The Limestone Cowboy buys a bull.

Limestone Cowboy

Today is after summing up the [New Suckler] scheme for me. Bought a bull and had the pick of ten in the field, one really muscly fella that caught my eye immediately but only one star for both terminal and maternal. Ended up buying another fella with 4 stars for both for the same price that in fairness is not a bad bull but not in the same league as the other lad. Spent the drive home wondering what I was after doing!

[mod]Breeding discussion split-off New Suckler Scheme on per Hectare Basis thread.[/mod]

ellewood

Limestone Cowboy wrote: »

Today is after summing up the scheme for me. Bought a bull and had the pick of ten in the field, one really muscly fella that caught my eye immediately but only one star for both terminal and maternal. Ended up buying another fella with 4 stars for both for the same price that in fairness is not a bad bull but not in the same league as the other lad. Spent the drive home wondering what I was after doing!

Would the mucely lad leave caves worth more at sale than the E60.00/cow from the scheme without any paperwork/inspection/claw back of money if u miss out on a % foe ur matrix to qualify in 3 4 or 5 years time

If he would then I know which 1 I would have bought irrispective of stars

tanko

Did you buy a Charolais bull LC?

skoger

ellewood wrote: »

Would the mucely lad leave caves worth more at sale than the E60.00/cow from the scheme without any paperwork/inspection/claw back of money if u miss out on a % foe ur matrix to qualify in 3 4 or 5 years time

If he would then I know which 1 I would have bought irrispective of stars

Or to look at it another way, would he cost you €200 a calf for calling the vet out to do a section?

Either way Limestone best of luck with him.

Limestone Cowboy

tanko wrote: »

Did you buy a Charolais bull LC?

No another lim, impossible to work here with one bull. Efz out of a mas du clo cow. The really good bull was by tvr.

blue5000

Limestone Cowboy wrote: »

Today is after summing up the scheme for me. Bought a bull and had the pick of ten in the field, one really muscly fella that caught my eye immediately but only one star for both terminal and maternal. Ended up buying another fella with 4 stars for both for the same price that in fairness is not a bad bull but not in the same league as the other lad. Spent the drive home wondering what I was after doing!

Best of luck LC, hope he doesn't drop down 2 stars in the next evaluation like my lad did this April. Any harm to ask what you paid? PM me if you like.

Mac Taylor

LC, I would not have brought home the tvr lad, 14% calving, I'd two out of him and didn't like either, I know it's not a great sample size just my tuppence worth, with all the lads looking for maternal heifers efz might be a better bet.

Limestone Cowboy

blue5000 wrote: »

Best of luck LC, hope he doesn't drop down 2 stars in the next evaluation like my lad did this April. Any harm to ask what you paid? PM me if you like.

1700 but he's only the bare 12 months and not pushed too much. Around 450kg, he should manage a handful of smaller cows.

Western Pomise

Limestone Cowboy wrote: »

1700 but he's only the bare 12 months and not pushed too much. Around 450kg, he should manage a handful of smaller cows.

Best of luck with him,on a separate note an old neighbour who keeps up to date with the IFJ etc summed up the Beef Genomic Scheme in a few words like so...
' it's like giving a lad a job,telling him its for 6 yrs,then telling him after 5 yrs sorry but your jobs gone and you can pay us back all your wages for the last 5 yrs as well!'

ALANC81

Mac Taylor wrote: »

LC, I would not have brought home the tvr lad, 14% calving, I'd two out of him and didn't like either, I know it's not a great sample size just my tuppence worth, with all the lads looking for maternal heifers efz might be a better bet.

The stars given for TVR are putting it politely pure siht a half star for terminal and a half star for maternal pure scutter he's one of the best terminal bulls out there coming from Vantastic who's said by some to be the best Limousin bull ever bred. He's not for small heifers being calved at 2 years of age. Which IMO is madness. We have six calves by him two from heifers. The heifers needed a bit of a pull but noting serious.

His dam is Ardlea Coillte who's known for her maternal traits and she's by Vison who is also known for his maternal traits. Coillte has loads of milk and Vison breeds milk into his offspring but TVR is still minus for milk.

