simmental bull

anthony500_1

Hi all, looking into buying a bull for a small herd of a mix of limx, six and bbx don't have the time for ai as working full time off farm and have started to build a house, im looking at building my herd up and quite fancy the simmental as a breed. So keeping any heifer calf's for replacement is my way forward

Now here lies my problem, would an easy calving 4 or 5%. Calfing difficulty simmental bull be OK to use the heifers, or would they be very hard calved???

Used lim ai the last few years with middling success. Lack of time being the big problem.

farmerwifelet

Our vet said "there is no such thing as an easy calving simmental."

Our motto is easy calving angus for heifers. better a small live calf, than a big dead one.

anthony500_1

That's my worrie I'm not a fan of calving jacks or sections, its nourishment I'm looking for not punishment

High bike

Why not try a saler or aubrac ,easy calving and great replacements but take a bit of a hit on the bull calves

greysides

A lot of people like Limousin in a position like yours, if you look around there's enough variation in the breed to get something to suit. Simmentals are nice cattle in many respects, once they're out! I see you've BBX cows, I think you're taking enough risk there without putting a Simmental on them. That's a purely personal opinion.

anthony500_1

Yea the lim seems to be what a lot of ppl in my position use but I just fancied the sim as a replacement. Its hard to know

yessam

Why not buy a couple of simmental heifers when you sell your cull cows every year.
If you run a limousine bull you should have ease of calving, nice replacement heifer calves and very saleable bull calves.
You will also have a good mix of Simmental in the heard.

I keep mostly simmental cows and easy calving. Good at calving and for milk.

anthony500_1

Yessam, what breed bull do you use on the simmental cows

yessam

anthony500_1 wrote: »

Yessam, what breed bull do you use on the simmental cows

At the moment I have a very easy calving Charolais bull out of Pirate. He produces nice cattle for the weanling export market.

I will probably be changing the bull next year and will try buy a Limousine bull out of Zag.
I think if you have nice replacement heifers that farmers like, you tend to get a better price in mart from farmers rather than relying on agents to buy your cattle.

Irish Beef

I'm in a similar position to you, I'm working full time off farm and am also fond of the Simmental breed, I keep some Simmental cows and use a limousine bull, but I AI all heifers as easy to pick them up. you could do the same but keep Simmental bull for mature cows.

yessam

Hi Irish Beef. I know you are getting great bulls and a choice of bulls when using AI but I also work off farm and I couldn't manage with AI.
Watching cows, getting them in and watching that they don't break was impossible for me.
The bull also gives a more compact calving season.

Irish Beef

No I use a stock bull, only AI the Heifers, If I was using AI on the cows I would end up with a lot of empty cows. Im just saying that you could just AI heifers to maybe something like EBY and use any reasonably easy calving stock bull on the rest.

yessam

Should be some nice replacements from EBY.

lab man

Pity u didn't post last week I'm just after selling my sim Bull that went to the factory since. I've had 4 sim bulls an I've a jack but I don't kno where is.
so what you hear about sim bulls being hard calving is rubbish. I've only had one cessacerian that was off a ai ch Bull. Most are high on milk and and low on muscle that's why a lot of ppl look for their heifers

RogR

Be very careful choosing a limousine bull for blue cows. Depending on the type of blue cow you have, you may have to switch the jack for a good edgy blade. I see you require nourishment rather than punishment so I assume the only knife you want to see is the one for ateing your mate!!

tanko

farmerwifelet wrote: »

Our vet said "there is no such thing as an easy calving simmental."

Our motto is easy calving angus for heifers. better a small live calf, than a big dead one.

Well that statement is hardly true, Simmentals are like every other breed, they range from very easy calved bloodlines to very hard calved bloodlines.

farmerwifelet

tanko wrote: »

Well that statement is hardly true, Simmentals are like every other breed, they range from very easy calved bloodlines to very hard calved bloodlines.

Maybe but i wouldn't risk a simmental on a heifer. We do have a big red cow and we put her in calf to a simmental but we know she can take it. We are bringing on her simmental heifers to make cows but first calf for any breed of heifer here is angus. It works for us but each to their own.

Never wrestle with pigs

Calved heifers this year from 20mth old to 24mth old to a sim bull by curaheen bossman, no haste at all. Have the bcs right and that's half the work done.

Pidae.m

Is he not nearly 10% cd. I've one heifer I bought here off him she's only fair.

