Looking for info on simmental bulls

[worthabit]

I would like everyone's opinions on these bulls for use on angus cows primarily for producing replacement females.

In Dew Time
Club King
Mo Better
Ebony's Trademark
NLC Upgrade
Triple C Singletary
Amigo
Wheatland El Toro

 

[CAB]

I don't really know enough to comment with anything other than hearsay, but my 2 favorites would be In Dew Time & Amigo.

 

[WKYIronMike]

If I were choosing among them for myself, I'll go with Amigo, Trademark, or Mo Better. Alot of folks really like In Dew Time as well but to me he doesn't add enough depth. Haven't seen very many Club King's I liked, Upgrade to me makes nicer bulls than heifers, and haven't seen enough of Singletary or Wheatland El Toro to have an opinion on them. Have a fun time choosing.

 

[Lucky_P]

Currently using Singletary on some older % Fleckvieh-influence cows - to make daughters with  marbling, ribeye, and tenderness, and more growth than than the Angus sires we'd been using.  First Singletary calves due in late Aug here, so no comments on 'em yet.  
Genex rep indicated that he's no longer producing - and they aren't anticipating that he'll come back.  
Will probably go to his full sib, Bettis, for use on Sure Bet daughters.

 

[firesweepranch]

I wouldn't throw out Club King. He is just really getting used, saw a REALLY nice bull sale through the Owen's sale last spring. He was really nice, high selling bull. Here is a link to him :
http://www.cattlevisions.com/Simmental/clubking.php
We also have a Club King heifer, out of a Preferred Beef first calf heifer. We are keeping the Club King and selling her dam in the fall in the state sale. She came small and grew like a weed. She is bred for a January calf by Grandmaster, caught on her first AI. The more I see of Club King, the more I like.
We have a yearling Amigo heifer, black with a white belly, out of a first calf heifer. She is also real nice, and will be sold as a bred heifer in the fall state sale. I will use him again (we had a really nice red bull by him out of a first calf heifer that sold in our state sale this spring for good money!). His milk number concerns me, and his accuracy is getting up there so it makes me wonder why???
Of course, we just love the Mo Better's. We have a great 3/4 bull calf (fall) that is really nice, and bred 3 of our top cows to him this spring. I have heard great things about his females, but once again his numbers worry me. We have yet to have one in production, so time will tell for us.
I agree about the Upgrades, love the bulls. Have not seen many females yet, but we own a fall half blood that is due to calve in October so we will see. I would not be afraid to use him to make females, that is for sure! We love ours! Check our our facebook page to see pics of her (facebook/firesweepranch).
The rest of the bulls I have not used, so I can not comment. I have liked the Trademark females I have seen...

 

[worthabit]

Thanks everyone. Any more comments?

 

[leanbeef]

I really liked the Singletary calves at the Triple C dispersal two years ago. I looked for semen on that bull after the sale & couldn't find any until Genex signed him last spring. We'll have a few this fall, and I'm looking forward to those calves. From what I've seen, I think the calves are stouter and more uniform in general than the Bettis calves.

I also like Upgrade. He should add muscle and volume, and the ones I've seen have plenty of performance. I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket until we see what his maternal values are gonna do with daughters in production, but I would use him on some soggier, milky cow's that could use some added performance. I think you'll like them regardless of what your program is doing.

Club King & In Dew Time have been used a bunch. I've only had a couple & they were decent calves. My Club King is definitely a growthy, high octane dude, but he hasn't really changed my mind about using that bull. I'm just not a fan. Same with Dew Time...decent bull...I think there are better bulls out there.

The Mo Betters will be big footed & sound, loose made & growthy. They can also be ugly fronted and long haired. I think his place is on Angus cows making half bloods, and I would protect myself there by using him on soggy middled cows with plenty of milk. The daughters have real nice udders with small teats, and they're just adequate on milk production from what I've seen....nothing extra. If you're interested in a good, production oriented baldy bull, take a look at PRS Blazin Hot. Homozygous black & homozygous polled, and his EPD profile is more balanced and more maternal than Mo Better. I've had a handful of calves & really like em!

I've seen some pretty Trademarks, but never used him. Same with Amigo...we have a homozygous black program, and those bulls just don't fit. And to me, they kinda fall into that category with In Dew Time...decent cattle with some look to em...there are just a lot of people who already have em.

I'm not famiar with the El Toro bull. Most of the Wheatland cattle seem to have a little extra birth weight & some front end, and I don't mind a little front if you have performance cattle that will grow into it. I suspect they'll grow all right...we just can't tolerate the extra birth weight that comes with the bulls I've kinda wanted to use outta that program.

 

[vcsf]

Worthabit, I think you have gotten some very good information here already but I will try to add a little.  First of all I do not know if you are aware of this or not but unless things have changed recently there has never been any Amigo semen qualified for Canada even though I know of a number of people who would like to try the bull.  Also, Genex has been sold out of Canadian qualified Trademark semen for a couple of years now so I doubt that you will be able to find very much.

I personally was never overly impressed with some things in the picture of Club King and the limited number of calves I have seen have not changed my opinion as I could not get too excited about them.  I have only seen a few In Dew Time calves and while I have liked some of them there has not been enough and none out of Angus cows for me to give a fair opinion.  While I am somewhat intrigued by Mo Better especially in a scenario like you are describing, I personally can not use a baldy bull and have only seen a few bull calves that  did not really leave an impression on me.