I don't know what's going on with TVR but his stars are crap.

blue5000

ALANC81 wrote: »

The stars given for TVR are putting it politely pure siht a half star for terminal and a half star for maternal pure scutter he's one of the best terminal bulls out there coming from Vantastic who's said by some to be the best Limousin bull ever bred. He's not for small heifers being calved at 2 years of age. Which IMO is madness. We have six calves by him two from heifers. The heifers needed a bit of a pull but noting serious.

His dam is Ardlea Coillte who's known for her maternal traits and she's by Vison who is also known for his maternal traits. Coillte has loads of milk and Vison breeds milk into his offspring but TVR is still minus for milk.

I don't know what's going on with TVR but his stars are crap.

https://webapp.icbf.com/bull-search/view/823484008

The problem is that he is 18% for calving difficulty, It knocks 150 off his ebi. OK he is a terminal bull, but a dead calf and a fooked up downer cow after calving is no good to anybody and his figures reflect this.

ALANC81

They have him down at 18% but it's not actually true we have 5 yearling heifers and 6 calves by him and we didn't have to use the jack once. I hear of people saying that they had trouble calving him but then they say it was a two year old heifer out on grass or on the best of silage. That's pure madness IMO. There's a lot to be said for animal management. We wouldn't calve mature cows out on grass to an easy calving bull never mind a heifer to a Vantastic son.

rangler1

ALANC81 wrote: »

They have him down at 18% but it's not actually true we have 5 yearling heifers and 6 calves by him and we didn't have to use the jack once. I hear of people saying that they had trouble calving him but then they say it was a two year old heifer out on grass or on the best of silage. That's pure madness IMO. There's a lot to be said for animal management. We wouldn't calve mature cows out on grass to an easy calving bull never mind a heifer to a Vantastic son.

Have same experience with sheep. I used to give two rams to lambplus every October for testing and in November they'd go out with 100 ewe lambs of my own for lambing in april.
Every one of them were penalised for hard lambing, what sort of idiots are assessing these
Surely the ewe lambs would've been the first to flag if there was any of them were hard lambing.

Sheep breeder

alanc81
vantastic females are known for having no milk and said to have not enough to feed the cat,
if the calving difficulty is so high he is a problem and not to be used.

ALANC81

Yes Vantastic is known to have no milk but he is only half of TVR. Coillte TVR,s dams line is known to have milk she's also the dam of EFZ.

Genghis Cant

Best of luck LC, hope he goes well for you no matter what stars he's has!
I do feel your frustration though!

Willfarman

This scheme is 5 star bull****.

Sam Kade

I thought you had to ai so many cows for that scheme?

Bullocks

Sam Kade wrote: »

I thought you had to ai so many cows for that scheme?

Not if your bull is five star or as good as the lads in AI

blue5000

Bullocks wrote: »

Not if your bull is five star or as good as the lads in AI

He only has to be 5 star on the day you buy him, if he drops after you're still OK.
What's the docility like in Lims these days? I stopped using Lim ai about 15 years ago when I got stuck to a wall by a lim bull in a shed. Wouldn't like to go back using them now either because my sucklers are getting madder every generation.

Kovu

Lol at the title Greysides gave this thread
It's like the name of a bad country song!

greysides

blue5000 wrote: »

What's the docility like in Lims these days?

IMO, as good as any other breed.

(And if you knew my previous opinion of then from a while back, that's saying something!)

tim04750

Bullocks wrote: »

Not if your bull is five star or as good as the lads in AI

blue5000 wrote: »

He only has to be 5 star on the day you buy him, if he drops after you're still OK.
What's the docility like in Lims these days? I stopped using Lim ai about 15 years ago when I got stuck to a wall by a lim bull in a shed. Wouldn't like to go back using them now either because my sucklers are getting madder every generation.

FOUR STAR !! , rep or term, across or within.

blue5000

Thanks tim wasn't 100% sure, the older I get the reliability seems to be dropping:(

tim04750

Nowt wrong with your wit,