Herd building bull?

[Wanger24]

First off, hello, I'm new here....enjoy the site.  I started by Simmental herd 4 years ago and just got into Shorthorns last year.  I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the Simm blood lines and need a little help with the Shorthorns.  I started with  the Shorthorns in '11 with a purchase of two bred heifers from Galbreath farms (ND) and a bull from JSF.  If anyone has the catalog from the 2011 denver sale, the bull is #22, a Jpj son out of a top hand cow.  This year we bought a real nice Gizmo heifer from JSF and 5 bred females from Galbreath.  I've been searching around for semen and wodering If I should AI all the females to a good bull that will produce solid productive cows and let my bull clean up, which will probably allow me to keep him longer if he has fewer daughters.  The other option would be to AI very little and use the bull I have heavily.  I would like to avoid using several sired in hopes to build uniformity.  I think the females offer enough diversity as they are. 

The direction of my focus is to build a seedstock herd which mainly focuses on genetics for commercial cattleman with a small emphasis on show calves.  My personal tastes lean toward the so called "convenience" traits, feet, udder comp, docility.....to me they are manditory.  We are on the border of Northern MN and ND, some people here feed pretty hard.  I feed some grain to the bulls from weaning to yearling, but the cows only get hay and a little grain and good alfalfa hay from pre-calving to breeding.  I have not done any creep, but may go to that some day. 

I have looked at Bonanza, Wakaru gold card 5042 or gold mine 219.  I would like a bull that would be usable on heifers, but my bull should be ok for that too, his reg number is x416883 if anyone wants to look up his numbers.

Thanks for all the great info.

 

[kfacres]

If you want to make registered COMMERCIAL Shorthorns-- the ONLY breeding PROGRAMS that I can think of in the US to assist you with would be:

A&T
Rob Sneed
Loving
or Laurer
and I suppose Wakauru in most people's eyes.

i'm sure they're are a couple more-- even though I left a few off my LIST on purpose-- that I dont' know about.  Then again, people such as Dover; but they are not papered.

 

[kfacres]

o[ and forgot one I was thinking of, and plum didn't type into:  RN Reed on here:  A guy that I wouldn't mind having 5 or 10 heifers from in the near future for their real world practical usage. 

I'm thinking a personal goal of mine would be: I think that 5 heifers from R.N. Reed, 5 heifers from A&T-- and a bull from Rob Sneed would be my ideal goal for the next 5 years... 

 

[Davis Shorthorns]

Defiantly check out Lovings, Lauers, Rob Sneed, Kaper, Dover, JDMC, Peak View, Lakeside, and with JSF and Galbreath I think that you are on the right track.  As far as a good heifer bull the double duty cattle from lovings and lauers are great, most anything from sneed will do what you are asking.  Take a look on how the JPJ crosses with the Double Duty on Lovings website. 

 

[sue]

First off, hello, I'm new here....enjoy the site.  I started by Simmental herd 4 years ago and just got into Shorthorns last year.  I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the Simm blood lines and need a little help with the Shorthorns.  I started with  the Shorthorns in '11 with a purchase of two bred heifers from Galbreath farms (ND) and a bull from JSF.  If anyone has the catalog from the 2011 denver sale, the bull is #22, a Jpj son out of a top hand cow.  This year we bought a real nice Gizmo heifer from JSF and 5 bred females from Galbreath.  I've been searching around for semen and wodering If I should AI all the females to a good bull that will produce solid productive cows and let my bull clean up, which will probably allow me to keep him longer if he has fewer daughters.  The other option would be to AI very little and use the bull I have heavily.  I would like to avoid using several sired in hopes to build uniformity.  I think the females offer enough diversity as they are. 

The direction of my focus is to build a seedstock herd which mainly focuses on genetics for commercial cattleman with a small emphasis on show calves.  My personal tastes lean toward the so called "convenience" traits, feet, udder comp, docility.....to me they are manditory.  We are on the border of Northern MN and ND, some people here feed pretty hard.  I feed some grain to the bulls from weaning to yearling, but the cows only get hay and a little grain and good alfalfa hay from pre-calving to breeding.  I have not done any creep, but may go to that some day. 

I have looked at Bonanza, Wakaru gold card 5042 or gold mine 219.  I would like a bull that would be usable on heifers, but my bull should be ok for that too, his reg number is x416883 if anyone wants to look up his numbers.

Thanks for all the great info.

wow you bought 5 breds from Ryan and he didnt throw in a bull! 

 

[mark tenenbaum]

There are some good usable shorthorns for Ai and Ive used em all.Everything Im listing is also as easy real world calving as anything out there-that will have some style and some grow-and clean up the fronts a little-right now we are calving some first calvers to HC Touchdown-and they have reasonable calving wts-which means hell be fine on yours-ours run on hard country in Kansas but still have to have show ring appeal and the rest:they have the body capacity,rib,etc hes 1 good choice. There are several older bullds bred RIGHT-that have been used HEAVILY in Minnesota and South- NorthDakota etc-probably the biggest sleeper of them all is GB Daybreak Express-a son of Byland Dazzler(one of the best commercially oriented bulls in the last 30 years JMO-AND the Sire and Grandsire of 2 NATIONAL CAHMPION BULLS) wh0-is out of a great Lincoln redxmaine cow. Hes bigger than alot of the clubbys,almost a 0 BW,with great EPDS-and was (is) used heavily up there on clubby cattle-hes worked very well performance wise too.Showy,practicle and THICK.K-Kim Cattle certainly has produced a number of bulls-probably more than anyone else in the breed. RS After Hours is one ofthe best-easy calving WAY stout bulls he ever came up with-out of the same sire as HC Touchdown and out of a great Gizmo maine deal-there have been MANY documented calves -and he will really work on the breeding you mentioned. FHF Rodeos Hope is another one Im going to use again.A shot of Goldwalk or linebred great relatives is ok-but thr Waukaru cattle arent meant for hard running performance-they go back to alot of Dual-and so does Goldwalk et al-line it up and youve got some harddoing cattle if they arent constantly fed,or in very lush conditions.Thier cattle really cross well with maines and I would think clubby-they probably dont want people going in that direction PS-you might want to try your bull on a couple simmis-its a hell of a cross. If you want me to spout off on cattle a little more clubby-Ill be glad to put my 2 cents in too O0