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Post by chuckie on Aug 29, 2020 19:02:36 GMT -6
I know that most cattle people know this, but I wanted to share this with those that might just be getting into starting a herd. When you are searching for a good herd bull, make sure that he is masculine enough to have developed a crested/ large neck. When a bull begins to grow, if he is masculine enough, that will develop. That masculinity is passed on to his offspring. But when you just see a fat bull that looks like an over developed cow, with no large hump, he is not going to throw replacement heifers and bulls majority of the time. You can retain them, but they are not going to produce calves like you really need to improve your herd. I have had several bulls and there were two that stand out above the others. They had very large humps, and the more masculine they are, they are cow makers. I had another that had a hump on his neck, but he was smaller than what I wanted. But he did make good cows. The bull that I have now, is really big; very large boned and very correct in the legs. He walks out like a horse, stepping with the hind foot in the same print as the front hoof. But he does not have the big hump. Each bull calf that he has produced, look good for steers, but they do not have the massive shoulders that I like. The more masculine bulls have produced very smooth cows from their head to their rumps. Very large spring of ribs and no dips at the heart girth or the flank. No bony backs or rumps. I would like to go back to the sale, and make a different selection now. Not a single bull calf has a crested neck from this bull. I was trying to find a good bull this last time that was very large boned with correct legs. It just seemed that I could not check off everything that I wanted on a bull. I had to trade off a really good trait for super masculinity. There was one that I really liked but he was going past $7,000. My replacement herd is small and I did not want to sink that much into a bull. Here are two of the bulls that I owned that were really great producers. The first one was out of Leachman's Boomtime. I liked every calf he had. The second one was out of TC Total 410. He produced bulls and cows as well as the first one. I will see if I have a picture on another computer of the bull I have now. But here are the ones that did the best job for replacements. Boomer  TC when he was about 16 mons old.  TC in 2nd year  Bull calf out of TC in 2014 which is a herd sire now at one of the farms. Here he is a little over 12 months old  |
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Post by franklinridgefarms on Aug 30, 2020 16:30:34 GMT -6
Good advice, I have noticed that across the spectrum of breeds bulls with masculinity are somewhat hard to come by.
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Post by ebenezer on Aug 31, 2020 6:42:25 GMT -6
Good advice, I have noticed that across the spectrum of breeds bulls with masculinity are somewhat hard to come by. The quest for marbling has a cost. So does ignoring Bonsma. |
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Post by chuckie on Aug 31, 2020 7:39:15 GMT -6
Frandlindridgefarms, I think the big breeders are just putting every male calf in the sale. They are not going through the calf crop and picking out the ones that will give their farm the reputation of having the best bulls. They see the dollar signs, and run them all through.
You can make a really fat heavy steer quality bull, that looks good, but he is not going to produce.
When I had the crested necked bulls, I had a few bulls for sale as we did not need one at the other farms at the time. I did not have them over priced, but people did not want to pay more for these that I had picked out. They started asking about the steer quality bulls instead. Here, the young bulls sell for the same amount as the steers do, do I do not cut them.
I tried to explain to them that they would not be happy with the calves they would get from these calves as the traits they had received from the bull were not the same as the ones that stood with the large necks. I knew if I sold them one of the steer quality calves as a bull, they would be bad mouthing my herd as that bull would not give them much to brag about.
I told them that the ones that built up more could change their cow herd in the future to produce more cows and calves in the future for a better herd. They said I was talking like an extension agent and it did not sink in when they had heard it before. So, ........
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Post by chuckie on Aug 31, 2020 12:31:11 GMT -6
I meant to add, that next time I start trying to pick out a herd bull, the first trait he is going to have is a nice crested neck, then I will find the best one I can afford.
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Post by randy on Sept 2, 2020 9:19:41 GMT -6
I always look for a bull that looks like a bull early in life. When you see a new calf for the first time and you know it is a bull calf before you get close he will almost always make a good bull.
