Lim Sire to use on Br/FR cow to produce Good Suckler cows

overdebar

A neighbour of mine who is a dairy farmer with a mainly br-fr herd will breed some suckler replacements for me from AI. He says that he would be happy enough to use Lim Sires.He used to use the Dovea, however he has switched to progressive for the last two years. The only condition is that they are not very hard calvers (ie over 6 or 7% difficulty). Have any of ye got any suggestions on bulls that we could pick from the Progressive catalogue. His cows are nice br-fr type with a good bit of scope to them.
Was thinking that CVV might suit myself have ye any experience with him as regard calving and his stock.

I would like to use a least two bulls

pakalasa

FL21 is recommended by NCBC. He has great figures especially for Maternal Calving. Average only though for docility.
I've used MBU and NIN, but both are gone now.

bogman_bass

ozs is very easy calved and has a good french maternal proof

overdebar

thanks for that lads do ye have any stock out of fl21

overdebar

Pak
Do you put a big emphasis on Maternal Calving for your replacements?
I suppose it makes a lot of sense.
The thing I find about the ICBF data is there is so much of it you could spend hours looking at it and still not make up your mind. Maybe the trick is to identify a few key traits and focus on them

pakalasa

overdebar wrote: »

Pak
Do you put a big emphasis on Maternal Calving for your replacements?
I suppose it makes a lot of sense.
The thing I find about the ICBF data is there is so much of it you could spend hours looking at it and still not make up your mind. Maybe the trick is to identify a few key traits and focus on them

Ya i alwasy use it as a starting point. Even if I was buying breeding heifers at the mart, I would look at their hips first. The way I see it, if they can calve easy, then I can use Charolais and BB bulls on them from the second calving on.
Nino (NIN) & (FL21) for example, are both in the top 1% across breeds.

irishh_bob

they say the limousin cow out of the british fresian is the best suckler of all , only problem is thier are not that many british fresian cows left , cant imagine the limousin out of the narrow hosltien would be much cop

moy83

I didnt think there were too many british freisans being milked either but every second person around here thats buying suck calves is saying that they are from british freisan cows . I reckon in a couple of years there will be alot of narrow looking suckler cows around

cowman

If you look around the Tipp/ Kilkenny areas there are plenty of British Friesian herds...If you can get an MBU straw at all I would take them they are serious cows!

flatout11

i have used tko and ion some ai men still have them mbu and nin were ok-ish - not that impresed with the latest progressive bulls vvi and adx are worth using

johnpawl

Hope I'm not hijacking this thread, but I've a similar situation where a friend of mine's got a large dairy herd and does his own AI and does mine for me as well. He knows I'm trying to build up my herd and I got too many straws of the PT bull BZB, he offered to put these on a few of his british friesan cows and sell me the heifer calves. Question is, would they make near as good a suckler cow as the limousine, and how much could I expect to pay for these calves if I was buying them in todays market? Thanks, JP.

weefarmer

flatout11 wrote: »

i have used tko and ion some ai men still have them mbu and nin were ok-ish - not that impresed with the latest progressive bulls vvi and adx are worth using

Has tko gone off the market? A neighbour reckoned the last day he got some kind of disease and straws are limited! Feel free to correct me ifi am wrong, hopefully there is no truth to it..

cowman

johnpawl wrote: »

Hope I'm not hijacking this thread, but I've a similar situation where a friend of mine's got a large dairy herd and does his own AI and does mine for me as well. He knows I'm trying to build up my herd and I got too many straws of the PT bull BZB, he offered to put these on a few of his british friesan cows and sell me the heifer calves. Question is, would they make near as good a suckler cow as the limousine, and how much could I expect to pay for these calves if I was buying them in todays market? Thanks, JP.

The thing with the PT claves is that there still up and coming so it really depends on whos at the mart on the day, because some people are impressed and will buy, them where as others stick to the tried and trusted...but the parthenaise x friesian is a good cow IMO.

johnpawl

cowman wrote: »

The thing with the PT claves is that there still up and coming so it really depends on whos at the mart on the day, because some people are impressed and will buy, them where as others stick to the tried and trusted...but the parthenaise x friesian is a good cow IMO.

Well I was thinking of keeping the cows as an alternative to limo-friesan cross, then maybe putting BB limo or charlaois bull on them, what you make of that plan..

flatout11

weefarmer wrote: »

Has tko gone off the market? A neighbour reckoned the last day he got some kind of disease and straws are limited! Feel free to correct me ifi am wrong, hopefully there is no truth to it..

not sure but i presumed it was because progressive didnt own him and had to buy the straws of western farm enterprises, so i reckon when they became the ncbc and got money to go to france and buy 5 to 6 lim bulls that they droped him in favour of using their own, nw i could be out by a mile with this!!! pity i thought he was a useful bull

cowman

johnpawl wrote: »

Well I was thinking of keeping the cows as an alternative to limo-friesan cross, then maybe putting BB limo or charlaois bull on them, what you make of that plan..

Yeah its as good as any plan...would you be looking at bredding replacements for sale aswel as breeding your own or for slaughter?

johnpawl

cowman wrote: »

Yeah its as good as any plan...would you be looking at bredding replacements for sale aswel as breeding your own or for slaughter?

Building up the herd at the moment so intend keep all heifer calves

cowman

johnpawl wrote: »

Well I was thinking of keeping the cows as an alternative to limo-friesan cross, then maybe putting BB limo or charlaois bull on them, what you make of that plan..

Its as good a plan as any... Are you planning to breed replacements for sale aswel or just for at home?