Beef AI/Bulls MEGATHREAD

adne

tanko wrote: »

I have three FZF heifers in calf to the Saler bull Highfield Odhran, two of them are off very milky cows, they're not calving til March and April.

How'd the calves off Highfield Odhran work out?

tanko

adne wrote: »

How'd the calves off Highfield Odhran work out?

They worked out grand. They were very easy calved, they're fairly small but shapey, not much to look at but Salers never are. Two had heifers and the third twins, bull and heifer. I suppose a bull like him is an extra cautious option on heifers.
Got two VTA heifer calves off GZP and KJB first calvers also.
I'll try and get a few pics off them, this is the twins.

sonnybill

Very impressed with the ZAG calves , not a single bad calf out of him they all shapey and easily calved

pure breed

sonnybill wrote: »

Very impressed with the ZAG calves , not a single bad calf out of him they all shapey and easily calved

Have to agree ZAG autumn heifer below turned out great
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pure breed

OKH breed nice heifers too and easily calved.
DSC_0255.JPG

patsy_mccabe

Both those bulls, OKH and ZAG are by APM ampertaine commander.

pure breed

patsy_mccabe wrote:

Both those bulls, OKH and ZAG are by APM ampertaine commander.

Yep

simx

Eby bull 6 months old

croot

sonnybill wrote: »

Very impressed with the ZAG calves , not a single bad calf out of him they all shapey and easily calved

I've been banging on about him for ages. I think he has it all. I've heifers of his kept and they are all 5* and look the part (not always the case with 5* heifers).

And as for terminal he really is doing the business. This lad was off an Aberdeen angus second calver. Born mid September last year and sold for €1035 @ 345kgs at the start of the month. He wasn't creep fed but I did give 1kg per head in the shed to all the autumn born calves so about 120kg all told. Probably cost about €50 in nuts and none since march. He was the best of my autumn bulls but if the cow has milk ZAG will put on the muscle.

Future Farmer

ZAG is a grand medium sized bull that is fairly easy calving terminal LM, but I wouldn't be keeping daughters, he's not a replacement bull and I wouldn't use him on cows, OKH far better IMO.

TPF2012

Future Farmer wrote:

ZAG is a grand medium sized bull that is fairly easy calving terminal LM, but I wouldn't be keeping daughters, he's not a replacement bull and I wouldn't use him on cows, OKH far better IMO.

Is he not one of the highest replacement lims bulls going at the minute? Why would you not keep his heifers?

Future Farmer

TPF2012 wrote: »

Is he not one of the highest replacement lims bulls going at the minute? Why would you not keep his heifers?

He is, but that doesn't mean you should keep his daughters. His figures off hand look attractive.

BUT on Linears: ZAG is in the top 14% of LM for Muscle (85%), bottom 23% for size.

On the May 2017 Proofs his 11 calved daughters had a MCD of 9% vs herd mate average of 7%.

Ask Rose Goulding NCBC beef Programme Manager about LM for Replacements she'll say something like "ZAG has a high index" but "OKH will breed great daughters".

Index is important in this day and age, but a certain amount of background info etc should be considered too.

croot

Future Farmer wrote: »

ZAG is a grand medium sized bull that is fairly easy calving terminal LM, but I wouldn't be keeping daughters, he's not a replacement bull and I wouldn't use him on cows, OKH far better IMO.

OKH in narrower at the hips and less milk. Everyone to their own I suppose.

Future Farmer

croot wrote: »

OKH in narrower at the hips and less milk. Everyone to their own I suppose.

Sure that is what makes it all so interesting!


What do you make of this LM4217 MOONDHARRIG KNELL?

https://webapp.icbf.com/bull-search/view/1319834138

croot

Future Farmer wrote: »

Sure that is what makes it all so interesting!


What do you make of this LM4217 MOONDHARRIG KNELL?

https://webapp.icbf.com/bull-search/view/1319834138

Figures look good but the pic of him on the ICBF website looks awful. If I was looking at the picture and didn't have the figures I wouldn't touch him.

I wont be using any Maternal Gene Ireland bulls anyway because I got straws two years running and 15 heifers calved from those but have ended up with only 2 kept as replacements. I'm only using more proven bulls now.

Future Farmer

croot wrote: »

Figures look good but the pic of him on the ICBF website looks awful. If I was looking at the picture and didn't have the figures I wouldn't touch him.

I wont be using any Maternal Gene Ireland bulls anyway because I got straws two years running and 15 heifers calved from those but have ended up with only 2 kept as replacements. I'm only using more proven bulls now.

I wouldn't rate the photos taken in Tully!

