|
| Tested has intrigued me for awhile, I have seen some guys claim he's the real deal and he looks like a solid bull from the pictures I have seen but the 1 thing that scares me a little is that his yearling frame was 4.4 and 63 calves sire by him have averaged 5.1 frame when you look at his progeny averages in his performance pedigree. We've gotten our females frame size down to mostly in the 5 frame range the past several years which is a nice efficient size for cows but wouldn't want to get them any smaller than that so breeding to a smaller frame bull like Tested I worry we'd start dipping under 5 in frame too much. We had a first calf heifer this year who was a 4.6 frame at yearling, she was bred to our new yearling herd sire whose 1st round of calves lived up to the calving ease he was bred for but we had to have the vet out to pull an 82lb calf from her so she's probably getting culled this fall as we think she's just too small for our liking and could be a hard calver as she should have been able to calve that size of a calf even as a 1st calf heifer or at the very least been an easier pull that didn't require the vet to come out. Even our 5.0 frame herd sire I'm a little worried is too small, we'll see what his first calves do but I've heard some say in order to maintain your frame size and not shrink frame down more than the female you want to breed to a bull at least .5 frame size bigger than the female. The other thing that worries me a little about Tested is he was just 960lbs at yearling which seems a little light for a bull being advertised as a carcass bull. Select Sires has one of his sons and he was just 532 at weaning and 927 at yearling, maybe for some that seems OK but 960 is only 2.63 WDA where ideally you'd like to see a yearling WDA around 3.0 which is just shy of 1100. Just my opinion when I have crunched some numbers on Tested, not saying he's a bad bull but I just worry about him being too moderate sized for someone's liking.
I definitely think more moderate framed cattle can be more efficient than large frame cattle in many environments and the Hereford breed got too caught up in the frame race back in the 90's and early 2000's and most breeders have finally brought the frame size down. But I also worry in the age of moderation that some are getting dangerously close to being too moderate to where they are almost too small where we're seeing more 3 and 4 frame cattle which is too small I think and when bred to the wrong bulls is just asking for trouble at calving time too. | |
|
Just a few pictures
