Firewater

[rtmcc]

So getting back to the original post, we had our first Firewater calf 10 days ago.  We only have a few Charolais and manly Angus.  This heifer is out of a LHD FLAWLESS daughter.  The cow is square hipped and big boned but not real deep ribbed.  Nice fronted but not super sneaky fronted.  She is fuzzy for a PB.

The Firewater calf is pictured here at four days old.  She was 93# and born unassisted and jumped up and nursed in 20 minutes just like they are supposed to.  we have had a few pretty good Charolais heifers in the past and we have shown some pretty nice Angus heifers that had some true power from the ground up.

We have NEVER had one look like this!  She is more square hipped and as she gets a little older the thickest made widest based heifer we have had at this point.  She has that "Look at Me" demeanor.  She is really nice boned and smooth jointed.  Toes all go North.  Up headed and cool fronted.

Yes I know she is only a couple weeks old.  But the ones like this you can tell from day one. 

Wish I had more evidence for you and time will tell on this one.  We will deffinentaly use him again!

Ron
<cowboy>

 

[rtmcc]

Just for referance here is the dam of the calf pictured above when she was an open heifer.

Ron
<cowboy>

 

[Mark H]

Nice looking baby! We can look forward to some progression posts over the next year or two...

 

[GONEWEST]

"X bar I'm 17 years old and that's my weakness when it comes to arguing on this site: but I'm going to go out on a limb and tell you I'm old enough to know that your full of crap"

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  (clapping)  (lol)  (lol)

Now that's funny, I don't care who ya are!

 

[Ohio1]

Anyone know who bought the interest in him for 30,000?

 

[HF CHARS]

Anyone know who bought the interest in him for 30,000?

don't think it really sold,,,,he's been a great bull for us,,but hard to justify buying interest for that kind of money,when you can buy semen for20.  IMO he was being greedy and started that way to high

 

[sizzler14]

Agreed. I would have thought about it at Half or a third of that price..

 

[SWMO]

My opinion for what little it is worth is this.  Firewater has been a very heavily used bull and definately the hottest bull for making show heifers out there right now.  Like any very popular bull, (the last charolais bull that comes to my mind is Wyoming Wind), Firewater has been used on every type of cow that walks North America.  Does he work on every cow, absolutely not,  but then I don't know of any bull that will work on every cow that comes his way.  IMO Firewater will frame a cow down and that is very hard to find in the Charolais world, he will pretty one up, he will add dimension,  what he does not do is fix a cow that already has structure issues but that is just my experience with the bull and we have used him and been successful with the heifers that we have shown.

His daughters are making fine cows.  One word of caution, our Firewater daughters are VERY GOOD Mommas!!!!  Don't try and tag a calf and turn you back on them. He will also pretty an udder up on a not so pretty uddered cow.

I also really like his full sib Smoke on the Water we have some good cows in production out of him and have shown a few of his progeny.

As far as the argument about taking the performance out of the Charolais cattle, I don't believe that is the case.  However, we, as a breed, have overcome the calving ease issue that kept many commercial cattlemen from using a Chaolais bull and we personally are developing bulls that will work in our area of the United States and we are doing that by taking frame scores down and adding the forage capacity that cows need in Missouri.

 

[Mark H]

SWMO,

We always had a secret weapon to lower frame score, add muscle, and add fleshing ability:Full French cattle.  The main problems of fertility and calving ease with French Charolais are being dealt with bu the French themselves, but we solve it by only having the cattle be half or three quarter French.  The domestic cattle add growth and fertility to the mix.  The race horses of the 1980's never were popular in my area.  In fact people that went that way wiped their customer base out for their bulls.

 

[SWMO]

Mark,  we are using SCR Frenchy as one of our base bulls and the above bull is a Firewater x dynasty x scr frenchy.  the SCR Frenchy bull is  I believe 3/4 french. I would have to go back and look.  However we are having a lot of success with him and have also used the Mogo u23 bull.  I believe the U23 bull will have a place in the industry.  Our first U23 female will calve in April she sure has a cowy look to her.

 

[Mark H]

SWMO,

The only problem I see with Mogo U23 is that his genetics is a through back to the early 1970's.  More modern Full french cattle like Impair and his son Panay do not have the problems that the older full french cattle had like low EPDs, poor fertility, and testicles that did not measure up at yearling time.  Much of the improvement in Full French can be attributed to Charolais cattle that were imported into Scandinavia from Canada that basically beat the french cattle in every performance measure possible.  The French then took this to heart and have pulled their socks up and now have better cattle to sell.  I think that the Maple Leaf Pinay bull would work well in your environment.  Look at the half french bull Ritmo (designed to turn out smokes) for the type of bull that built the breed in central Alberta: http://www.semex.com/beef/i?lang=en&beef=view&view=89&breed=CH

 

[hevmando]

What is everyone's experience with Firewater as far as adding/maintaining/subtracting body capacity or spring of rib?

 

[OH Breeder]

DId any one take the time to read what Mark posted?( Some did. )He took time to put together great information as usual if you track his post. Read it instead of the p*%sing  match.

 

[RyanChandler]

What is everyone's experience with Firewater as far as adding/maintaining/subtracting body capacity or spring of rib?

(lol)