Beef AI/Bulls MEGATHREAD

flatout11

hard to define best...
but those that left a serious impression
have to agree with previous posters in recent times has to be CF52 or EPI
probably honourable mentions should go to rocky and indurain
theere were others like VDC, Elwin, HKI that had there day
in 5 years time will we be adding LGL and others...

The Cuban

Cavan Chap ( Charlie) -- Bred monsters
Bishop hill General (Simmental) -- Must be the best bull of all time for breeding replacement suckler cows

bogman_bass

Was BHG not a Hereford?

Genghis Cant

Ecrin, Erudite, Indurain all left a legacy. So did Jupiter and Bowerhouse Topper.
Though not a fan, no bull created the buzz like CF52 in his time.

Dunedin

tanko wrote: »

I'd imagine CF52 and Rocky are two of the most popular beef bulls of all time.
Of bulls I've used from a breeding point of view, I'd like to have some Epson and Highlander straws.

my bull is a son of rocky and grandson of Epson

onyerbikepat

GrandSoftDay wrote: »

I know a few people who would say Hermes was a better bull than cf52

Son not a patch on the auld fella, eh!

In the Limousin Breed, Broadmeadows Cannon is in the breeding of a serious amount of well known bulls.

severeoversteer

have some suckler yearling bulls in the shed with mogador blood

gaining 2.2-2.5 kg on adlib meal

650kg at a year old

they have best performance and there are a good few AI suckler bulls in my shed but they take the biscuit

invicta

For me it has to be Hortensai (H T A) probably the best Limousine bull ever.Great calves,easy calving, extremely docile and a brilliant maternal bull for the suckler man. A hta heifer from a fr cow be she Holstein or Br. Fr. was the best suckler cow bar none in my humble opinion and I've tried a lot of them. As a terminal sire the BB,OVO or the CH,MZT. (Criteria,growth rate, ease of calving and general all rounders) I found Rocky to be very big calves and caused a lot of calving problems.Plus their growth rate was not worth the problems he caused calving.

Western Pomise

Genghis Cant wrote: »

Ecrin, Erudite, Indurain all left a legacy. So did Jupiter and Bowerhouse Topper.
Though not a fan, no bull created the buzz like CF52 in his time.

Would totally agree with you,Ecrin was a tremendously consistent breeder,personally didnt like the strong high tails Bowerhouse Topper stock had,.....and CF 52 females were a waste of time.

Sheep breeder

A very nice topic, in the charolais breed the tombola cow had a huge influence in her sons in ai,Hermes was a serious bit of stuff and cf 52 did super work for the Irish beef industry, as for his daughters two of our best milking cows are 52 daughters, we have some 52 in the flask and jupiter left, in the lim cannon and ronick hawk and objat were good breeders and fl 17 was a serious breeder, in the sim hilllcrest butcher and sigfried were good breeders,
But ai has done wonder full job over the years making great bulls available at a handy price,

bogman_bass

invicta wrote: »

For me it has to be Hortensai (H T A) probably the best Limousine bull ever.Great calves,easy calving, extremely docile and a brilliant maternal bull for the suckler man. A hta heifer from a fr cow be she Holstein or Br. Fr. was the best suckler cow bar none in my humble opinion and I've tried a lot of them. As a terminal sire the BB,OVO or the CH,MZT. (Criteria,growth rate, ease of calving and general all rounders) I found Rocky to be very big calves and caused a lot of calving problems.Plus their growth rate was not worth the problems he caused calving.

You found Rocky hard calved but OVO is ok?

GrandSoftDay

bogman_bass wrote: »

You found Rocky hard calved but OVO is ok?

Had a good few rocky calves here a few years back and don't think I had to lay a hand on them. Great quality calves too!

invicta

Yea! The problem with Rocky was gestation length.for a finish we induced all cows at 280 days otherwise they would carry up to 3 weeks before calving.Whereas OVO nearly always calved on time or maybe a day or two before.
I'm talking about Rocky the Lm bull NOT Roundhill Rocky the Ch.--

bogman_bass

ovo threw some monsters of calves though.

