| Colley - 3/27/2017 20:59
I've got a buddy that they've kept the Aberdeen Angus bloodlines & about inbred with Traveller & Scottscap bulls & sell a pile of those bulls & heifers every year but I believe the best thing that ever was done to the old line Hereford & Aberdeen Angus was breed to Brahman bloodlines like was popular in the early 70s to put some frame & milk on those cattle. Another buddy of mine has mostly Hereford & baldy cows & they're 7-800 pounds narrow as a 2x4 hairy as a Sasquatch & seem like they always have pinkeye but his old man won't change. I believe cattle have improved over the years while hogs have went backwards. I love the looks of a good Hereford but finding one in this part of the country is hard, saw some good ones being culled the other day off a F-1 Bradford project but they had papers & brought more then I was willing to pay.
Been awhile since I have heard Scotch Cap and Traveler mentioned but they, and Big Sky, a handful of others, were kings of the Angus breed 20 years ago.
Having been around Hereford cattle all my life, most of the guys I know used Simmental to get the frame back in them. Angus guys seemed to use Chianina a lot. I'm sorry to say I think that choice falls on the negative side of the ledger with Angus cattle.
Good Hereford cattle are going to cost. Kind of a "You can't get them cheap enough if they are poor, and you can't pay enough if they are good" scenario. So much of Hereford cattle's issues stems from that kind of thought process you mention, unwillingness to change. The old line thought process, "Yeller and meller", was stupid. We sell pounds. I have a number of selection criteria I use on Herefords but milk and pigment are high on the list. I would also add that a friend of mine, another Hereford man, breeds for a lot of those tiger stripe F1's. He told me recently that he AI'ed some cows a year or two ago to a hot AI sire, he said never again will he use that ranches bulls. He found out the resulting calves couldn't stand heat. Everything is a product of it's environment. |
The quality of feeder cattle from the Southeast
