Easy calving percentage

Albert Johnson · 15-10-2018 11:17PM

[/QUOTE]Zag is an easy enough calver and sa2153 if you can get him[/quote]

ZAG progeny are in no short supply around here and none of them would inspire me to use him tbh.
Small little balls of butter that will never amount to much in my opinion. I know he's marketed mainly as a heifers bull but I would think an average Saler or even an AA or a Hereford would leave more saleable stock after them.
As regards the advice to use him on big plainish cows, if there not able to calve anything more than a screw of a ZAG than I think its time to evaluate the breeding policy.

squinn2912 · 15-10-2018 11:21PM

No mincing words there. Not sure about the point on aa/he I love the Hereford cattle but hard to sell. Bulled a wee cow with a Kentucky straw and she has a gem of a calf now brilliant wee thriver the zag heifers were always soft oul cattle for us. Wee butts I’d say they fatten handy but wouldn’t be a huge fan either

charolais0153 · 15-10-2018 11:35PM

Ive seen more e grade zag calfs than r ones but then people dont tend ta photograph the bad ones

Albert Johnson · 16-10-2018 12:06AM

I agree AA and HE cattle aren't that easy sold at the present time but neither are butts of limousines. Small butty cattle may be alright if you could carry them through to finish but are a disaster for the domestic weanling trade.
As you could probably guess I'm no fan of ZAG, in my opinion his progeny are best described as disappointing.
I frequent a couple of weanling sales a week and good growthy calves with potential are as dear as ever. It's the smaller, dumpy lads that are getting a hammering.
I know that if I fed a cow for 12 months to produce the equivalent ZAG calf I see in fields locally then it would be a lonesome walk out of the seller's box on mart day. Then sort of cattle aren't being bid for at any money at times lately and have little to offer any sucker man in my opinion.

squinn2912 · 16-10-2018 12:41PM

Albert Johnson wrote: »

I agree AA and HE cattle aren't that easy sold at the present time but neither are butts of limousines. Small butty cattle may be alright if you could carry them through to finish but are a disaster for the domestic weanling trade.
As you could probably guess I'm no fan of ZAG, in my opinion his progeny are best described as disappointing.
I frequent a couple of weanling sales a week and good growthy calves with potential are as dear as ever. It's the smaller, dumpy lads that are getting a hammering.
I know that if I fed a cow for 12 months to produce the equivalent ZAG calf I see in fields locally then it would be a lonesome walk out of the seller's box on mart day. Then sort of cattle aren't being bid for at any money at times lately and have little to offer any sucker man in my opinion.

Ah I don't know if I'd just go that far. We sold a couple of Zag heifers at about 16 months and they did ok. Chunky sorts not great but sold well enough. There's one bulled now off an Apostle Sim heifer that we let go after her second calf. She had a great calf but was a tight girl to calve and my father never thought too much of her. Think her and the calf went for about £1740 so that was ok.
We bulled the previous one largely because although the calves out of our own bull are significantly better quality some were too muscly and ALL were stone wild so we weren't going to keep them in a fit. Great riddance. I'm not all that hopeful of the Zag heifer but sure we'll give her a chance. She has the white socks like the guys were saying recently so maybe there's hope.

Never wrestle with pigs · 16-10-2018 01:30PM

squinn2912 wrote: »

Ah I don't know if I'd just go that far. We sold a couple of Zag heifers at about 16 months and they did ok. Chunky sorts not great but sold well enough. There's one bulled now off an Apostle Sim heifer that we let go after her second calf. She had a great calf but was a tight girl to calve and my father never thought too much of her. .

IV a pet hate for that apz. His daughter calving difficulty is over %12 but he still stands in ai. He is passing on Heifers with a very small pelvis, and no calving ability. Imagine what these real figures are after the ones that are not reported. How on earth it's ok to pass on this into our breeding herd is beyond me.

I haven't much fate in the stars etc any more but calving difficulty and daughter calving difficulty to me are extremely important traits to be able look up, not like the guess work we all done years ago.

blonde10 · 16-10-2018 07:55PM

Thats what i like about the blonde on the blue ,you get a nice bit of growth and of course legnts and the blue will do the rest..anybody come across any sub 5% blonde in there travel..

patsy_mccabe · 16-10-2018 07:58PM

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

IV a pet hate for that apz. His daughter calving difficulty is over %12 but he still stands in ai. He is passing on Heifers with a very small pelvis, and no calving ability. Imagine what these real figures are after the ones that are not reported. How on earth it's ok to pass on this into our breeding herd is beyond me.

