Hereford's

NZDan · May 7, 2017

exmoor dave said:
So in hill beef areas the cattle have changed over to Angus?

We'd be tempted to cross once then go back and forth as we run Angus on the farms anyway,
But our experience with the Angus is that they are fine in the fields but can't hack the moor like the hereford's when we've put the odd ones out.
Temperment is another problem with the Angus......they like chasing people with dogs! Our moor would easily be one of the most visited by people in the area.

On the plus side the Angus is a much more saleable animal round here, both store and finished

The premium and bull choice with Angus is simply to much to ignore. About a 20% premium for Angus animals, plus you can buy damn near any bull you want, from huge high growth animals, to heavy muscled carcass bulls, fat easy doing Mama cow bulls, there is damn near an Angus bull that will do what any other bull will do.

M-J-G · May 7, 2017

Henarar said:
What about Lincoln red or sum such instead of Angus they would hack the hills I should think

I know a guy with 400+ cows on a hill farm and he has mainly Lincoln Red cows, with a bit of Simmental and BSH mixed through.
Cows are only in from Christmas until March and they thrive well.

M-J-G · May 7, 2017

NZDan said:
Its all about size here as well, Big calves on Small cows.

I like the idea, if it's an enclosed self replacing herd that takes some achieving.

I know plenty who are achieving very high weaning weights with regard to % of cow weight, but these heifer calves that are massive on their mothers at 7 months old need to slow up pretty promptly if they are not to end up being too big a cow themselves.

Henarar · May 7, 2017

M-J-G said:
I know a guy with 400+ cows on a hill farm and he has mainly Lincoln Red cows, with a bit of Simmental and BSH mixed through.
Cows are only in from Christmas until March and they thrive well.

The chap we got our Lincoln red crosses over winters them on top a hill with some hay they seem to grow a big coat and cope

tinsheet · May 7, 2017

Get some Galloways @exmoor dave
The one's we see in cutcombe are the most docile creature you'll ever meet!

.

Dad used to work on the Fortesque estate years back they had all Galloways on the Moor, you had to ride a horse to get near them at calving, you did not get off unless you were carrying a gun

.
He did say very rare to have a problem..

exmoor dave · May 7, 2017

tinsheet said:
Get some Galloways @exmoor dave
The one's we see in cutcombe are the most docile creature you'll ever meet!.

Dad used to work on the Fortesque estate years back they had all Galloways on the Moor, you had to ride a horse to get near them at calving, you did not get off unless you were carrying a gun.
He did say very rare to have a problem..

I'm surrounded by belties! I think they may be abit quieter.

Not my cup of tea though

exmoor dave · May 7, 2017

Henarar said:
What about Lincoln red or sum such instead of Angus they would hack the hills I should think

Devons are the most obvious choice and that's what we buy when we need to up cow numbers beyond what home bred heifers we have coming through.

To be honest you could use what you want (within reason), it's the years of home breeding that is important to weed out the weaker ones that can't stick the moor.

Hereford works for us as they can hack it and leave a named sired off spring.
If we started using anything not so mainstream like Lincolns we'd loss that named sired advantage,
There would also not be any where near as much choice of bulls.

exmoor dave · May 7, 2017

exmoor dave said:
Devons are the most obvious choice and that's what we buy when we need to up cow numbers beyond what home bred heifers we have coming through.

To be honest you could use what you want (within reason), it's the years of home breeding that is important to weed out the weaker ones that can't stick the moor.

Hereford works for us as they can hack it and leave a named sired off spring.
If we started using anything not so mainstream like Lincolns we'd loss that named sired advantage,
There would also not be any where near as much choice of bulls.

Saying that....... I've always been really tempted to try a beef shorthorn if the polled versions are any good....?

M-J-G · May 7, 2017

exmoor dave said:
I'm surrounded by belties! I think they may be abit quieter.

Not my cup of tea though

Not from what I've seen of them, I saw some of them that had calves a few months old to charge their owner.

Henarar · May 7, 2017

M-J-G said:
Not from what I've seen of them, I saw some of them that had calves a few months old to charge their owner.

Our belty x sd are quiet maybe its the sd

Henarar · May 7, 2017

exmoor dave said:
Devons are the most obvious choice and that's what we buy when we need to up cow numbers beyond what home bred heifers we have coming through.

To be honest you could use what you want (within reason), it's the years of home breeding that is important to weed out the weaker ones that can't stick the moor.

Hereford works for us as they can hack it and leave a named sired off spring.
If we started using anything not so mainstream like Lincolns we'd loss that named sired advantage,
There would also not be any where near as much choice of bulls.

Was thinking more for cows then put a h Ford on them

Chae1 · May 7, 2017

We've crossed a Hereford with our Salers and calves look good.

M-J-G · May 7, 2017

Henarar said:
Our belty x sd are quiet maybe its the sd

SD do seem very docile so it will likely help a lot.

I don't doubt that some Belties are quiet enough, but like their non belted cousins the general trend seems to be that they can be pretty lethal.

Forever Fendt · May 7, 2017

M-J-G said:
SD do seem very docile so it will likely help a lot.

I don't doubt that some Belties are quiet enough, but like their non belted cousins the general trend seems to be that they can be pretty lethal.

