Thinking about a diferent breed of bull

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
We have been toying with the idea of running a different breed of bull, at the moment we always keep two British blue stock bulls to run with our suckler cows and heifers including our pedigree blues as well as using AI to try to get some replacements

Was thinking of just keeping one blue stock bull for our own use and getting a different breed for getting replacements from our crossbreeds and also to use on some of our ped blue females as we seem to be getting more of them than we want for pedigree breeding

It would have to be a breed that was quiet, cave easy, milky/good mother but also would want a breed that the steer calves would sell well at about 10 months,

Breeds I have thought about and my thoughts about them

Lincoln red
we have a few cross bred cows and they seem to have a good calf and calve easy to the blue bulls and seem to milk well enough keep themselves up together and are not to big, we have calved a few Lincoln red calves and they seem to come out ok,
downside maybe the steers wouldn't sell so well ?

Simmental
we have a few crosses and the seem to go well with the blue bull and calve ok, they milk well and are quiet enough, we have calved a few AI simmys and they seem ok though we have had to pull them,
downside, would hope the steers would sell ok though the last one we sold we were disappointed with, also the only two sim bulls I have had anything to do with turned in to nasty buggers

Angus
Cross well with the blue and seem to calve them ok, should be easy calving if we got the right bull, the cross cows we have had seem to milk ok and steer calves should sell well with the named sire
downside, the calves can be a bit of a handful also the only cow we have ever culled for temperament was an angus but I have dealt with a few angus bulls and they have been fine

Sheeted Somerset
a bit of a different idea, we have some heifers coming on they were calved easy and they look OK so far, should milk well, could be a selling point one day?
downside, mostly unknown, steers may not sell very well

South Devon
don't know so much about them, should milk ok ? we have a crossbreed cow and she has a good calf to the blue, we had a twin of calves got by an AI south Devon and they were very quiet and sold well, the ones I have seen have looked good
downside, could be a bit big ?


What do other folk think ?
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
I go with the LR, but that's just me.

Your location lets you down though. LR steer stores sell well at Newark/Melton but maybe not where you are.

Polled Hereford?
that's what I was thinking you never see them down here, we only have some because we bought some from one of Clare's friends in Warwickshire, be a long haul to Newark LOL
Hereford are ok, dependable, no trouble, but not the best IMHO
 

kill

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South West
Limo had always produced fantastic , saleable cattle for me and mine were always good tempered, but I am sure other people will disagree!!!
We had a Lincolnshire Red cows years ago and she was a beautiful cow as always friendly and gentle but a dreadful mum as lied on 2 calves over her span here
 

simmy_bull

Member
Location
North Yorkshire
Simmental. Nearly as quiet as a blue. I’ve not had a nasty bull but maybe I’ve been lucky or you’ve been unlucky. Again I only pull odd ones and have generally managed to find easy calvers. Hill country though so cows get moderate silage not rocket fuel off lowland seeds. Cross well with a blue imo.

Limmys cross extremely well with the blue but the most mental store heifer I ever met was a limx blue. Had several lim store cattle turn very very nasty on me so vowed never to have another lim bull.
 

Old Tip

Member
Location
Cumbria
Up here you see loads of limmy x blue calves and a fair number of bulls but not that many cows. I guess the milk will be a big problem with the cross as a suck cow.
Big right up in Simmy mag re a bloke using Sim x Blue cows put back to the Simmy, achieving amazing weight gains and cows are too big and have plenty of milk
Myself I would go for the Hereford but I’m a sucker for traditional breeds and with the right bull they would be terrific cattle
 

Ashtree

Member
Nought crosses with a blue as good as a limmy!!!
Large blue herd local uses lim bull on a lot of his cows. Absolutely tremendous cattle.
Other farmers around who like to breed for show purposes also cross lim to blue to real good effect.
 

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