Thinking about a diferent breed of bull

[Rhamil24]

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 ?

Aberdeen Angus any day.Calm, easy calving, rapid growth (1.6 to 1.7kgs/day) and 500+kgs at 12 months.

 

[beefandsleep]

Get a SALER bull without a shadow of a doubt, they are the breed of the future

The Saler breed is now beating British Blue cattle in the local show rings I am hearing

I have been very disappointed with the growth I have seen from saler bullocks bought for finishing. Beef bred and nearly pure not just from one lot but across the board. They look great as stores, framey hairy things that you would expect to grow like mushrooms had they been lim or Charolais. I won’t buy them again.

 

[davieogrutha]

@Henarar out of curiosity, have you come to a decision on what you might change to?

 

[Henarar]

@Henarar out of curiosity, have you come to a decision on what you might change to?

no not yet, it wasn't something we were going to rush in to anyway just throwing ideas about, I don't tend to make changes with much haste

we were looking at some Devon cross Angus calves yesterday some nice calves there on an organic low input system

 

[liammogs]

What about a piemontese? Somthing different to the mix

 

[M-J-G]

I have been very disappointed with the growth I have seen from saler bullocks bought for finishing. Beef bred and nearly pure not just from one lot but across the board. They look great as stores, framey hairy things that you would expect to grow like mushrooms had they been lim or Charolais. I won’t buy them again.

I had assumed that fleshing was more of an issue than growth.

I overheard two Saler breeders discussing a bull a year or so ago. One guy said "he's a bare, hard fleshing ba$+@rd, even for a Saler"
His mate replied "and that's saying something"

 

[beefandsleep]

I had assumed that fleshing was more of an issue than growth.

I overheard two Saler breeders discussing a bull a year or so ago. One guy said "he's a bare, hard fleshing ba$+@rd, even for a Saler"
His mate replied "and that's saying something"

Yes, that too. They take a long no time to finish, the frame may be there but they just seem to stand still. .8 kg a day just doesn’t cut it, especially when you have Charolais and Lims in the same pen doing 1.8!

 

[Ysgythan]

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 ?

Guy from Thurso got landed with a Longhorn Bull when a stockman did a midnight flit owing him money. He used him across Simmy cows. He put the heifers back to Charollais and has very saleable ginger Charly x calves.

Father in law has a BB cow he puts to a Longhorn bull. Easily calved, good quality calves. You know they’re a BB cross and you’d never guess it’s on the mother’s side.

 

[CharcoalWally]

Yes, that too. They take a long no time to finish, the frame may be there but they just seem to stand still. .8 kg a day just doesn’t cut it, especially when you have Charolais and Lims in the same pen doing 1.8!

Finisher friend of mine used to refer to them as the Reindeers . Grew ridiculously, never fleshed. On the day he bought them he thought they were tall Lims of a kind. He said they were always the last cattle away out the shed.

 

[John Chance]

The Salers not fattening talk doesn't fit with our experience. Or with what the French do; Charolais x Salers seems to be a big thing over there. Our young bulls leave us as stores, but the same men buy them and fatten every year.

 

[juke]

From the pictures I was sent a while ago from a gentleman that bought a charolais bull from us for his salers cows there didn't seem too much trouble getting flesh onto the calves at all

 

[Wolds Beef]

@JP1 The Lincoln catalogue is out! Can you put it here!
WB

 

[JP1]

Catalogue

 

[Durris Dave]

never had anything to do with them but don't they have temperament problems ?
I know someone that used one and soon got rid, I didn't see the cattle though

Saler would be worth having a look at. We used to be Heinz 57 after trying them we now have 450 saler cos. We cross mainly with Charolais and find them to be a fantastic cross. There is wild ones but no more than any other breed if there wild we cull them. They cross really well with B.B. and you would get beautiful heifers with a saler on your cows. The bull in the picture is a cross bull we kept off a B.B cow from our saler bull. We’re using him on heifers and calving with no issue and lovely heifers off him

 

[Durris Dave]

Yes, that too. They take a long no time to finish, the frame may be there but they just seem to stand still. .8 kg a day just doesn’t cut it, especially when you have Charolais and Lims in the same pen doing 1.8!

We finish around 140 bulls a year will have to check scales. our current pen of 60 saler bulls have averaged 1.75 kg/day over last 70 days.

 

[ges]

Yes I would agree pure salers take a longer to finish, in the process of changing all of our cow's with salers fantastic mother's,cross them with the charolais and limousin very good quick growing calves, last year our bull's were doing 1.85 dlwg

 

[Henarar]

Yes I would agree pure salers take a longer to finish, in the process of changing all of our cow's with salers fantastic mother's,cross them with the charolais and limousin very good quick growing calves, last year our bull's were doing 1.85 dlwg

that's no different from pure blues they seem to take a fare time grow but crosses grow well

 

[beefandsleep]

Yes, I wouldn’t discount them as a suckler cow but I won’t be buying any more pure bullocks. The Charolais crosses bought off the same farm with them were very good.