How high are live cattle going to go? & land

[ALLFARMER]

Good morning Grassfarmer and all

Last year we calved out 120 blacks and I pulled 1. To me that makes it a fact Black Angus = easy calving.

Dad used to run Tan's and we were pulling at least 30 percent. I am sure dad's bull had the wrong birth weight and calving in -30 was to me just plain nuts.

The only regret I have about selling the cows was my 1000lb 205 days weight Hereford bull...only used on cows. That sets back my little experiment on crossing him with my black cows. His birth weight was 90lbs so I should have kept the easy calving.

Cattlemen had an article a while back where a family from saskatchewan were calving something like 400 black angus and they checked them at calving in the morning before work and after work they tagged the new calves and fed up.
He worked in sales at a JD dealer, she had a 30 year career with Sask Tel So great careers didn't want to quit. I don't recall the birthing death rate, I am sure there was the odd calf that needed the mouth uncovered but I am also sure not overly high.

To me olefarms.com has it right, calve 1800 black's in May and swath graze most of the winter!

[grassfarmer]

Allfarmer, Maybe you need to work on a multi-factor decision making process that allows you to truly compare the differing contributing factors before coming to a decision? Condemning charolais because your Dad used a high birtweight bull in a winter calving situation while praising Angus because they worked last year in a later spring calving situation is not a valid conclusion.
With breed selection in Charolais having focused on calving ease and in the Angus on maximising growth rate over the last decade the point is fast approaching when the Charolais will be the more predictably easy calving breed. You can't have it all as some breeds suggest - for every selection practice there is a consequence. The consequences of selecting for increased growth, mature size and yield will lead to higher birthweight despite what a breed association might tell you in advertising.

[ALLFARMER]

I totally agree.

[greybeard]

I think you just took over top spot for sweeping generalizations GF.
The great thing about Angus is there are still some breeders who have been breeding convenience cattle for generations.
If the white guy was breeding terminal growth 10 years ago where did all those birth weight problems go? Did he cull all those cows or just breed the numbers down.
I see some simmi bulls advertising some attractive calving ease but the growth is below average too.
Why swim against the current. Still time to go with the flow.

[kato]

By below average growth for a Simmi, do you mean average for the breed? A below average Simmi or Char could very well still be well above an above average Angus.

We buy several hundred calves at a time and background them. We get all breeds. We've seen black calves that have done very well, and we've seen black calves that have just spun their wheels. This is the biggest problem. Inconsistancy.

For instance, we've kept back the lightest nineteen of the batch we've just sold, and they are predominantly black, and a couple of rwf. They were within 25 pounds of each other coming in, and overall, by the time we'd put 150 days on them, there was a weight range from 900 pounds down to 475. This is over 200 calves. I don't care how little a lighter calf eats, you can't make money owning him for five months when he only gains 75 pounds.

We also went to a sale yesterday and bought two more Charolais bulls. What we saw at that sale was the bulls with high actual birthweights and high birthweight epd's were discounted, and the bulls with lower performance were discounted. That left the high sellers in the category of having calving ease and performance both. That's what's been going on the the Charolais breed over the past 10 years.

We're not worried about going with any flow. We'll stick with what's working on our particular operation. That's what everyone should do. Find what works for you, and let everyone else do what works for them.