A cow and calf beltie in market yesterday both wild as hell

exmoor dave · May 7, 2017

Henarar said:
Was thinking more for cows then put a h Ford on them

Trouble is that to get to that we'd really need to buy the Lincoln (as a example) bull first, to put on to our existing cows to breed the next generation of cows.....to put the Hereford on to.

Very very important that stock is home bred and spends it's first winter as a calf on the hill with mum and then every winter onwards.

Bought in stock is a big gamble with redwater from the ticks.

M-J-G · May 7, 2017

Temperament, easy calving and easy fleshing are the Hereford's main advantages.

For a long time I had an interest in the Hereford as they would cross with the Simmental without giving a dolly mixture of colours like other breeds would, but despite fitting the role in some ways, the main issue and reason for steering clear of them is their poor milking ability.

From what I observe, the best of them are ok but too many of them are poor milkers.
I was on a visit recently where there were pure hereford cows and calves, and a severe inconsistency in milking ability was evident amongst the herd. The best of the calves looked alright, but some looked like orphans, little dry hairy calves with a big gut, sucking on the empty bag of a big over fat cow.

As a comparison, they had a few Holstein and Hol X Her cows that had Hereford cross calves, these were a lot bigger and more thrifty than pretty much all of the pure Hereford calves.

I'm not sure if they are limited to being a terminal breed, but only the very best of the maternal end of the breed are productive cows unless crossed with a more milky breed.
Several breeders I know have suggested this themselves.

I believe this to be the reason why so few commercial herds of pure Herefords are run in the UK.

Cowgirl · May 7, 2017

Lovegoodstock said:
Im not a Hereford man but did buy a bull 2 years ago for my heifers, and a pure heifer for bulling for my partners Christmas present. Surely the society should be pushing lack of feed and easy finishing as main selling point, if as told above a cow needs to be weighing at 800k or bulling heifers have to be x kilo, then a charolais/sim/blonde will get to those weights far quicker and cheaper than a Hereford, not a dig at Herefords but that will be the case across the board, surely the only sales pitch, when angus premium is higher, is ability for spring calvers to be finished following summer with no grub of grass, if in right part of country, yearlings outwintered at minimal cost, I bought a Hereford to make my life easier as calve 250 cows, never saw an advantage in weight gain or carcass quality, in fact anything but, just don't see the point in pushing things the breed is 20/30 years behind the times, and have to change the breed to achieve those things, sell what is natural to the breed, and encourage those advantages surely?

I'm afraid I agree with a lot of what you are saying - our Traditionals of course could be described as 40 years behind because much of the available semen is from the seventies, but my fear is that Hereford breeders have thought that everything people didn't like about them could be fixed by making them bigger to try to compete with continentals. I think they are now in danger of losing the things about the breed that made it successful in the first place - its ability to convert grass to meat and survive in challenging environments. They can't make up their mind whether they are supposed to be terminal, maternal or both.

Cowgirl · May 7, 2017

Milk is a difficult thing to define in a beef animal. Since you can't measure it, the calf's growth is the only way to define it but too much milk in a challenging environment means either higher feed requirement or a thinner cow, with less ability to survive in winter and produce another calf the next year. I correspond with Hereford people in other countries and it does give a different perspective. Also you can't measure butterfat in a beef animal and the Hereford's milk is supposed to be richer, so it's not all about quantity. Also the calf that gets less milk must make up for it by eating grass, and many of these poorer young calves will be indistinguishable from their contemporaries by the following summer. It's just that we are in such a hurry to finish cattle in this country. Milk production does vary in different Hereford families but we have been fortunate with ours. Milk production seems to improve with subsequent lactations but the first photo is a heifer's calf.

Photos of calves at 5 - 7 months.

Gulli · May 7, 2017

M-J-G said:
Temperament, easy calving and easy fleshing are the Hereford's main advantages.

For a long time I had an interest in the Hereford as they would cross with the Simmental without giving a dolly mixture of colours like other breeds would, but despite fitting the role in some ways, the main issue and reason for steering clear of them is their poor milking ability.

From what I observe, the best of them are ok but too many of them are poor milkers.
I was on a visit recently where there were pure hereford cows and calves, and a severe inconsistency in milking ability was evident amongst the herd. The best of the calves looked alright, but some looked like orphans, little dry hairy calves with a big gut, sucking on the empty bag of a big over fat cow.

As a comparison, they had a few Holstein and Hol X Her cows that had Hereford cross calves, these were a lot bigger and more thrifty than pretty much all of the pure Hereford calves.

I'm not sure if they are limited to being a terminal breed, but only the very best of the maternal end of the breed are productive cows unless crossed with a more milky breed.
Several breeders I know have suggested this themselves.

I believe this to be the reason why so few commercial herds of pure Herefords are run in the UK.

I'd agree milk is an issue with a lot of cows. Especially first lactation.
Never understood why you would want to run a pure bred herd of any breed commercially as you miss out on all that hybrid vigour. Herefords also cross well with most breeds and produce a fairly consistent animal from that cross. Especially out of dairy herds.

GTB · May 7, 2017

@exmoor dave could you keep just Hereford cows but use an Angus just as a terminal sire on your poorest cows whilst breeding pure Hereford replacements from the best cows?

We have started criss crossing between Hereford and Angus but it's early days yet. Our first bunch of Black Baldy heifers going to the bull this summer. Must say they look like a cracking bunch of heifers but time will tell...

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