average EPDs.

F850959
GCR WHITE SILK 04H  Youngest cow in the bunch at 14 this July. She has not produced registered offspring.  Absymal EPDs.

F720486
GCR MIGHTY PRINCESS D62  Best pedigree here.  She will be 16 in August. She has not produced registered offspring.  Below average EPDs.

F718381
GCR POLLED STARLET D68 She will be 16 in August. She has produced 1 registered bull calf.  Below average EPDs.

The Bulls:

M393520
GCR WHITE REBEL C77  The bull if alive will be 17 in September.  A total of 106 calves registered over this time period.  Appalling EPDs for a purebred herdsire.

M435985
GCR QUANTUM QUAKE E119TW  The bull if alive will be 15 in September.  Only 2 heifer calves registered over this time period. Below average EPDs for a purebred herdsire.

M514820
ARC TAYLOR MADE  Despite the name a typical GCR pedigree. The bull if alive will be 10 in September.  No registered calves out of this bull.  A 954 LB yearling weight on a Herd sire? Appalling EPDs for a purebred herdsire.

Some things to think about:
Just how many calves have each of these calves actually produced and why haven't they registered the calves?  Some of these animals haven't produced their own replacement over m any many years. Why weren't they culled years ago?
Aside from the home grown GCR herdsires Schurrtop-DC Intimidator and FZ Mighty MAC 828 breeding stands out.  In their day OK breeding but rather dated as thickness and muscle wasn't part of the deal with these bulls.  With these cows you need better everything.  I would seriously consider using LT Rio Blanco to get your performance, maternal and muscle up to par.
Sorry for beating up the old girls but that is the way the ball bounces.

 

[Freddy]

wHERE YOUR NOT A breeder with reputation for reg. Charolais go the composite route ,we have found more interest in that than the purebred route .Mark has covered what you have to work with, they proably didn't register calves if they didn't have a market...The purebred market is very competitive an plenty of people in it , Charolais is not quite as bad as the reg. Angus  and the Charolais I feel is gaining popularity again, had a Angus guy complaining the other day how they were out selling the Angus in different places ...Looks like these cows have a lot of age ...

 

[rocknmranch]

Thank you!!

Yeah the group that had these cows, did nothing with them, but breed them. All the cows have produced each year, just never registered.

All I wanted was to know about the bloodlines. I have not a clue what the bloodlines are, are where they came from. Those are just the registered ones, the rest of the cows are young. I never bought the bulls, the calves are from a few of these bulls. Just wanted to know bloodlines.

 

[TWR]

F721100 - Intimdator x Polled Unlimited, both popular bulls in the 90's, Int got buried because his milk epd dropped off afte a few years.  Our commericial bull buyers loved Int bulls and we showed several Int heifers.
F720019 - Don't know much about that pedigree, GCR did alot of line breeding and had a fairly successful show cattle program.
F777735 - Linebred 828 again.
F777735 - ??
F850959 - ??
F720486 - Intimidator x 828, I bet this one has some leg under her, probably about a frame 9 or 10.
F718381 - "

If you are looking to raise club calves you are going to need to use bulls with about a frame 3 or 4 to get calves that are desirable today.  The Intimidators should throw a nice front end and a square hip.

 

[knabe]

i remember trying out for the judging team once and we went to guggenburgers.  they had the largest cattle i'd ever seen.  this was about 88.  they had this one cow that weighed well over a ton and some bulls to match.  they had one bull that through birth marks on the right rear quarter.  i guess they do ok locally.  there's another charolais breeder nearby and i've seen both cattle at some shows and they are ok for me.

 

[Mark H]

Rochnmraqnch,

If you wan to learn more about how Guggenburger cattle compare to other Charolais bloodlines I would  contact Brent Thiel: http://www.ltranch.com/about.html.  He actually bought a GCR bull: GCR Mighty Adonis so he knows what works on these cattle.  LT's website: http://www.ltranch.com/about.html.  I have seen the herd and I would like to see better maternal and performance traits along with more muscle.  The cattle are rather slender as well so they aren't clubby type cattle.  If you wan to go into the show type arena.  I would look at using something from Gerrards Charolais since they have a couple bulls on Genex: http://www.gerrardcattlecompany.com/ ans semen is easy3 to get.

 

[Freddy]

Mark has you some very good ideas for going purebred, and there are plenty of real thick sire in the clubbies.  An idea though is THE tHOMAS BULL Lead-on that sired the Troubador bull who is a white percentage bull of Kris Blacks, also the Chunkey Monkey bull is purebred I think but semen is a little higher .  Have you thought about flushing the best one to a bull, the age of this group on a whole worries me ....

 

[rocknmranch]

We just got all the cows home. The oldest cows are the most calvey, with two of them having heifers only a few days old. One PB and one smoky, very nice looking calves.

The cows we got are not as framey as their pedigrees would lead you to believe. They are actually pretty thick, and no taller than some of our frameiest PB Angus cows. The herd was culled to the remaining cows that we purchased for very specific traits by the herd manager.

We are going to do some AI'ing on the PB's. We have not flushed before, but I might look into it. We would like to get replacements before we lose the cows. Like I said before the group of cows was a great deal.... extremely hard to pass up, considering that all the cows are bred and already calving.

Thanks everyone for your input, I really appreciate your thoughts.