bass ackwards heterosis...

[blackjack]

...whiteface... also agree with your last post...I even have some of those whitefaces...bought 30 good herdford range cows in 93...still have 22 and they still have decent feet,eyes and bags...lol...have several of their daughters in the herd today...
this past fall bought some 3rd and 4th calving white charolais ave. wt. 1450...backgrounding my own calves... I like kpb want the growing capabilities of an exotic cross...

[cowman]

Or you can take it one step further and use an F1 female of two maternal breeds and breed that to a terminal breed. Not really that hard to do as there are always some guys who want to breed quality baldies?
Or a novel idea? AI the top 40% of your cows to a maternal breed. Breed the rest to a terminal breed and clean up the AI cows with the terminal bull. Sell all the terminal calves and keep the AI heifers? Switch AI breeds every couple of years and you will be able to maintain a crossbred cow herd...which is way superior to a straightbred herd.
Sure would be nice if they could come up with sexed semen wouldn't it? At one time there was quite a bit of work going on sexing semen but haven't heard anything lately?
Just think you could AI your best cows to have maternal heifers and all the rest to have crossbred terminal steers! Now that might just perk up the old AI business!

[whiteface]

I always thought I had some pretty good herefords...listened closely to what the buyers were asking for and more to the point what they would actually pay for. Living in this high rent district of Alberta and just my concieted nature wanted as much for my calves as I was capable of genetically engineering...and the only way to get that is not a sales pitch but actually making for the customer what they demand...they know what they want. I've stayed purebred for a couple of reasons, the biggest one being the ego maniac that I am, I enjoy showing, keeping track of pedigrees, studying closely the lines that work and ones that don't and believe it or not, haveing sold bulls and now groups of females into commercial and sometimes "straight bred" herds of different breeds and seeing the results of what you all were talking about F1 calves off my purebred cows is stunning beyond belief. A lot of reward for me comeing from that sector in the last few years. I guess that's been my biggest awakening in the battle of the breeds, that even though I think my cattle are pretty good, can they ever do a lot better with a little "help" from an exotic mix while still being safe to work around, gentle on chutes and other equipment and economical to keep as well. Got a call from a man in Saskatchewan yesterday who has bought several groups of females and has had his neighbors over recently that "can't beleive those are straight-bred herefords." He looks like a hero haveing taken a chance on those whitefaces in straight-exotic grain country. There's good and bad in every breed, the goal is to bring the best out of what your breed offers and try to clean up the crap that they are bad for.
Like the bad eyes, bad feet, bad udders and the dreaded prolapse in herefords...
There still is some of that around, just some of us work our behinds off to win back our valued customers.
Thanks for the vote of confidence you guys and have a good day!

[rkaiser]

Good stuff Whitey!

[greybeard]

Redcountry, I had a similar experience with purebred/crossbred Tarantese about 15 years ago when Tarantese were hot (maybe warm? ). I went to a production sale at Big M at Alameda. They had some nice looking crossbred heifers going for $1450 when the Purebred run of the mill females were selling for $1100. The old ranchers loved what the Tarantese did for the Herefords bag, but they could hardly get 2 bids on the purebreds. I brought some of both home and soon realized I paid too much for the cheaper purebreds.
Like whiteface says, they were hard doing cattle.Way too milky. The buyers wouldn’t pay for the calves. I’m sure they got a few phone calls from the feedlots when those Tarantese looking calves came off the truck. They soon bid accordingly, and I’m sure those calves went to the places that feed cheaper second and third cut cattle. It took me a while to figure out I was supplying something the customer didn’t want. It wasn’t the order buyers trying to steal them, the feedlots didn’t want them.