I have been trying to come up with no doubt's name for hours! thanks! I like gridmaker for females especially, he works great on Wind cattle and dukes as well for us, Have never used rio but liked the calves that I've seen, Wind is a trademark that is expensive enough to be flush only for us, I like the dukes, Have liked the Cigars and plan to flush my favorite wind daughter to him before we breed her for her next next calf lol.
For terminals it depends on if you retain ownership or not, Gridmaker is good all around for carcass and growth, excellent actually, Platinum is a good one that is just making the purebred scene, he was at Michigan's ag school herd breeding commercial cattle and drew himself some attention and has done well as far as I know. No doubt is also good for terminals, The wind sons Thundering Wind and one that I can't name right now that Lindskov-Thiel owns are good for terminals as well. I also like roundup's numbers and phenotype. My best heifer calf that I'm weaning is a roundup x final sort, she is a tank, interim numbers put her int he top 30% for growth and 5% for carcass merit, and she is sweet as can be.
On growth alone it is hard to beat Doc Silver. His carcass epds aren't great but they come small and double in size by the time they are up and walking seems like. I weaned a 800 pound calf off of a heifer this year from him with very little creep feed, absolutely tremendous growth. Gridmaker and no doubt are close behind him on growth and far and away beat anything else for carcass merit. I retained a GridmakerxWyo Wind son that scanned an 18 inch eye, .1 in fat, high choice bordering on prime, and 1482 at 315 days old, all actual weights, no adjusting.
I think the ideal shortiexchar would be your pick of shortie bred to gridmaker or no doubt, I like no doubt's phenotype a little better personally.
For purebred we will be using a good bit of no doubt heifer semen on wind cows and a final sort.
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