I pay close attention to herd health. Not as in giving more shots to prevent sickness. We give branding shots and pre weaning shots just like most commercial breeders. The bulls don’t receive any other shots until fertility testing. The two year olds got a virasheild 6VL% and pinkeye/footrot shot. The yearling bulls got Express 5VL5 and pinkeye/footrot. I get a lot of bull sale catalogs, as I’m sure you all do, and I can’t help but notice all the shots the seedstock industry gives; 2-4 shots at birth, branding, preconditioning, weaning, booster after weaning, then breeding shots. I don’t know any commercial breeder who gives that many shots. I think as seedstock breeders we need to challenge these cattle and run them like a commercial operation. I get that a lot of breeders calve early and have to go through a barn which creates challenges in and of itself with regards to sickness, but is the industry over vaccinating? I get that bulls are worth a lot of money but I also don’t believe every bull born out of a registered cow should make a bull. I think there are a lot of bulls that are sold that would get sick without strict vaccination protocols. …. and I definitely don’t want to pass those genetics on to my customers. If I have a cow that has a sick calf more than once she gets culled. I had one bull calf get foot rot this sum- mer. He probably could’ve made a bull but I culled him just because he got foot rot. Now that cow has a mark. If she has a calf that has a problem again she will get sold. If that problem is genetic, then I want to be sure I won’t pass that problem on to my customers. I doctored one bull in my April/May pen and now he will get culled and won’t be in next year’s sale because of it. There are some bulls that get sold for a lot of money and the new trend is to only auction off small amounts of semen that sells for a lot of money. Those straws are then used to flush to donor animals, sometimes to cows that are worth a lot of money and sometimes to yearling heifers who have outrageous numbers. What would his EPDs be if he was used on average cows? Another big trend is expensive bulls being out of embryo programs whose dam, grand dam, and sometimes even great grand dam have never even raised a calf. What is happening is people are taking a female that has really good EPDs and flushing them to yearling bulls that also have good EPDs and taking a daughter and flushing her around a year of age to another yearling bull with good EPDs. This is all from genomics not actual data. Then they take that offspring and flush it to another high genomic young animal and now they have a super star animal on paper with no actual data. They don’t even know if the great grand dam can get bred and raise a decent calf yet. Or the grandam or dam. But they are promoted hard and the commercial guy is the one who has to suffer with the results when they find out the DNA isn’t right. Genomics are for perfect world scenarios. It doesn’t account for running cattle on grass in a commercial setting. Would the genomics be right if they were fed like dairy animals? Maybe.. But not many commercial producers run their cattle that way. Genomics doesn’t count for adaptability. Thoughts from Slovek Ranch
As you look at the sires I use you won’t see a lot of popular sires. It’s for a reason. I put a lot of miles on looking at cattle. I’m always looking for genetics to bring into my herd and it’s hard to find ones I really like. If you ever want to talk to me on why I don’t use a sire or why I choose the ones I do, feel free to call me and I’ll give you my reasons why I don’t use them. In 2004, the average weaning weight on bulls across the AAA data base was 650 pounds. In 2024 it was 655 pounds. What does that mean? We’ve reached the growth point to where the environment won’t allow for more growth. For the most part the only way to achieve bigger weaning weights is by additional inputs. The growth potential is there but the resources aren’t. Have you ever bought bulls before with huge weaning weights and not seen an increase in your own weaning weights? It’s because your environment won’t allow it without those extra inputs. If you aren’t retaining ownership on your calves you aren’t getting the genetic potential of those offspring. The buyer of your calves will when they get them to the feedlot, which is great because you want whoever buys your calves to make money, but what’s going to happen with the daughters you keep back? More than likely they’ll be bigger harder-doing cows that won’t last as long. You might see where you are running less cows on the same amount of acres while adding higher open rates.
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