23.2% calving difficulty:eek:

Seaba

We only had one OVO calf, given to our best calving cow and still she couldn't calf him - monster, dead calf and she wasn't over fed. Never again round our place

BYU was not as bad, calving wise, as OVO and yet brought great calves. Used him a lot

Mad4simmental

Seaba wrote: »

From a suckler view point - the Belgian Blue bull - EPI.
I'd say we had 20 calves out of him and 15 were U3 in the factory.
Started out small and were therefore easy calving but made serious cattle. Just talking about him brings a tear to Dads eye and a smile to his face.

Iv herd allot of good calves from EPI, nice when your dead proud of what you breed makes it all worth while.

Mad4simmental

severeoversteer wrote: »

have some suckler yearling bulls in the shed with mogador blood

gaining 2.2-2.5 kg on adlib meal

650kg at a year old

they have best performance and there are a good few AI suckler bulls in my shed but they take the biscuit

How did you find calving difficultly with the mogador bulls? He's a fair lump of a bull but very nice.

severeoversteer

Mad4simmental wrote: »

How did you find calving difficultly with the mogador bulls? He's a fair lump of a bull but very nice.

i bought them mogador bulls along with a heap of other ai weanlings, i know all the suckler men i buy from and get the same stock year on year

id pay top dollar for them as they always do well and i know the breeding is behind them. i have bulls in the shed from almost all the bulls mentioned on this thread

Bigbird1

It was cf52 that really got me interested in sucklers and breeding.going to marts years ago his stock would stand out a mile. Since then MZT has bred very well for us and CXY. BYU has bred very well super blue calves.im confident that the CXY son in dovea lisnagre handsome will breed well.,great breeding in him

Mac Taylor

GrandSoftDay wrote: »

Had a good few rocky calves here a few years back and don't think I had to lay a hand on them. Great quality calves too!

Same as that. Have a rocky stock bull here. Only used the jack twice in 35 calvings. The only downside is that his daughters have almost zero milk. Will chance one of his daughter this year as she is out of a milky simx cow.

GrandSoftDay

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Same as that. Have a rocky stock bull here. Only used the jack twice in 35 calvings. The only downside is that his daughters have almost zero milk. Will chance one of his daughter this year as she is out of a milky simx cow.

I only had one heifer out of him and sold her. All the rest were bull calves. Friend has a few rocky cows and they are a disaster for milk alright.

Feckthis

What's DBZ like for calving.? Anyone want to recommend a good PG AI BULL for a mature AA cow?

J.O. Farmer

Feckthis wrote: »

What's DBZ like for calving.? Anyone want to recommend a good PG AI BULL for a mature AA cow?

What breed you looking for and what are you looking to produce in terms of for breeding or finishing etc.

A good LM would work well on AA. HCA is easy calved and can leave nice calves without having to be there. A bit more information on what you want might help here.

Nettleman

you can use this search to get the eurostars once you know the code

https://webapp.icbf.com/bull-search/

Future Farmer

Feckthis wrote: »

What's DBZ like for calving.? Anyone want to recommend a good PG AI BULL for a mature AA cow?

For a mature AA cow you could use lots of PG bulls:

BB - AJY, STQ, ZSD, DBZ.
LM: ADX, GWO, FTY.


They have loads of bulls, that's only some of them!

bogman_bass

What are you doing with the calves? Selling as weanlings or finishing?

Feckthis

bogman_bass wrote: »

What are you doing with the calves? Selling as weanlings or finishing?

Selling as weanlings.

bogman_bass

Stick with LM in that case. I've had good calves from ADX out of AAx cows

Genghis Cant

bogman_bass wrote: »

Stick with LM in that case. I've had good calves from ADX out of AAx cows

A Lim heifer from this cross will make a nice suckler cow too, so several options!

Mad4simmental

VZN is a lovely looking lim bull