|
Eastern NE KS | No baiting intended. I was hoping to get the OP thoughts...
The following are my rules of thumb compiled by a young, nobody that simply watched cattle of 4 main needs work together. The breeds are Angus, Polled and Horned Hereford, Charolais and Simmental. (Circa 1968-1995). Some, if not all of my 'rules' are debatable, all it would take is a different experience.
Using 3/4 blood bulls on near purebred British cows, stamps the calves more uniformly than 1/2 blood bulls, and still have acceptable birth wts. Selling 7/8 and purebred bulls scared local bull buyers of big birth weight calves, unless the cows were continental cross.
A single spot of white on the bull or cow no matter how small a spot could yield a spotted calf with an over abundance of white.
Back then, near half blood cows crossed with near half blood bulls of a 3 or 4 different breeds yields a jail break of variety calves. However, crossing those cows with bulls of the same breed composition, turns out fairly uniform.
Assuming no obvious overfull calf in either bunch:
A bunch of solid colored calves will sell as a group with wide(r) weight differences in the group. A bunch calves with spots, solids, diluted and undiluted coat colors will be split into consistent color groups even when there was no weight difference and in the face of uniform confirmation. Color was the buyer's indicator for calf performance (Is it still?)
Polled continental CATTLE do not seem to suffer polled vs horned confirmation issue reported to be present in Herefords. However, many PRODUCERS discriminate against polled continental cattle based on their past Hereford experience.
A good bull can help a common cow to produce a better than common calf. But that does not automatically make that calf good enough to be breeding stock.
There is something special about a composite with over-center breed composition (5/8 breed A and 3/8 breed B).
| |
|
Purchased 2 bulls on the weekend
