At the risk of starting a big brawl.....

[SADIE]

Because of repeated availablity we selected the Red Angus/Simmental F1 animal.

(Angus bull on Fleck simmental cows) Not the reverse (Simmental Bull on Red angus cows). we can see the difference in the two by trial and error.

To these F1 animals (basically they are the universal female) Any breed of bull can now cross with this animal and things will work well.

We choose away from the third breed---at this time and breed the f1 cows back to Purebred Angus bull focusing on Performance type of genetics and not just ease of calving genetics that the angus breed at this time is well noted for.

The progeny produced off our operation is 1/4 simm 3/4 angus calves. They are all sold off the farm as feeder steers (growthy and in demand) and (open heifers sold in the spring grass market).

Keeping my own heifers in my herd and breeding again angus ones herd will soon result in the shorter, high angus influence animal that Kato ranch is possibly experiencing. SOmewhere along the line one has to choose a third breed IMHO.

Different stokes for different folks.

[kato]

Our approach with our own cow herd is to stick with what works. And that equation does not include Angus here. We have had two black cows that we bought after BSE, due to breds being worth less than calves. One is gone, and the other one is on the "hit list". Her calf, off the Limo bull, is OK, but she's a horrible thing to work with when she calves. I will be glad to see her get on a truck.

Our herd is based on Charolais, other than a couple of odds and ends that we picked up like those two blacks. We only keep Char replacements. We breed them either Char or Limo, but this year we brought in four new Char bulls and got rid of four Limos. Within a year, the only Limo will likely be a heifer bull.

We've been noticing that the discount of white calves and premium for the blacks has disappeared, at least in Manitoba. Maybe feedlots are seeing the same rate of gain issues that our backgrounding operation has???

I guess our approach comes from living through the high interest rates and droughts of the 80's. The lessons we learned then were...

1.Time is money. When you've had a 20% operating loan, you learn that real quick. By the time our neighbour's calves are hitting the pasture for their yearling year, ours are likely in a grocery store somewhere.

2.If you're going to be short of feed, you'd better have some calves in the fall that you can sell, otherwise you're looking at losing some money.

I guess if we had a large land base with a bunch of pasture and lots of time we could go another route, but for our farm, this is what works.

I think the pendulum has swung a little too far the other way from what it was, and needs to come back to the center some. As has been said here, balance is the key, and it wouldn't take too much to correct the issue.