Beef AI/Bulls MEGATHREAD

If there anyway decent they’ll have blue or char second calf

Probably will be better if I'll give examples of what I've used so far. Most bulls I use now are french, so their indexes are abit different, but I did use a couple, which could be found on icbf. Last year heifers had mainly lim sired calves by two bulls- Tweeddale Lennox and Tomschoice Onslow. Used Lennox on bluex and abit more muscled ones. All were born real small except for one out of bluexcharolaisx heifer. That one was 54kg, assisted. All other were hardly reaching 40kg. He is 6,6%(78% rel.) on beef heifers. Onslow is 12,9%(42% rel.) on beef heifers and 3,9% on cows. His calves all were born unassisted. Three heifers had heifers from him. Heifers themselves were simxlimx, blondexlimx and charxlimx. Calves slightly bigger, maybe around 45kg, but no bother with such. Pretty much all heifers could calve such calves unassisted here. Had used Lodge Hamlet before on heifers and some cows. All easily born calves, not a single assist. He is 8,1% on heifers. Would use him on any kind of heifer.

Had used Charolais bull strictly only on cows. Tweeddale Lookout. He is 10,5% on cows. He was used only on cows and preferably bigger ones or with higher calving capacity. His bull calves ranged from 48 up to 64kg.

Not much experience with %, but deciding from my own results, a bull up to 10% for heifers would be an option for heifers here. Someone with <7% would be good enough choice for higher risk heifers. Though, I'm pretty confident in Onslow on an average type heifers, so he would be my choice for bigger, potentially easier calving ones.

Currently I have Charolais bull Myerscough Phantom. He is 6,3% on cows and 9,9%(48%rel.) on heifers. I do plan to use him on one big charolais heifer this season. But I would use him without any hesitation on almost all cows.

Abit about the french indexes. Using bulls with 105+ IFNais on heifers, cows got some as low as 86. Every time when choosing a bull I think about what breed is the heifer/cow, her own history or her family history, what breed of bull could work with her and what kind of calf such breeding could potentially produce. My own set requirement for heifers is that they would be able to calve 45kg calve unasissted easily. Had some calve 50kg unassisted. But of course it depends on the shape of the calf too. Cows should calve 50kg calf no bother. Have some calve 60+kg unassisted.

The price of bulls aint cheap either. What would you expect to pay for a 18mth old Angus this may/June?

All bar one here have calved well before time, same cows in general same straw's used

Seems to be v common this year

Why?

Selling them here for 2500 minimum

Gotcha. All the same cows as last year so not sure what’s going on.

one heifer in that bunch and not one for breeding though. 7 bulls and 3 heifers. Last year was 12 bulls and 3 heifers. Was just looking and the one cow we bought in the last 10 years to add some diversity had her 8th straight bull this year….

Why so, 17 to 18mths is young. The lad buying would be lucky to have 15 to 20 calves off him. A normal suckler 18 mouth old bullock would eat the same

Try a bullock with your cows so...

Do any of ye breed parthenaise cattle? How do they go for ye selling as weanlings in the mart? You would see very few around here but they seem to have good stats in the AI book and easy calving with it.

Have a few crossbred parthenaise cows.Great cows and always throw a lovely yellow charolais calf.

A lad from down the country bought a bull off us a few weeks ago. He had let a hex bull calf run on with his milkers. All grand for a while. Then big calves coupled with being chased into a ditch by the crossbred bull made him decide his savings weren't worth it. He posts on here occasionally

You will 100% have more trouble with a limousin. Nothing wrong with Angus. You would have to laugh. Dairy farmers with record profits in 2022 but are still too tight to pay for a good pb bull 😭

That's why I don't deal with lads crying over price, the price is the price and if they're not prepared to pay it someone else will

Agreed there's some very poor Angus out there. I know of one lad who shouldn't be getting pedigree papers at all. Genotyping should sort out the crap but some dairy lads dont bother looking at the figures , as long as it's easy calving, work away