Heat wave females ?
- Thread starter jrod123
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twistedhshowstock
Well-known member
Well a lot of people would tell you absolutely not to keep a Heatwave female in the herd, and I understand what they are saying. The Heatwave females probably arent the most maternal and definately arent gonna blow you away with amount of milk they have. But all the ones I have seen or had experience with have raised a calf just fine.
Would I turn a Heatwave female out in a commercial herd, absolutely not, but if you have a Heatwave female chances are your goal isnt to produce some commercial, feedlot type calf out of her. In the commercial herd we expect the cow to do all the work raising the calf, but in the club calf industry most of us creep our calves and in my opinion the Heatwaves do just fine in this scenario.
As far as what to breed her to. You cant really just tell us she is a Heatwave and expect us to be able to give you a bull to breed to. There are a LOT of good bulls out there, and they all work on a different type of cow. If you are going strictly on pedigree then we would need to know what the rest of her pedigree is, but nobody can really recomend a bull without seeing the cow or at least having a good description of her.
Would I turn a Heatwave female out in a commercial herd, absolutely not, but if you have a Heatwave female chances are your goal isnt to produce some commercial, feedlot type calf out of her. In the commercial herd we expect the cow to do all the work raising the calf, but in the club calf industry most of us creep our calves and in my opinion the Heatwaves do just fine in this scenario.
As far as what to breed her to. You cant really just tell us she is a Heatwave and expect us to be able to give you a bull to breed to. There are a LOT of good bulls out there, and they all work on a different type of cow. If you are going strictly on pedigree then we would need to know what the rest of her pedigree is, but nobody can really recomend a bull without seeing the cow or at least having a good description of her.
Warrior10
Well-known member
We have a heatwave clone cow that is not a bad cow at all. Good utter and milking. Had a pretty good heifer calf out of her. The calf is out of Dr. Who
One of the best Steers we have had was Paddy Omalley / Heatwave. If i could have changed him would have added more flank however he was champ prospect/ champ market and place very high at OYE above some 20+ K steers and could grow some shag like no other we have ever had, they can have a place with extra effort.
Mueller Show Cattle
Well-known member
Gerard, That is a dam good looking steer. I have a heatwave heifer, she is the all black heifer in my avatar photo that I call Black Magic. She is bred rite now to the PB Simmental Bull Built Right. They say that Heatwave cows/heifers don't produce good milk and have problems calving. My heifer is not due until March 31st. Built Right is an easy calver for Simmental and I am going to have her induced a week early. I have also heard that once the Heatwave cows are 3 or 4 year old cows they are better cows, it is just getting past the first year or two. I decided to give her a try cause I liked her disposition and bought her for a good price at a club calf sale. So I am hoping that her calf is a heifer that has a good disposition cause of the Heatwave and has some maternal traits cause of the Built Right. Had her tested TH/PHA which were negative. So I really can't say besides what I have heard until my HW heifer calves out this coming March. But I have seen calves out of Heatwave cows/heifers which I have liked.
She looks good, and don't let them fool you that is why they make creep feeders. The Hoof trimming guy made a comment about our Monopoly heifer this spring that she had the best looking and most correct bag out of 75 heifers on the table at school but that don't make her milk. But i do think she is going to be a Steer making machine.
