Sire groups vs cow families

[aj]

Do some breeds talk in terms of cow families and others in sire groups? Is it a showring deal vs. a epd deal? Is it a maternal vs. a terminal breed deal? Is it a small breed vs. a big breed deal? Is it a embryo transplant breed vs. a open range herd deal? I very seldom think in terms of cow families. I think in terms of sire groups. I have a couple cows that have really proven themselves because they raise herd bulls. Is that weird? <beer>

 

[sue]

I like to see a bull breed uniformity . It gives me chills to see that in a herd of anything.
I usually go backwards from that and look for that sire's dam and so on.
I know purchasing a bull would definately mean looking at his dam first and foremost . But really I guess it's easier to see in a real program through  sire groups. It's not a time in the beef business to pay attention to anything but longevity either, I guess that's where you can study pedigrees.
Maternal traits umbrella so much -  but 1st and foremost a live calf... end of story.

I purchased a bull calf once over the phone and a couple emails. The photo of his granddam wrapped the deal up for me, she was the oldest on the ranch.
I hounded a breeder for two years about a bull until he gave in- the granddam died at 13 and his dam is still going at 12, her sire bred until 13 naturally.  Looking back he called me a pushy midwestern. We have a great relationship now. 

 

[rtmcc]

Our program is small (20 cows) but we still look back at both cow families and sire groups.  Of our 20 cows 16 of them descend from three original cows.  Other cow families have been culled.  Also 25% of our cows are out of the same sire for a reason.  You cant fight genetics so you just as well go with what's predictable and works.

Ron
<cowboy>

 

[kfacres]

IMO it (secret) lies within female families...  The sires come and go...  but the females last forever.  There are plenty of good "Stud" mamas out there that would have a knlckout calf sired by the barnyard ringworm goat. 

I think the selection of consistant, prepotent sires is very valueable as well...  but do you know where that comes from?  His mama...  I've heard a thousand times...  A bull's half your herd- but his mama is more than half him!  I would NEVER select a herd sire from an average mama.  not atleast one that would breed anything on my place-maybe one to try out on someone's else's stock. 

Now with that said, I find value in both equations...  For instance, most of my breeding senerios and maings...  occur within sire groups.  This guy's daughters go here, and this one's there.  I would also use this if I were to start over.  I would go to ZXY Ranch and select 10 (put number here) 1/2 sister heifers for my foundation-- instead of hand picking a select from 10 different operations of 10 different bloodlines...  and let 2 work out. 

 

[JTM]

While building our herd I must say that I have focused more on the cow families than I have the sires. A lot of times when buying replacement heifers you are able to look at their dam but not their sire because they were AI'd. On the other hand, I totally agree that when buying a herd bull the mother is a huge factor for me. This was a huge factor when we decided to go after CF Star Bucks. I really liked his Sire CF Sonic but the dam was outstanding (CF Pure Picture Perfect). I recently purchased an Angus bull whose dam was the oldest in the herd at 17 years old. I also agree that a bull who throws calves that are consistent and uniform is very valuable. Overall, it is hard for me to say at this point which is better to focus on, sires or cow families. I think when building a herd focusing on cow families makes sense, but when improving a herd and trying to move your program forward, focusing on the sire's dam and sire are very important.

 

[justintime]

I think that both sire groups and cow families are important considerations in your breeding program. Cow families are the foundation of any good breeding program and are a long term project. In my herd, many of the same cow families that were our best, 20 years ago, are still the best today. I am a big believer in cow families and keeping them intact.

On the other hand, sire groups are important in the present time of any era. Sire groups indicate how a particular sire ( or bloodline) is working on a variety of cow lines. When you find a sire from a particular sire group, that also comes from a good cow family, usually you have more assurance that you have a sire that will advance your breeding program.

Both sire groups and cow families can work hand in hand in making breeding decisions. I don't think either is more important than the other, and I don't think they need to be stand alone deals.

 

[3dfarms]

You have to look at both, but you can buy some of the best bulls out there for $20/straw.  You can't buy the best female in the business for that.  Choose your sires wisely, but work hard to build a foundation of quality cow families and your hard work will pay dividends for years to come.

 

[LostFarmer]

I went looking at bulls this fall.  Many were calves on the cow.  I narrowed it down to 2 calves.  I liked them both about the same until I started looking at the cow families.  The dam, granddam, and great grand dam were all in that field and all had good calves on them.  There was also a sister to the bull in the field.  Guess which bull I bought? 