I believe Singletary would sire some excellent replacement females that would go on to do a super job in a number of situations.  However, if your goal is to breed the resulting SimAngus females to produce show calves I would question if the Singletary daughters would have enough eye appeal and the right look to be truly successful based mainly on the Shear Force cattle I have seen.

If your goal is to produce females to raise show calves I would think that Upgrade might be your best bet with the biggest question being the milk number.  Only time will tell how well the Upgrades will milk as his first daughters would just be raising their first calves now.  The added bonus with Upgrade is Genex had sexed semen available for the same price or only five dollars more than conventional.  I have a good friend who used Upgrade last year when his semen first became available in Canada including on a couple of purebred Angus cows.  He is very happy with these calves and bought more semen this year.  When i saw his Upgrade calves they were very young but definitely appeared to have the right look to them and I know one heifer out of an Angus cow while only a few days old at the time looked to be very special.

With regards to El Toro, I am a huge fan of his mother who is beautifully made, moderate framed, thick, eye appealing, good uddered female.  I also like a lot of the things that 680S does and have been impressed by the calves I have seen out of purebred Angus cows sired by him and his sons.  As has been mentioned 680 will not clean up a front end and can have some calving issues.  I was not at Wheatland's sale when El Toro sold but was there the year before and saw a couple of full brothers that were very good looking bulls.  Merit Cattle Company purchased possession of El Toro for the purpose of breeding to their purebred Angus cows to produce F1 females and bulls to sell in partnership with Wheatland.  When El Toro semen first became available last year I seriously thought about buying some based on his pedigree and the fact that the semen was very reasonably priced.  Then I had the opportunity to see the bull after he was returned to Saskatchewan from stud at Semex and before Merit could pick him up as he was delivered close to a hundred miles from them the day night before their own bull sale.  After seeing the bull at this time I could never bring myself to use him although the way he looked was definitely not entirely the bull's fault and someone at Semex should have been ashamed of themselves.  I know for a fact that Merit was very upset with Semex and had words with them but do not know what the results were.  I do not know if Merit ended up using the bull last year or not as when I saw him at the end of March you would not have wanted to turn him out with cows.

 

[worthabit]

Great information

Lucky P - I would be interested in hearing how the Singletary calving went and pics of the calves.

vcsf - I was just looking at the online genex catalogue and figured some of them wouldn't be available here. My main goal is just to get some functional cows that will produce quality calves show type or not.

My favorites were Singletary, amigo and El toro so now Singletary is the leading the way.

What about the Semex baldy bull Rendition?

 

[leanbeef]

I had four Renditions last fall...two heifers & two bulls. They're all decent calves. I like the heifers a little better than the bulls, and I guess that's fair...I like their mothers a little better than the other two cows. I happen to like my Blazin Hot heifers even better, though...

 

[firesweepranch]

A rendition heifer just took third overall in the percentage division of the Junior Nationals, owned by Casey Owen, and she is a half angus. Pretty nice female, won the bred and owned division at Nationals and Regional show. We have a pretty nice Rendition bull, November. I just do not care for the tons of white he throws....

 

[leanbeef]

Rendition would be dangerous in a bunch of Simmental breeding schemes if you don't want chrome or spots. Or horns...he's heterozygous black AND polled according to Owens. But he'd be safe enough on Angus cows if you wanna make some baldies and don't mind calves that might carry recessive genes that don't show up in that first generation. You'll get red & horn genes carriers. Both my heifers are solid black...both bull calves were blaze faced.

 

[Lucky_P]

worthabit,
Be aware that I have no interest, knowledge, or designs on anything 'show/club' related.  I'm strictly a commercial producer breeding for productive females that will produce a growthy calf with good carcass quality and gainability.  Hence, MY choices in a bull may be very different from most folks on this site - but, at least with some of the Simmental folks here, it seems like I'm not so far removed as I am from many of the Shorthorn folks here - and we are breeding more cow to SH than SM these days.

In our program, we're trying to do a balanced approach - CED & MCE are important, I want breed-average or better from growth(mainly look at WW, as we sell weaned steers), marbling, ribeye area and shear force need to be well above breed average, and API/TI preferrably in the top 10%.
Currently using mostly Dikeman's Sure Bet and sons of Hooks Shear Force 38K(Singletary, Bettis, Pharoah 16P).  Don't care if any would ever compete favorably in a show ring, but they need to do it in the pasture here.

 

[firesweepranch]

worthabit,
Be aware that I have no interest, knowledge, or designs on anything 'show/club' related.  I'm strictly a commercial producer breeding for productive females that will produce a growthy calf with good carcass quality and gainability.  Hence, MY choices in a bull may be very different from most folks on this site - but, at least with some of the Simmental folks here, it seems like I'm not so far removed as I am from many of the Shorthorn folks here - and we are breeding more cow to SH than SM these days.

In our program, we're trying to do a balanced approach - CED & MCE are important, I want breed-average or better from growth(mainly look at WW, as we sell weaned steers), marbling, ribeye area and shear force need to be well above breed average, and API/TI preferrably in the top 10%.
Currently using mostly Dikeman's Sure Bet and sons of Hooks Shear Force 38K(Singletary, Bettis, Pharoah 16P).  Don't care if any would ever compete favorably in a show ring, but they need to do it in the pasture here.

If you like shear force, have you looked at Pacestter? We really like his females, and would use him again. We have a three year old in production that looks likr she is going to wean our heaviest calf!