Dream On

[frostback]

Well some may remember my daughter wanting to start raising Simmis so I bred 3 full sib 734 Angus heifers to Dream On. So many recommended him for calving ease. We pulled a 114lb bull this afternoon.
The heifer was shown but was a very easy keeper and was on a diet most of the time. She was kicked out on pasture in Aug. and stayed there until 2 weeks ago. So no she was not mis managed. These things do happen but I will not sleep too well with two more to come. By the way the calf was up in a hour and sucking the walls until I shoved him under mom where he went to town. At least he did not have big dumb bull calf syndrome. Nice looking calf too.

 

[kfacres]

BW is mostly driven by the mother-- I heard a very good estimate of 82% once on here- 50% cow genetics, 100% enviroment, 100% nutrition... 

When its cold you get bigger calves! 

 

[kanshow]

All of our calves have been somewhat bigger this year.    Our Dream On calves were bigger than our In Dew Time & Goldmines m this year.    However, neither were what I would consider huge nor were they pulled.  One was from a Macho daughter that carries some BW in her pedigree and the other was from a Hart Four Lane daughter.  Our first calf heifer monsters this year came from Trademark - 110# bull moderate pull from a DO daughter and then the 120# bull hard pull from a Voyager heifer - we lost that calf but the heifer looks like she'll be fine.  Our other pull (aside from a backwards calf) was a Full Figures heifer calf.    She was a 100#  and we've used FF over the years and

 

[frostback]

We had our second heifer calve to Dream On last night. A hard pull and a 115lb bull. Looked at the EPDs for the heifer and nothing shows a BW problem. Still one more to go.
Makes me question EPDs when we have what is a calving ease bull have 115 and HW gave us a 83lb. Go figure.

 

[HCCHSS]

Just one of those years i guess. Hope your last one isn't as bad as the other two. ;D

 

[kfacres]

I wouldn't expect anything different, since they're full sibs living in same enviroment...  Only 1 lb difference so far...  Seems logical to me. 

 

[nck21]

We have a Dream On son and don't have to pull any calves, they are all under 90 lbs..of course he's used on mature Angus cows.

 

[plowboy]

I had a dream on heifer calf born last spring to a 1st calf heifer and she weighed in at 75 lbs

 

[frostback]

Thats more of what I was expecting.  The bull is nine years old and I thought had a track record of calving ease. Guess next time I'll use Heatwave. JK These cows will never see him with thier track record. Might have to find a Lowline bull. JK agian.

 

[OH Breeder]

Thats more of what I was expecting.  The bull is nine years old and I thought had a track record of calving ease. Guess next time I'll use Heatwave. JK These cows will never see him with thier track record. Might have to find a Lowline bull. JK agian.

Have to think the cold has contributed to your BW's frosty. Several folks in our neck woods have used Dream On consistently with no issue. You just pushed his EPD's up a bit with your three.

 

[frostback]

We have not had the cold like out east though. It was very cold  the first part of Jan then it has been above freezing during the day and about 20s at night. Just right really. There has been some snow on the ground for a while too but not enough to make me feed hay. The last snow made me put out 3 bales the last 4 days and they are back to fending for themselves. But these heifers were in the corral getting 1/4 bale of good grass hay only. I really am not complaining but I wonder why we are trying to get back into a purebred thing. Trying to figure out what to breed a cow to is hard enough when you just worry about the look you want and now I have to fugure in EPDs and all that jazz.

 

[GLZ]

They can come big every now and then.  But the beauty is they tend to come out.

They are normally long and if you do have to pull, very easy pulls.