 

[kfacres]

I went looking at bulls this fall.  Many were calves on the cow.  I narrowed it down to 2 calves.  I liked them both about the same until I started looking at the cow families.  The dam, granddam, and great grand dam were all in that field and all had good calves on them.  There was also a sister to the bull in the field.  Guess which bull I bought? 

the other one (lol)  I bet his mother was purchased, and that's why the bull calf didn't have any ancestors.  (clapping)

 

[Okotoks]

They are both important. Over time it seems certain cow families seem to become dominant in a breeding program. We like to use bulls out of cows we have bred who stand out thus
hopefully getting grand daughters with her traits.
We use AI  a little  and some ET but mostly it's walking bulls both homebred and purchased. We have one line of bulls that we have used six generations.The time it takes to find out if a herd bull is working is several years because you need to see his daughters in production before you really know. If you select bulls from stand out females you should eliminate some of the risk. Cow families are important but the herd bulls will have a lot more influence on a herd.

 

[r.n.reed]

I have just selected a bull calf by 108 to retain for herd sire use,this calf represents the4th consecutive generation of that sire line to be used in my herd.Both of 108's grandams are pacer performance dams and are out of the same cow.108's dam represents the 9th generation of that cow family in the herd.The dam of this calf although from a different cow family is somewhere between a 5/8 and 3/4 sister to 108 and is typical of the matings in my herd as there are only 2 females not bred in the herd and they are shirtsleeve cousins.I am also retaining a son of 4508 out of a maternal 1/2 sister to the first calf.After reading some of these posts about losing bulls to deer hunters etc.I figured I better keep some insurance.I look at the big picture  and am more interested in developing a strain rather than an individual.I figure another 40 years and I should have it about right.

 

[Aussie]

This is a quote I have worked by from one of Australia's premier Angus breeders Phil Collins from Merrigrange Angus Stud who started in 1959. I have posted it before.
Breeding Standards - Your female herd is the most valuable asset any stud can have. How well and consistent she breeds usually depends on her pedigree. It is better to have a small number of elite females than a large herd of average ones, but do not sacrifice the important traits of performance, fertility and structural correctness. "Remember The Power Of The Pedigree"
He was a great believer in cow families and the to use of those consistent breeding pedigrees as a strong consistant breeding base.

Since my herd is relatively young, only been going 8 years, I started by buying good cows from dispersal's and embryos from top cows. I ended up with, after much culling, with a not to bad herd but not as even as I would like. So for the last 3 years have been I went back to basics using maternal sire lines (eg Leachman Right Time sons and grandsons.Then Sitz Alliance and sons ) over all the cows to add consistency instead of using a heap of different bull lines trying to match to individual cows.
So I suppose I am having a bet each way but cow families is were I start.
As my dad told me always look at the mother son. I think he meant cattle  

 

[aj]

You could have a sire group of females also. I'd rather have say 100 cows sired by the old Galant simi bull than 100 heatseeker daughters. Probably rather have 100 steer calves by heatseeker though.

 

[sue]

I have just selected a bull calf by 108 to retain for herd sire use,this calf represents the4th consecutive generation of that sire line to be used in my herd.Both of 108's grandams are pacer performance dams and are out of the same cow.108's dam represents the 9th generation of that cow family in the herd.The dam of this calf although from a different cow family is somewhere between a 5/8 and 3/4 sister to 108 and is typical of the matings in my herd as there are only 2 females not bred in the herd and they are shirtsleeve cousins.I am also retaining a son of 4508 out of a maternal 1/2 sister to the first calf.After reading some of these posts about losing bulls to deer hunters etc.I figured I better keep some insurance.I look at the big picture  and am more interested in developing a strain rather than an individual.I figure another 40 years and I should have it about right.

THE REMARKS OF A TRUE BREEDER ... EVERY BREED NEEDS MORE BREEDERS AND FEWER FOLLOWERS  :-*

 

[kfacres]

I have just selected a bull calf by 108 to retain for herd sire use,this calf represents the4th consecutive generation of that sire line to be used in my herd.Both of 108's grandams are pacer performance dams and are out of the same cow.108's dam represents the 9th generation of that cow family in the herd.The dam of this calf although from a different cow family is somewhere between a 5/8 and 3/4 sister to 108 and is typical of the matings in my herd as there are only 2 females not bred in the herd and they are shirtsleeve cousins.I am also retaining a son of 4508 out of a maternal 1/2 sister to the first calf.After reading some of these posts about losing bulls to deer hunters etc.I figured I better keep some insurance.I look at the big picture  and am more interested in developing a strain rather than an individual.I figure another 40 years and I should have it about right.

THE REMARKS OF A TRUE BREEDER ... EVERY BREED NEEDS MORE BREEDERS AND FEWER FOLLOWERS  :-*

If I were as into the cows, as I am with the sheep, or been involved as long...  I could share many stories like this one. 

