Hill Breed question?

[cowman]

My grandfather, on my mom's side, was a die hard Hereford man as well. As late as the late 60's early 70's he was still wintering cows on piles of chaff collected behind the self propelled combine. It never hurt his herd one bit, however, when the only upstart grandson cattleman in the family suggested a bit of Angus influence.
WITHOUT running down any breed, I will only say that numbers do not mean quality. Yes people follow trends, and stories like these about Herefords and Angus will always keep them up in numbers, and give people choice in numbers.

The best I can figure, our freind cswilson must be a US cattleman.Made a trip to Billings last fall and stopped for a beer in a little roadside bar just east of Great Falls Montana. 7 triaxle pots came down from the hills loaded with calves bound for the mid west feedlot belt. We were told this was one family ranch selling most of their steers for the year. I could imagine this ranch looking for 30 some 1/2 brothers.

One last point about the hill breeds to consider. We had a mainly Angus commercial herd when I decided that the next step in my carrer was to enter the purebred fold. If I were to have jumped on the "BUY THE POPULAR" purebred animals, in any large numbered breed, I don't suspect I would still be in the business. I bought my first cows, and crossbred my commercial herd with animals that never cost me an arm and a leg. They still don't cost the young folks that I sell to, an arm and a leg. And I am proud of the fact that I can start new young enthusiastic cattlemen off with their dreams knowing it will not cut into their standard of living.
As for the price of Quality. The same.
Our top end bulls are every bit as good as any other breed (numbers limited cswilson) and command less than our neighbors crossbreds. Tell me that is not a human "marketing" issue.

Happy Easter to you too cakadu. Having lamb for dinner are we?

[cswilson]

Well RP I'm as far away from the U.S. as you can be in Saskatchewan and still run cows 450 miles north of border and there are ranches up here that would like groups of halfbrothers. My connection to the U.S. is up until the border closing I sold all my breeding bulls into Wyoming plus I order bought bulls for U.S. ranchers. To answer the tough task of finding large groups of related bulls aloit of guys are just raising their own. A.I. ing a large group of their better cows to one bull then keeping a set of bull calves.

[cswilson]

I must be getting old lol-when cowman asked about how galloways perform in the feedlot I forgot I'd fed a poen of them once 1/2 Char-1/2 Galloway from Ballantyne's-this was in the days before grids and such but from what I recall they performed pretty well. I've got a friend raising here/gall black baldie cows and using south devon as the terminal cross seems to be working pretty well.