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Post by bulltrader on Sept 2, 2020 16:51:41 GMT -6
I always look for a bull that looks like a bull early in life. When you see a new calf for the first time and you know it is a bull calf before you get close he will almost always make a good bull. An old man once told me to not buy a bull with a cow head or a cow with a bull head. I think he was right. Buy a bull that looks like a bull as Randy says |
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Post by 76bar on Sept 3, 2020 8:32:58 GMT -6
I'm partial to baby bull calves that growl like lions & determinedly attempt to hump every hot cow.  |
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Post by chuckie on Oct 7, 2020 11:23:43 GMT -6
I wanted to post a picture of the bull that I am speaking about above. I like everything about this bull except for the lack of the hump that rises above his body and it flows down over his shoulders down to the top of his back toward his girth. I will say that this is the largest boned bull that I have ever owned and the last one was huge. The thickness of his legs and his body is outstanding. His hip bones are so wide; I just cannot believe he falls short of being all that he could have been. He walks straight at an arrow and steps with his rear hoof right into the front hoof track. He will be 4 years old this fall. Right now he is a 1.0 frame. I know that 99% of the people here on the forum know this, but when a new person is looking for a bull, and they are led to their neighbors cattle looking for a bull. more often than not, you are just getting a heavier cow. He will look more like a bull than the cows, but his masculinity will not allow the babies he has to develop into the extra weight you need for the sale barn, nor will he pass the genes you need to retain heifers for your replacements. You are just going backwards when you retain his calves. Even though you pay more for a bull with the masculinity, you will gain the money back in the price of your calves and the replacement heifers will keep it coming. It changes your whole herd. Notice on this bull, that his neck does not rise with the muscle starting right behind his ears. He does have a nice bull head. In my eyes, that hump should look extremely obvious when he is young. There are so many pounds that come with that cape of muscling, and if he has that kind of masculinity, he will make replacement heifers. Occasionally, a bull with a huge hump will just not reproduce the genetics they are born with. I think that is why often we see a new bull come on the market and the semen catalogs push them, then they fall out of sight the following year. I will say that I have four cows here that are capable of pulling off top cattle. It seems no matter the bull, I get a good replacement heifer. My best cow Nell, always has my best calf. With the others, if the bull is not a producer, then the cows produce something I send on down the road. Nell is also the cow that finally had a heifer that I was so excited about getting she is 12 years old and I don't know how much longer she will produce. That long awaited heifer died this summer as she got her head stuck between two pieces of metal, and laid down when it happened. It was just a freak accident. All she had to do was pick her head up a few inches and she would have been fine. That section was removed so that it would not happen again. All these years it had never happened. Here is the bull that I have now. Notice when you compare the two bulls together, how much more weight is added with the hump and cape of muscle on the second bull. I am going to swap him out with a bull at the other farm that I raised to see if he can make the difference. I will post a picture of him when I get him moved. After posting the pictures, you will have to enlarge the photo of Atlas to see his head as well.   |
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Post by chuckie on Nov 25, 2020 20:58:16 GMT -6
I was reading about bulls, and had never heard this before, and found it interesting. This is the site that I found this: bovineengineering.com/NL_fertile_bull.html HEAD One of the most desirable features one should look for first is the coarseness of the hair about the head, face and neck of the bull. The hair shafts should be coarse in appearance and touch. Looking closely you will notice the hair per square inch is moderate in amount. You will notice the hair is generally all in a downward direction except over the eyes. COARSE & CURLY HAIR Exhibition of coarse and curly hair about the head, face and neck of the bull assures the looker of the highest degree of fertility. As the bull matures and reaches his highest sperm production the hair will become more tightly curled. Test the curly hair by pulling a curl straight and it will return to the tight curl. This bull will settle (get the cows pregnant) 80% to 90% of his cows in the first 21 days of the breeding season. This bull live count should be in the 80-90 percent live range. If you collect and freeze semen on this bull you will get a 10-15 percent reduction in conception because of the stress in the freezing process. This bull will be the