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Calved heifers this year from 20mth old to 24mth old to a sim bull by curaheen bossman, no haste at all. Have the bcs right and that's half the work done.

Never wrestle with pigs

Pidae.m wrote: »

Is he not nearly 10% cd. I've one heifer I bought here off him she's only fair.

Bossman is, my bull is around %6. No hastle at all.

anthony500_1

I see in the up coming sim sale in Roscommon there are a few bulls with 4-5% calling difficulty at 40% reliability, think at these figures there as good as any lim bull sure eby from dovea is around 4% so not that much of a difference or maybe I'm just blinded by stupidity.

anthony500_1

RogR wrote:

Be very careful choosing a limousine bull for blue cows. Depending on the type of blue cow you have, you may have to switch the jack for a good edgy blade. I see you require nourishment rather than punishment so I assume the only knife you want to see is the one for ateing your mate!!

Ah my Bbx are out of bf cows so there safe enough, good square cows but no heavy muscling, used eby last year on them with ok results nice marked calfs, dark blue on top with white bellys. And most important no jack

RD10

Have a purebred heifer in calf to SI2469

anthony500_1

RD10 wrote:

Have a purebred heifer in calf to SI2469

Looks like a nice combination of easy calving docility and milk.

yessam

anthony500_1 wrote: »

I see in the up coming sim sale in Roscommon there are a few bulls with 4-5% calling difficulty at 40% reliability, think at these figures there as good as any lim bull sure eby from dovea is around 4% so not that much of a difference or maybe I'm just blinded by stupidity.

When is the sale in Roscommon. I wouldn't mind trying a pure heifer some time.

anthony500_1

11th of march think about 80 lots off the top of my head in total, 60 bulls 20 heifers maybe. Catalogue on Irish simmental web sire

tanko

anthony500_1 wrote: »

I see in the up coming sim sale in Roscommon there are a few bulls with 4-5% calling difficulty at 40% reliability, think at these figures there as good as any lim bull sure eby from dovea is around 4% so not that much of a difference or maybe I'm just blinded by stupidity.

EBY is 3.6% Calving Difficulty at 99% reliability.
A CD figure at 40% reliability doesn't mean much but looking at the CD figures for the bulls sire and mothers sire should give you an idea of what the bull will be like.

yessam

tanko wrote: »

EBY is 3.6% Calving Difficulty at 99% reliability.
A CD figure at 40% reliability doesn't mean much but looking at the CD figures for the bulls sire and mothers sire should give you an idea of what the bull will be like.

EBY has good replacement and terminal values also.
5☆Replacement
4☆Terminal

anthony500_1

Well I went along today to the simmental sale in Roscommon today. Huge crowd, but a bit disappointing was that a Lot of bulls were missing that were down on the catalogue but great prices were made for the ones that were there. two made over 8k and lots up on 4 & 5k I'm afraid out of the 4 I had earmarked for there easy calving, only 1 was there, and the owner didn't take the 2800 + commission offered for him, not by me as it was outside my budget unfortunately, So my search continues.......

Mac Taylor

Was at the Simmental sale aswell today, while the bull trade was reasonably good, the trade for heifers was very poor with a lot not even getting a bid (floor was €1,700). No Northern buyers worth talking about. Start of the brexit impact unfortunately.

furandfeather

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Was at the Simmental sale aswell today, while the bull trade was reasonably good, the trade for heifers was very poor with a lot not even getting a bid (floor was €1,700). No Northern buyers worth talking about. Start of the brexit impact unfortunately.

True but in fairness it was a terrible display of heifers. 1700 was too much for a lot of them

tanko

I see on ICBF that only 5% of calves in suckler herds and only 3% of beef calves from the dairy herd are off Simmental bulls.
I would have thought those figures would have been higher.

charolais0153

tanko wrote: »

I see on ICBF that only 5% of calves in suckler herds and only 3% of beef calves from the dairy herd are off Simmental bulls.
I would have thought those figures would have been higher.

Half of the look alike sims are out down as charolais ...I've two anway....finishers are out off by sim on the board and the lad buying for breeding is buying on looks most of the time

GiantPencil

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Was at the Simmental sale aswell today, while the bull trade was reasonably good, the trade for heifers was very poor with a lot not even getting a bid (floor was €1,700). No Northern buyers worth talking about. Start of the brexit impact unfortunately.

Saw the male champion on on the farmers journal snapchat, he looked a fine and square bull. I heard that the breeder had a lot more entered but many of them were bought privately before the sale