[Bodacious]

Originally Posted by Bizzum

Just to throw a cat amont the pidgeons: Would ya try Bolide (BZB) the Part bull from Dovea? Very easy calved.

http://www.icbf.com/taurus/bull_sear...#38;search=bzb

when you look at bolide's linear assessment he very small heightwise, short in the back, narrow at hips etc, I used sirex although only marginally taller ( he not a giant tall either ) his SbV and all round figures seem better. Do many lads look at the linear/skeletal assessment of the sire?

[redzerologhlen]

Originally Posted by blue5000

You beat me to it Bizzum, looks like he'd be good for producing replacement heifers, but his carcase figures aren't great. Anybody on here used him?

The main reason I was thinking blonde is because of the length and scope that they bring, how would the parts compare to them on that front. They look to be more heavily muscled than the blondes alright...

[pakalasa]

With heifers go with the easiest calving bull, with high reliability, you can get your hands on. Most of them in Ai will produce a decent enough calve anyway. Leave the fancy weanlings till the second year. Even if you only loose one calve it will cancel out the extra profit on the others.
Seems like a good idea now, but when you're sweating on the end of a calving jack in 9 months time, you'll be kicking yourself.

[vanderbadger]

Originally Posted by redzerologhlen

The main reason I was thinking blonde is because of the length and scope that they bring, how would the parts compare to them on that front. They look to be more heavily muscled than the blondes alright...

blondes are lovely looking cattle redzer, id say they would be a nice cross with limo heifers, would love to buy a few blonde heifers in myself at some stage but its rare enough you see them down our way isnt it, part is also a nice cross with red limo

[redzerologhlen]

Originally Posted by vanderbadger

blondes are lovely looking cattle redzer, id say they would be a nice cross with limo heifers, would love to buy a few blonde heifers in myself at some stage but its rare enough you see them down our way isnt it, part is also a nice cross with red limo

As rare as hens teeth you'd say vander

[redzerologhlen]

Originally Posted by pakalasa

With heifers go with the easiest calving bull, with high reliability, you can get your hands on. Most of them in Ai will produce a decent enough calve anyway. Leave the fancy weanlings till the second year. Even if you only loose one calve it will cancel out the extra profit on the others.
Seems like a good idea now, but when you're sweating on the end of a calving jack in 9 months time, you'll be kicking yourself.

Im not looking to put a hard calver on them at all but like I said don't want to put a limo on them again. If the blondes were about the same as them calving wise I would prefer to use them.

[pakalasa]

Fair enough. It's just that I haven't seen that many very easy calving blonde bulls in AI.

[redzerologhlen]

Originally Posted by pakalasa

Fair enough. It's just that I haven't seen that many very easy calving blonde bulls in AI.

I have no experience of them either to be honest but they are meant to put great length into cattle which is what I like the most about them. I'll be gone at silage when the cows are bulling so I can't really ai them which would probably be the best thing to do. Just as a matter of interest at what calving difficulty percentage would you reckon that a bull is too hard calving for heifers?

[pakalasa]

Originally Posted by redzerologhlen

Just as a matter of interest at what calving difficulty percentage would you reckon that a bull is too hard calving for heifers?

I would generally look for a bull under 5%. A nice round figure.

[just do it]

Originally Posted by Bodacious

definitely going using APZ the new simmental with munster/progressive ..v easy calved

Hi Bod

Are you getting that easy calving from the icbf figures or from knowledge/ experience? I've straws for him that I'm interested in using on heifers...

[Bodacious]

Originally Posted by just do it

Hi Bod

Are you getting that easy calving from the icbf figures or from knowledge/ experience? I've straws for him that I'm interested in using on heifers...

Only from munster catalogue and icbf dec2011 figures.. no experience of him personally

[Richk2012]

I bought 15 straws of Kilmoney Bruce (KCE) last year at 8Eur each from Dovea . There gone up to 10Eur now . Inseminated 4 belgian blue cows to him , no heifers . All 3rd + calvers as i thought there might be a bit of difficulty with him , considering hes a fairly shapey boy . First cow calved in october , very small bull calf . The 2nd cow had a small heifer calf 2 weeks later . Third one calved twins prematurely (disaster) , and i still have one to calf next week . All the calves came chocolate brown and white . Any heifer would have calved these 2 calves , and to tell you the truth i was a little bit dissapointed with the quality of them as drop calves , but they have come on well and are starting to shape up with age and meal , although i have a couple of Rocky Limousin (ROX) calves the same age , and out of similar blue cows and their in a different league .

[redzerologhlen]

Originally Posted by Richk2012

I bought 15 straws of Kilmoney Bruce (KCE) last year at 8Eur each from Dovea . There gone up to 10Eur now . Inseminated 4 belgian blue cows to him , no heifers . All 3rd + calvers as i thought there might be a bit of difficulty with him , considering hes a fairly shapey boy . First cow calved in october , very small bull calf . The 2nd cow had a small heifer calf 2 weeks later . Third one calved twins prematurely (disaster) , and i still have one to calf next week . All the calves came chocolate brown and white . Any heifer would have calved these 2 calves , and to tell you the truth i was a little bit dissapointed with the quality of them as drop calves , but they have come on well and are starting to shape up with age and meal , although i have a couple of Rocky Limousin (ROX) calves the same age , and out of similar blue cows and their in a different league .

I have a good few rockys in the pot and had about ten calves by him and wouldnt say hes hard calving at all. Found the calves lacked growth though. Reason I was thinking blonde was for the bit of scope. Nice to hear he is not hard calved though especially with blue cows. It seems to be hard to get a bit of thickness in a blonde but I checked up Kilmoney bruce on icbf and he did fairly well on the linear scoring.

[1chippy]

I was going to use lochhead tyson on one of the heifers a few months back and the ai man told definately not on a heifer. i think the progressive catalogue doesnt have either of the blondes in the suitable for maidens section.
Theres a farmer over the way who runs two blondes on his herd one is an english blonde the other a french. both throwing good qualityy calves but noticed a slight inconsistency in the quality of the calves. the english bull wouldnt have as much muscle as the french one and a lot easier calved too.
saying all that im throwing over a couple of heifers that repeated with him to get them incalf.

[Bizzum]

We would find some of our heifers getting too pure so we would use a different breed on them to throw this into the mix too.
BA no more than Lim or Part will not be the answer to every mans prayers, but sure try a few and see how they go. We took a punt and got some lovely stock off them.