In my sheep flock, I only have 2.5 basic ewe familiest...  Out of 60+ ewes.  one ewe family that is really new (Started in 07 as a payment lamb for work and then as a outcross family for creating show sheep), one ewe family started in 03 for the same reasons.. and the rest are pretty well bred identical., and I can take them all back b/w 12-15 generations, back to a pair of 1/2 sister ewes born in 1963.  Within this one BIG family, I have created many 'sub' familes.  I linebreed to the extreme in my flock, and have done about every cross imaginable.  We flock is where we want them, big framed, easy keeping, and eye appealing.  No one on here cares about sheep, or knows anything about them.. but genetics and history are hard to beat for the buffs. 

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

I have just selected a bull calf by 108 to retain for herd sire use,this calf represents the4th consecutive generation of that sire line to be used in my herd.Both of 108's grandams are pacer performance dams and are out of the same cow.108's dam represents the 9th generation of that cow family in the herd.The dam of this calf although from a different cow family is somewhere between a 5/8 and 3/4 sister to 108 and is typical of the matings in my herd as there are only 2 females not bred in the herd and they are shirtsleeve cousins.I am also retaining a son of 4508 out of a maternal 1/2 sister to the first calf.After reading some of these posts about losing bulls to deer hunters etc.I figured I better keep some insurance.I look at the big picture  and am more interested in developing a strain rather than an individual.I figure another 40 years and I should have it about right.

THE REMARKS OF A TRUE BREEDER ... EVERY BREED NEEDS MORE BREEDERS AND FEWER FOLLOWERS  :-*

If I were as into the cows, as I am with the sheep, or been involved as long...  I could share many stories like this one. 

In my sheep flock, I only have 2.5 basic ewe familiest...  Out of 60+ ewes.  one ewe family that is really new (Started in 07 as a payment lamb for work and then as a outcross family for creating show sheep), one ewe family started in 03 for the same reasons.. and the rest are pretty well bred identical., and I can take them all back b/w 12-15 generations, back to a pair of 1/2 sister ewes born in 1963.  Within this one BIG family, I have created many 'sub' familes.  I linebreed to the extreme in my flock, and have done about every cross imaginable.  We flock is where we want them, big framed, easy keeping, and eye appealing.  No one on here cares about sheep, or knows anything about them.. but genetics and history are hard to beat for the buffs. 

Now both of those are neat to read for me. I am seriously thinking about running sheep with my cows to help make some more money from the farm.  You want to sell some sheep the truth? I have been lookin at the hair sheep deal in Virginia. No shearing needed on those types.

 

[Okotoks]

After I posted a photo on the COWS thread I realised one of the cows in the photo was a direct descendent of another cow in a 1988 winter scene. In the top photo the big red cow on the right is Diamond Super Dottie 9H, a daughter of Mandalong Super Flag. In the second photo the centre roan cow is Butterfield Dottie 7P a daughter of Eionmor Ideal 61M. Dottie 7P is a direct descendant of 9H, five generations later.9H is 12 years old in the 1988 photo. 7P's grand dam produced until she was 14 and her great grandam until she was 16.The cow on the left in the second photo is also a Mandalong Super Flag daughter only born 27 years later! Eionmor Ideal 61M is a direct descendant of Mandalong Super Flag on the top side. He has six crosses of Flag in his pedigree. 7P is in calf to Mandalong Super Flag.
On a side note 9H is from the first group of cows I ever AI'd. My Dad and I took an AI course in Kansas way back and I AI'd some cows at Cecil Staple's Diamond herd.

 

[kfacres]

Now both of those are neat to read for me. I am seriously thinking about running sheep with my cows to help make some more money from the farm.  You want to sell some sheep the truth? I have been lookin at the hair sheep deal in Virginia. No shearing needed on those types.

we run our sheep and cows in the same pasture.  1 cow eats about as much as 5 ewes I'd say, if not more.  But the good thing is they don't eat the same things.  a sheep won't touch fescue, they'd lay there and starve to death...  so if you have below average pastures, or really good ones, I'd highly suggest it.  Sheep are more clover, (legume) and weed type oriented.  Some of our best looking sheep are on white clover pasture.  I realize that's not great, but it's what grows naturly.  Our cows are fescue, and sometimes clover and we do have a little blue grass in one pasture....  but mostly fescue.  As far as I know, they're parasites are different.  Our only concern comes with mineral, as sheep are highly toxic to copper.  We have to watch this, or just give the cows sheep mineral.  Another nice thing about sheep, you only build your fences to the water's edge.  this doesn't do much good for cows, but it works great for sheep. 

