West Central Iowa | bcochran79 - 3/26/2020 15:34
I am considering keeping a few of my bull calves as potential herd sires. Unfortunately I’m not much of a cowboy and I didn’t tag my calves as they hit the ground. In a week or so I plan to work the calves. We will tag all the calves and castrate the bulls. The problem is that I need my consultant to select the potential sires as I haven’t developed much of an eye yet, the all look like black calves to me. I need to verify they are out of a good cow (watch them nurse). I also need to be able to identify the potential herd sires as they come through the chute so I will know to leave them intact. I am considering attempting to mark them with a paintball gun. Anyone have experience with this? I am open to suggestions.
I would tag and pair them. On developing an eye for cattle first visualize the skeleton, if you don’t know what a skeleton looks like get familiar with it. Look at feet, then joint angles, pelvis length/width and angle, after that visualize the muscle on the animal, look at the forearm muscle(there is little fat there). Select animals with a deep heart girth as they will make much nicer looking cows. Those are just some quick first steps to start picking animals, good luck. |
Cowboy Advice
