Plenty money around?

[whiteface]

I like the Charolais quite a bit also cowman, and I also agree with the crossbreeding thing for maximum efficiency, heterosis and weight gain. I will however, in my concieted ways, continue with purebred cattle since I love showing, travelling, meeting new people with the same interests, at times meeting someone famous (Randy Owen and Booby Hull who both dabble in purebred herefords have also both signed autographs for me during my travels) and the best part for me is when my bull is chosen as the high seller or show champion and everyone claps...
I just don't get enough of that...
I'd put a white bull on my whiteface cows in a minute if I just needed to have good cattle, but it's a little more than that for me.
You still need to crossbreed cowman and I'm not convinced the Angus way is the most popular anymore. The buckskins are still the highest sellers at any market. Are you getting the "right kind" of buckskins using an Angus bull? Just asking. Alot of Red Angus will still throw you some grey and mousey colored calves that the buyers will find any excuse to discount you for when a hereford will get you the tell-tale white head or a red factor Charolais will breed a true red color into your calves that a red angus might not. Just my opinion.
Good luck and have a good day! Don't stop posting to me I still look forward to all your comments!

[ALICIA]

The best cross bred program is Hereford X Charolais. You get the buckskin colour I'd say every time, With the extra bone that every one seems to want.
I'm like you I'll take meat, with some fat for flavour every time over a longer leg bone with no meat on it.

[kato]

We bought a pure Hereford cow many years ago at a bred cow sale. She raised a pretty nice Hereford calf that weighed 450 pounds at weaning. Next year same cow, same kind of year for pasture, white bull, and the calf was exactly 100 pounds bigger. We kept that cow for quite a few years and she kept right on producing even better calves than the first two.

We've got a white herd of cows too, but breed most Limo, except the top ones that we breed Char to get replacement heifers from. We like that cross. They calf easy and even the heifers can outperform many steers in the feedlot.

We've been looking with interest at Gelbvieh too. We have heard however, that the Gelbvieh can have issues with losing baby teeth a little young, where Limo's keep theirs for a long time.

Anyone here have experience with Char/Gelbvieh?

[whiteface]

What are the consequenses of losing baby teeth "too early?" compared to later. I have never heard of that before. Have a good night all.

[grassfarmer]

I think the biggest drawback is you can't sneak the slow growers through as under 30 months on mouthing inspection.
LOL

[grassfarmer]

kato you will find that the Limo cross muscle a lot better than the Gelveih cross, although the Gelvieh are great maternal cows.
Limo calves are up and going at birth thats for sure. I have a whole bunch of them ready to calve in a couple of weeks, so the Limo breed is dear to my heart although I don't have single vision when it comes to cattle color !

[rkaiser]

Hay whiteface, -----Who the hull is Booby Hull. I've been to a few strip joints but never got her autograph yet.

[rkaiser]

Hay whiteface, -----Who the hull is Booby Hull. I've been to a few strip joints but never got her autograph yet.

[cowsense]

Cowman- We get along quite well selling Herefords both as feeders and as replacement females. Our customers feel they can control their maintenance costs better with British cows and have a good base to crossbreed with! We've also had bull customers buy bulls to breed char heifers and report that their buckskin calves are outweighing and outselling their white calves out of their cows! Shows that hybrid vigour works!

[cswilson]

Gelv/Char cows would be too big my bulls would be afraid of them lol.WE ran chars for 30 plus years here but any limos or guppies we had were wild as mountain scenery.

[whiteface]

Very funny, kaiser, you ready fer yer sale yet??!!

[rkaiser]

Will be as soon as cswilson decides which dozen he plans on buying.

Cory - I give up on this email pictures crap. Send me your adress and I will go out and do a video of the cows this afternoon and mail it to you.

Randy

[kpb]

grassfarmer and rkaiser, do you guys think that Soderglen makes money on their sale? Just wondering--I've been to their sale a few times and their overhead must be fantastic. I know they get big prices for their animals but most purebred guys I know don't have that sort of huge overhead that Soderglen does. I know there was big oil money behind it but as a stand alone operation I'm curious to know if you guys think a large, capital intensive purebred operation makes money.

[rkaiser]

Have you ever heard of their CREDIT program kpb. Once you buy one bull from Soderglen, it's pretty hard not to come back. I'm just guessing, but I would say that at least $1000.00 of their average is due to this credit program.

As far as making money, good question, but the bottom line is they don't need to make money from the cattle. Land in their area is worth mega bucks, and inflation is rampant.

I do respect Scott and Elan for the tight ship they run, and you have to give them some credit for producing a consistant and pretty darn good product.

They don't hurt the industry, but the world of Soderglen is not the same world as most ranchers in Canada.

If you could take a look at their buyers list their would be a lot of Oil money boys their as well.

Sure does create conversation though doen't it.

[grassfarmer]

I would agree Randy, Scott and Elan do a great job - but they get quite a bit of help by not being financially limited. I note that they have expanded their operation by buying 3 ranches south of SW of Cardston which will summer 1000 cows. That's the stuff dreams are made of - imagine what that cost?