we sell lots of sheep in a year, even though we aren't a huge operation.  I counted the other day, and I've only got 5 ewes that have not produced a stud ram- 3 of which have never had a ram lamb, and 2 of which have only lambed once or twice.  I think I've only got 1 'old' ewe left that I have not kept a ewe lamb out of either- she's had twin ram lambs ever year- she's 8!  I'd say we have 50-60 ewes total, somewhere in there, and I forget, but for two years in a row, I have sold 20 plus stud rams.  Due to a string of bad luck, I have lost some of my old-y gold-y ewes this year.  One 8 year old has just declining in health for a year, and just passed on this summer, and the other ewe we lost last week to a freak deal; as we were vaccinating ewes prior to lambing here in a month, and she got trampled in the doorway of the barn.  Freak deal...  Anyways, both of those ewes are mothers of stud rams that we are currently useing.  As well as both of them are mothers of something else in my flock.  Check out our website- www.kfacres.webs.com  or my email [email protected]  we can talk further.  Come on down, we'll show you some shit-horns, and some sheep!!

Now about the hair sheep deal...  we took 10 ewes, and 2 baby ewel ambs out to my 80+ year old friend in DesMoines Iowa, 4 years ago to "just keep the lots mowed down".  We purchased his flock of Oxfords (been the the family since 1929 atleast), and he was going to rent his pastures out to the cattleman, but needed something to keep the weeks down.  We thought Katahdins would be a great fit...  no shearing, no tail docking, not much work for an old guy who's going down hill (the due take of selling out of the oxfords)  Within two years, we was back up to 40 ewes on these sheep he loves them so much.  they do everything, he does nothing.  He has averaged almost 300% lamb crop, and tfor the last 3 years one ewe has had quads.  She raised 3 the first year (one born dead), 3 the second year (Tom pulled one off for a bottle), and the last year she raised all 4, as tom said they'll either live or die, he's to old to have a bottle lamb. 

 

[kfacres]

One of the buck lambs that we used this fall, which is about as hard as we've ever used a buck lamb..  should appeal to several cattleman- especially on this topic.  He's a super thick, stout, good built lamb, that comes from an excellent ewe family.  His mother actually just died last week, at 8 to a freak accident.  There was no sign in her life, that I would expect her not to live post 10 years.  Her mother was a 10 year old ewe, when she was born, the mother before that was also 10, and her mother was 9.  So that's 40 plus years of breeding history and background on this lamb's short pedigree, but I can still take this pedigree back to '63. Now you must realize, that a 10 year old ewe, is equvilent to about a 15 year old cow.  For 7 generations, nothing but 1, are homebred sires as well.  This isn't the first stud ram that this ewe of ours has produced...  She's never had a buck lamb that didn't get turned into a stud ram, and this one is number 5.  I always thought I'd keep more ewe lambs from her, but now that she's dead, I wish I would have.  I guess that just means I'll be visiting my customers, and buying her her granddaughters.  

This lamb is sired by a ram, that we do not own, as the breed leader (equal to SULL in Shorthorns, Express in Angus, CCC in Sim) produced him, from one of our ewes, and owed us 4 breedings to him.  So the daddy of our ram lamb, is only 1/2 outcross.  He combines our two of our best sub-ewe families (gold (produces all the stud rams) & marroon (old school pedigrees))  The only sub-ewe family that this ram doesn't have in him is the pinks...  They are the 'keeper females', rarely ever having a male born... always females.  I bet you can guess who what color was a large % of the ewes that we bred this buck lamb too?  This ram's 1/4 outcross is there to inject size mainly into our genetic mix.  I already have a daughter of the outcross ram (silver tagged ewe family), so I know those genetics can, and will click with our stuff.  

Another thing that I really like about this ram lamb's pedigree, goes hand in hand with being an older generational one.. is that he only possess one shot of a ram called "Turbo".  "Turbo" is a buck that we are actually getting too much in our pedigrees with linebreeding.  As I've already stated, we linebreed to the extreme, and last lambing season, we had several lambs born that had 12 shots of Turbo within say 5 or 6 (mabye 7 without lookiing it up) generations.  I've kinda needing some good quality outcross blood, but as many of you know, that's almost imposible to find- in any species.  I think that this buck could be the ticket.  

The gold tagged ewe sub-family is based off of 4 maternal sisters- (2 sets of twin sisters).  These 4 ewes (or their offspring) have produced somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 stud rams across the country.  Keep in mind that our registration for our breed in 2009 was only 1334, and transfers were 589.  So we aren't a huge breed.  Our pink tags, hardly ever have ram lambs, but I think I've only ever sold one female from it as well, maybe 2.  

I will be collecting this ram within the next few weeks, whenever I can get an appointment for Interglobe to come down.  

Just for snots and giggle, I'll put a picture of him on here. 

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

Very interesting. Have you had any regression from your lambs being so tightly inbred? I like how your thinking with your breeding. To say you have gotten my wheels turning is a understatement lol. Thanks for the good posts! <beer> I will be in touch.