I haven't much fate in the stars etc any more but calving difficulty and daughter calving difficulty to me are extremely important traits to be able look up, not like the guess work we all done years ago.

And he's a 5 Star bull. Crazy when you think about it.

squinn2912 · 16-10-2018 08:00PM

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

IV a pet hate for that apz. His daughter calving difficulty is over %12 but he still stands in ai. He is passing on Heifers with a very small pelvis, and no calving ability. Imagine what these real figures are after the ones that are not reported. How on earth it's ok to pass on this into our breeding herd is beyond me.

I haven't much fate in the stars etc any more but calving difficulty and daughter calving difficulty to me are extremely important traits to be able look up, not like the guess work we all done years ago.

And he's a 5 Star bull. Crazy when you think about it.

Feel quite aggrieved about that misfortune. The country is full ofbhim too. I’ve known him to be a disaster almost every time. Seemed to be a test sire a long time very disappointing.

Who2 · 16-10-2018 10:05PM

I got rid of everything with apostle in them. A complete disaster of a bull. I near got shot for saying it a few years back.

Lady Haywire · 16-10-2018 10:34PM

blonde10 wrote: »

Thats what i like about the blonde on the blue ,you get a nice bit of growth and of course legnts and the blue will do the rest..anybody come across any sub 5% blonde in there travel..

Clondown Eddie in Bova is 4.5?

squinn2912 · 16-10-2018 11:17PM

Who2 wrote: »

I got rid of everything with apostle in them. A complete disaster of a bull. I near got shot for saying it a few years back.

Garbage. I don’t know why he was pushed so much. I’d take any of our 3 lim bulls over him

GiantPencil · 17-10-2018 01:13PM

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

IV a pet hate for that apz. His daughter calving difficulty is over %12 but he still stands in ai. He is passing on Heifers with a very small pelvis, and no calving ability. Imagine what these real figures are after the ones that are not reported. How on earth it's ok to pass on this into our breeding herd is beyond me.

I haven't much fate in the stars etc any more but calving difficulty and daughter calving difficulty to me are extremely important traits to be able look up, not like the guess work we all done years ago.

And he's a 5 Star bull. Crazy when you think about it.

Looks like it's his calving interval, milk and carcass weight that's giving him a good score. So although his daughters can barely calve, they are very fertile! Just goes to show how a 5 star bull can still not be the be all and end all. Reminds me of when ICBF sent out a publication showing 2 ai bulls with the same replacement index but when you go down a layer the numbers that make up the overall number can be very different

GiantPencil · 17-10-2018 01:15PM

And he's a 5 Star bull. Crazy when you think about it.
Looks like it's his calving interval, milk and carcass weight that's giving him a good score. So although his daughters can barely calve, they are very fertile! Just goes to show how a 5 star bull can still not be the be all and end all. Reminds me of when ICBF sent out a publication showing 2 ai bulls with the same replacement index but when you go down a layer the numbers that make up the overall number can be very different

Sami23 · 17-10-2018 01:51PM

Lady Haywire wrote: »

simx wrote: »

Eby 3.8
Ulsan 0.9
Thz 4.4%

3-4% on cont heifers seem to be the norm

Eby and lm2014 (3-4%) v popular

Kzh gets used too Don't think i'll be using EBY again, calves are butty enough. Just a fine line between nice easy calving & a weed of a calf. THZ is a nice in between sort. Funnily enough I've never had a single issue with thz but 2/3 eby calves had problems.

Agree I'll never use EBY again. The couple of times I have used him I had I've had to use the jack and in one case get the vet and ended up with a dead calf. I know alot of people are using him with no issue but that was my experience anyway

squinn2912 · 17-10-2018 02:22PM

Really? We used EBY along with ZAG and I'd have thought him better but not enough to call it a fair test. I thought people were more than happy with him. Good to know that. You could never be right!
What would be a decent cross with SIM heifers going back to Fresian? I might try them on a programme at the tail end of next spring if they have the size in time. Could be our own lim bull or is there something else to try to get shape/colour into them? Long time since there was a fresian about here but charolais were a good cross... just not on heifers.

