Ketchup arrived

[redcountry]

The bull we bought feb 18 on tean auction arrived today, none the worse for his travel.

We were a little taked back by his size!
I'm going to take a picture of him next to Whylie our charlois bull.

This buying a bull thousands of miles away has had its moments.I will say Mr.Kaiser has tried to make it as good as possible.

Now the proof will be in the next calf crop he has some stiff competiton with Whylie (char) lucky, larry, and glenn (limo) and no our limo's are not crazy or hard to handle.

There was a another bull and eight heifers from sask. on the same truck as ketchup arrived on, all semm's and verrry nice looking animals,
maybe the start of better east/ west relations.

regards Art

[cowman]

Just curious what does it cost to ship cattle that far?

[WoolyBear]

"we were a little taken back about his size"

Was he bigger or small than you had thought?

[redcountry]

It cost $600. to get him to ontario and $150.from ont to PEI.

A little smaller than we were used to, he came on the same truck as a yearling semmi and he was the smallest of the two, we took a little ribbing but we will see how his calves look.

[grassfarmer]

I'm happy he was smaller than you expected not bigger. These "smaller" breed cattle tend to look that way only because their legs are shorter. What's the point of extra height? it gives you six inches of extra daylight under the belly which doesn't weigh, you can't sell and can't eat!
We weighed some bred Luing heifers the other day - coming up to calving at 2 years. They look small but averaged over 1150lbs - we still have a lot to do on the genetic downsizing front!

[redcountry]

thats why we got this bull its hard to get our semmi/limo steers to finish under 1500lbs,

[cowman]

Grassfarmer: I do agree with you on the leg thing. The most important selection tool we had in the eighties was the old tape measure! Of course the theory floating around then was the taller the animal the more frame size and thus the more meat you could pack on that frame? But a funny think happened...the taller they got the less wide they got! And the smaller a gut got...to which the experts of the day replied "less waste at slaughter"! Unfortunately they started to look more and more like a Holstein every year! But if you raised them short you never sold any bulls!
Practically every mainline breed chased the "taller is better" fad and it ruined a lot of useful breeds. I would say chasing inches ruined the Hereford breed without a doubt and the polled herefords were worse than the horned cattle.

[cowman]

Red Country:I find it kind of amazing that it cost $600 to ship to Ontario but only $150 to PEI from Ontario?
Now not real scientific here but looking at my map of Canada the distance from Ponoka Alberta to mid point Ontario is about the same distance from Ontario to PEI?
I would think that kind of advantage in freight would definitely give an Ontario breeder a distinct advantage? It would be interesting to see how much it might cost to ship him the other way...PEI to Ontario? I wonder if the bill would still be $150?
Now maybe there is a reasonable explantion for this or something like he was shipped on a boat or someting and maybe that is a lot cheaper?

[redcountry]

when we ship cattle to better beef gualph ont they charge by the lb.
to pickup and return its a flat rate.

the to ont shipping was arranged by the seller.

[rkaiser]

Had a bit of a hiccup on the trucking thing. A handshake deal turned a bit sour, but we are going to help Art out with the problem. Seems that most folks can deal with a handshake, but there are still a few who can't help themselves.

Glad to hear that things are looking good Art. Just got back from Regina tonight where we dropped three to a fellow who could not have been happier. Kept talking about the thickness and the moderate size as well. Turned a lot of heads this year, and found some boys with some major numbers. The last five bulls I dropped off had herds to deal with that numbered over 3000 cows in total. I guess if they are happy, we'll have to talk cowman in to starting up a purebred herd of his own.

[grassfarmer]

Holy crap, Randy I'd better have another look at these black bulls - even 5 Luing bulls couldn't handle 3000 cows!

[grassfarmer]

Well, Randy, if you can supply bulls that will breed that many cows, more power to you !!!!!!!!!! LOL !!!

grassfarmer, I checked out your site last evening. Interesting info, I didn't know much about Luing cattle but glad I checked it out .