most likely candidate to produce sons when mated to great cows that will replace himself. This bull can lend himself to the cow to allow her to express herself. This bull will be the most likely candidate for building your future in the cattle industry. Seed stock or commercial. Then I found this in the same article concerning the crested neck at an early age, in the same article: The crest is a masculine feature that increases in size as the bull matures. However for the young prospective herd bull prospect he must have a heavy crest started at 12-14 months of age and a short neck. The bull that does not have a nice crest started at 12 months in most cases will have a small scrotal and will be a low fertility bull. He most often will not become the kind of herd bull needed for great progeny. If a bull develops a fertility problem (reduction in testosterone & semen production) the crest will began a gradual decrease in size. You will notice other features changing at the same time. This entire article is so very interesting and can give signs of where you bull stands as far as fertility and masculinity!! There isn't anything prettier than a big stout bull with a huge crested neck. It screams, masculinity and "You can't touch this!" |
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Post by ebenezer on Nov 26, 2020 8:14:20 GMT -6
A lot of this is almost plagiarism and some individual's interpretation of Dr. Jan Bonsma's work. These guys become gurus and equate themselves to Dr. Bonsma doing the looks only type of sales and gimmicks and they migrate to low production type and small framed cattle and that is not anything like what Dr. Bonsma wanted. Dr. Bonsma was not that shallow. He had the selection by indicators, the performance data, bull performance, feed efficiency and red meat production all in the whole of his work. If you want the pure nectar, get some Bonsma written materials.
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Post by chuckie on Nov 26, 2020 8:54:53 GMT -6
Dr Jan Bosma is the man that said there should only be one breed in North America, and that is a cross between a Salers and a Longhorn.
Here are a few things that he believed:
1)" Soil pH and soil fertility affects desirable size. The higher the soil fertility, the bigger the animal that is needed. If the soil is acid, smaller framed animals work best. On neutral pH soils, larger framed animals work best."
2) " It is my considered opinion that the Salorn breed will, in the long run, will be the far superior breed, to any of the other breeds in America. At least 80 % of the commercial herds in America should be of this combination of genetics"
note: the Salorn breed is a combination of Salers and Longhorn breeds. I may be wrong, but I don't think their popularity has overtaken the Angus breed yet !
Some how I posted this article before I was finished with it.
I read over some of Jan Bosma's articles. He uses guides of hair swirls and fertility of the ground. I will have to agree with him that if you raise cattle on fertile ground, you will have better animals as they receive much more of the nutrients to make them grow. What we are in short supply of, we have to buy it in their mineral mixtures.
The more protein in the grasses definitely produces a better quality calf.
One thing I read was, he stated that cattle with a lot of loose skin were more tender. I still say that the most tender breed of cow that I have come across is the Piedmontese. But most all the breeds that I see with the loose skin and wrinkles and folds come from the Brahman line. I know that this breed does better in the low south, but here if you send them through the sale barn, they are going to dock you big time in profits.
I can't say that I have eaten a Brahma before, but I heard they cannot take the cold at all. They use a lot of energy trying to stay warm in the winter.
He also remarked that a higher butterfat cow produces most marbling in the meat. Also, a Jersey meat is really good, but there just is not a lot of meat on the animal.
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Post by farmerjan on Nov 26, 2020 19:17:14 GMT -6
I eat 90% jersey beef. Raise the bull calves up, make 'em steers so that there is no problems with early maturity and breeding, no attitudes like jerseys can have. They marble very good and are tender into the 3 yr old stage on just grass. Some of my jersey cows I breed AI so get a few bull calves. Also get some bull calves off farms. Many are jersey/ angus crosses now. They make a very good beef, have more meat on them and will finish early... a pretty good combination of breeds. Never had any problems with good marbling if you let the animal get mature enough that it packs on weight after the growth. Not just getting fat... but good growth and then putting on pounds with good grass and added feed if wanted.
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Post by chuckie on Nov 26, 2020 21:01:53 GMT -6
I really do like the taste of the Jersey beef as well as anything that I have eaten. It almost seems to have a sweeter taste. A Jersey crossed with a Piedmontese is out of this world!!
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