Never wrestle with pigs · 17-10-2018 02:30PM

squinn2912 wrote: »

Really? We used EBY along with ZAG and I'd have thought him better but not enough to call it a fair test. I thought people were more than happy with him. Good to know that. You could never be right!
What would be a decent cross with SIM heifers going back to Fresian? I might try them on a programme at the tail end of next spring if they have the size in time. Could be our own lim bull or is there something else to try to get shape/colour into them? Long time since there was a fresian about here but charolais were a good cross... just not on heifers.

Lodge hamlet if you want shape if they are tall well framed types. If you want coloured calves I'd say blonde is your best bet.

charolais0153 · 17-10-2018 02:32PM

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Lodge hamlet if you want shape if they are tall well framed types. If you want coloured calves I'd say blonde is your best bet.

Really? Id imagine that you'd get some awful mousey types from that cross

squinn2912 · 17-10-2018 02:40PM

They look like fresians themselves or whiteheads with different shaped heads. It could be very hard to avoid that horrible chocolate colour or black so maybe I need to just suck that up.

charolais0153 · 17-10-2018 02:43PM

squinn2912 wrote: »

They look like fresians themselves or whiteheads with different shaped heads. It could be very hard to avoid that horrible chocolate colour or black so maybe I need to just suck that up.

Had one here. 1 in 4 limos were red. Others black.
1 in 4 charolis orange others grey. That's the odds

Lady Haywire · 17-10-2018 02:46PM

Alwent hitman is the easiest ch I've seen for CD recently. Think it's 6.9. I'd have no qualms putting him on a strongish heifer.

charolais0153 · 17-10-2018 02:49PM

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Alwent hitman is the easiest ch I've seen for CD recently. Think it's 6.9. I'd have no qualms putting him on a strongish heifer.

Theres a few in dovea under 4. Coom indurain,potterleagh Mark and others
Bivouac also

Lady Haywire · 17-10-2018 02:57PM

charolais0153 wrote: »

Theres a few in dovea under 4. Coom indurain,potterleagh Mark and others
Bivouac also

I'd forgotten about coom indurain actually. Nicer calves off him that Alwent hitman, though you don't have the polled heads then.
I'd hold off on Potterleagh Mark until he has a few more calves on the ground tbh, have one incalf to him next year but hes still a young bull with low % on his stats.

tanko · 17-10-2018 03:08PM

Has anyone used the Dovea CH bull Sicilien S2014. He's 3.9% CD at 94%.

charolais0153 · 17-10-2018 03:14PM

Lady Haywire wrote: »

I'd hold off on Potterleagh Mark until he has a few more calves on the ground tbh, have one incalf to him next year but hes still a young bull with low % on his stats.

90%rel.
Interestingly 58%of his calves have been male

Lady Haywire · 17-10-2018 03:29PM

charolais0153 wrote: »

90%rel.
Interestingly 58%of his calves have been male

Still hasn't got over 300 calves on the ground, he was only born in 2016 so working off his first crop of calves. Though his breeding suggests easy calving too.

squinn2912 · 17-10-2018 04:39PM

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Alwent hitman is the easiest ch I've seen for CD recently. Think it's 6.9. I'd have no qualms putting him on a strongish heifer.

Ah if these girls get to the size it'll be about all they can do so I may forget about the ch. I suppose I should aim at something alive for the first time and then try to expand a bit. They'll be sound for milk at any rate!

TITANIUM. · 17-10-2018 04:44PM

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Alwent hitman is the easiest ch I've seen for CD recently. Think it's 6.9. I'd have no qualms putting him on a strongish heifer.

Munster AI have a ch bull called Lapon that there calling the next pirate. He's 5*s replacement and terminal across all breeds and has a CD of just 3.9 . That's only at 43%Reliability though. And he's still proof pending

Never wrestle with pigs · 17-10-2018 05:43PM

charolais0153 wrote: »

Really? Id imagine that you'd get some awful mousey types from that cross

That's if colour didn't matter. Definitely get mouse types of colour but good shape. Blonde will bring colour.

Dunedin · 17-10-2018 09:20PM

Had an eby calf yesterday. Very disappointed with him, small calf and fierce short

Easy calving percentage

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