Why were they not kept?

croot

Future Farmer wrote: »

I wouldn't rate the photos taken in Tully!

Why were they not kept?

Sorry I was wrong. I've 4 kept but the rest were sold for various reasons at different times.

4 of them I wasn't happy with them conformation wise or size wise at breeding time so they weren't kept.

4 more were wild feckers and I'm part time. Anything that faces the other way and takes off when I go into the field is not kept.

2 didn't keep to AI after second service so they were gone and the last one was because I needed the money to keep the show on the road this spring.

patsy_mccabe

croot wrote: »

.. Anything that faces the other way and takes off when I go into the field is not kept.... .

Hard to disagree with that.

tanko

Are NCBC selling straws off LM4217?
I wouldn't necessarily judge a bull by his photo. HCA wasn't much to look at but bred powerful cattle, just a pity a lot of them were nuts.
Curaheen Earps calves here look pretty good so far i think despite what he looks like.

TITANIUM.

tanko wrote: »

Are NCBC selling straws off LM4217?
I wouldn't necessarily judge a bull by his photo. HCA wasn't much to look at but bred powerful cattle, just a pity a lot of them were nuts.
Curaheen Earps calves here look pretty good so far i think despite what he looks like.

I couldn't bring myself to use any Earp straws. Maybe the online pics don't do him justice but he is a poor looking bull

pure breed

TITANIUM. wrote:

I couldn't bring myself to use any Earp straws. Maybe the online pics don't do him justice but he is a poor looking bull

Used him and got 3 nice heifers born Autumn 16. Turned out well. Have one Bull off him and won't expect much compared to his CH comrades when sold soon.

TITANIUM.

pure breed wrote: »

Used him and got 3 nice heifers born Autumn 16. Turned out well. Have one Bull off him and won't expect much compared to his CH comrades when sold soon.

3 Heifers out of the 4! You gotta be happy with that.

Bigbird1

What do people think of keeping heifers off EBY for breeding ?

Mac Taylor

Only have the one heifer off him, her mother is a big strong cow off highlander., the eby heifer is butty and musely. She has a nice bag of milk though and is quite. Haven't used him since, local AI guy has seen similar stock. Sample size of one is not a great sample though:D

pure breed

TITANIUM. wrote: »

3 Heifers out of the 4! You gotta be happy with that.

3 heifers out of 2 cows luckily got twin heifers and 2 Bull calves have one of them attached . the other bull in fairness pass as a CH thanks to cow (ive no pic)
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tanko

TITANIUM. wrote: »

I couldn't bring myself to use any Earp straws. Maybe the online pics don't do him justice but he is a poor looking bull

I dunno, have 4 bulls and 2 heifers off him this year. I think he's a good bull to use on small cows with a bit of muscle to improve size and hopefully milk. He's easy calved, maybe i'll be proved wrong yet but so far i think they're looking pretty good.

Seaba

croot wrote: »

OKH in narrower at the hips and less milk. Everyone to their own I suppose.

Possibly stupid question here but just wondering if "width at hips" means wider at the pins for calving or just simply means bigger hips! (which does not necessarily mean better for calving)

croot

Seaba wrote: »

Possibly stupid question here but just wondering if "width at hips" means wider at the pins for calving or just simply means bigger hips! (which does not necessarily mean better for calving)

Not stupid at all. Its to hip bone to hip bone and that means wider hips. I might be wrong in my thinking but that should mean better for calving because it should lead to a bigger pelvic opening.

The problem is that I don't think that link is established and inner pelvic size is not measured so you can only go by what's given.

If you ever look at salers they are very wide at the hips and can usually calf anything.

GiantPencil

I know that they measure pelvic size in Salers test stations in france, would be interesting to have it introduced here, I wonder would current ai bulls that are hard calving score poorly for pelvic size if they were to be tested today?

patsy_mccabe

GiantPencil wrote: »

I know that they measure pelvic size in Salers test stations in france, would be interesting to have it introduced here, I wonder would current ai bulls that are hard calving score poorly for pelvic size if they were to be tested today?

Pelvic size can be readily transmitted from the sire to the resulting progeny. In a Colorado study, a 0.60 genetic correlation was found between male and female pelvic areas, indicating selection for large pelvic size in bulls should result in increased pelvic size of daughter offspring
(Green, 1988).
Nebraska research on 915 yearling bulls indicated only small differences in average pelvic size amongbreeds, but a large variation existed among bulls within a breed.

From;
http://www.iowabeefcenter.org/bch/PelvicMeasurements.pdf

Surprising they don't do it for AI bulls at least. It would save a lot of heartache.