What Simmental bull for commercial cows?

[kiblercattle]

If a person wanted to use a Simmental or sim angus bull on shorthorn angus cross cows with the hopes of making good docile commercial cows. What would it be? my preference would be to keep the simmi down to 1/4 to 1/3 in the resulting calves.

 

[Lucky_P]

Would be hard to beat Hooks Shear Force 38K. 
We've been using several Shear Force sons & grandsons over SimAngus and ANxSH cows.  Like what I've been getting, and docilities are good.

Last year's calf crop was mostly by PRS Blazin' Hot W192... heifers are nice, and he put white faces back in the mix.  Too soon to tell how they're gonna be as cows.
Previous 2 year's SM calves were mainly by Long's Shear Pleasure(3/4SM-1/4AN).  Very docile,and they're looking good as bred heifers.
Oldest producing cows,since we came back to the Simmental side, are a couple each by Dikeman's Sure Bet and Triple C Singletary.

Sure Bet may be the best balanced bull out there - not the highest WW epd available, but better than a lot of the ones that seem to show up behind show winners;  good calving ease, great docility, moderate milk, great marbling/ribeye/tenderness.  I'd go back to him again in a minute if the farm manager wasn't all about high WW and white faces, right now.

SimAngus... I'd probably go for SDS Graduate 006X - a 5/8SM Shear Force son out of an ALC Big Eye daughter.  More calving ease than you need for cows, but should leave some really nice, docile daughters that'll produce calves with good carcass traits.  Was looking to buy a Graduate son in a recent bull sale, but he failed his BSE.

 

[KOcattle]

I just bred some commercial cows to WS Hot Beef x38 for pretty much the same purpose and hopefully turn them into recips in a couple years. He is a purebred Hooks Shear Force grandson. Top 1% of the breed for milk, maternal weaning weight, marbling, rib eye area, shr, and TI. Top 2% for API, and top 5% for docility. As well as top 30% for maternal calving ease.

 

[Lucky_P]

Hot Beef had been on my short list to use this year, but SVF Allegiance got the nod from the boss for all the high% SM and baldy cows in the spring herd - she's on a white face/baldy kick - and I'll admit that I do appreciate something other than solid black cows. 
Have some partial canes of Triple C Bettis, WS All In, and CLS AfterShock that we'll be using on a few heifers, just to clear inventory in the tank.
There's a lot to like about Hot Beef... and, IIRC, he's hetero-black, so you could get some good red cows out of those SH-cross cows. 

 

[KOcattle]

There's a lot to like about Hot Beef... and, IIRC, he's hetero-black, so you could get some good red cows out of those SH-cross cows.

He is hetero black. His sire WS Beef Maker is a red bull. For me it doesn't matter much on the commercial cows. The cows that got bred to him range from red to baldies/ brockle face cows to solid black.

For heifers I kind of like the look of W/C cash in 43B, a baldie sure bet son. But, if your worried about WW he's probably not going to do much for you, much like his sire.

 

[kiblercattle]

I like what I have seen with a sim x shorthorn x angus. Thought it maybe a good cross to try I am still in the pondering stages. My dad runs a bunch of cows and when he got there they were using sim angus bulls on a angus hereford x cows. Everytime we brand, the cows we sort off a big percentage are those blaze faced simmi looking cows that don't show up with a calf and that's something I definitely don't want to start.

 

[kiblercattle]

Anyone have any experience with gw-wbf substance 820y he looks like a good bull. I am not a fan of the Gardiner angus in his pedigree tho.

 

[JTM]

Kibler, I think Lucky P is onto something with Hook's Shear Force. I have heard great things about Hooks Trinity 9T who is a Shear Force son. He has done great things for Leachman's of Colorado. Also, I have a bull I got from Leachman's that is derived from these same bulls that I would definitely recommend to use. I am already using my bull Leachman Apostle U021B on Shorthorn x Angus crossbred cows and he is working unbelievably. They came super easy at an average of 77 lbs. but are growing like calves we have never seen before. Very attractive cattle too. I think we will see a lot more out of Apostle in years to come. Feel free to message me if you have questions.
Apostle is Homozygous Black and Homozygous Polled also.
He is available through the Leachman Semen Cooperative.