Double M is a Progeny
Test herd for Genex. I’ve talked about
what a Progeny Test is here, but basically we AI cattle each year using new
young sires in the Genex line up along with a reference sire.
Last spring, the
ranch’s replacement heifers were bred to Thunder and McCoy. We also bred a smaller group to Solution and
a bull we call 1289 but the majority of the heifers were bred to the
Thunder/McCoy mating. Today I thought
I’d show you a few of the McCoy calves since he’s so new.
McCoy is a new young
sire that Genex calls a “Bet the Ranch” bull – and I’d easily agree. We have had zero trouble with the McCoy calves. The heifers easily had their calves, the head
& shoulder shape on the cattle is conducive to calving ease and the calves are
phenotypically correct. You can check
out McCoy’s EPD’s for all of the info – but I think sometimes it’s nice to hear
what really happens first hand after the calf is born.
We AI’ed about 185
heifers last year – and as of Sunday, we’ve tagged 112 calves. The heifers due date was 1/22 for the first
time breed so I’m calculating conception from this weekend – I know there were
a few repeat breeds, but for the purpose of this post I’m not considering
those. So that means we had about a 60%
conception rate, which we think is right on target. Of the 112 heifers that calved, we had 3 sets
of twins. The lightest calf we’ve had
was 44 pounds (it was 10 days early) and the heaviest was 90 pounds. The average calf weight has been 70 pounds. The McCoy calves have also coincidentally
averaged 70 pounds as well.
The calves pictured in this post were born starting Jan. 7 up until this Jan. 21. They are numbered in sequential order - so a calf with an eartag of 501 was born before 502, etc. The heifers are commercial, but are primarily Angus and Simmental. Double M tries to keep the cattle at a 5/8 Angus, 3/8 Simmental cross as a general guideline. The heifers are developed on flood irrigated pastures in the spring, summer and early fall and have been on long hay since October.
Now for the stuff
that you don’t want to admit to – but if I were a rancher looking to use a new
bull, I’d want to know. We’ve lost three
calves during calving – we had two sets of twins where we had one alive &
one dead. We lost another calf early on
to a cow we ended up performing a c-section on but we missed her during the
breeding process and should have culled her for her pelvic size then. Out of the 112 calves we’ve pulled 7 of those
– 2 had legs back, 2 were the sets of twins I mentioned above, and 3 heifers
were just being dumb and wouldn’t lay down and have their calf.
I bet
some of you can relate to that.
I
guess I mention the above because we haven’t had to pull anything due to size or
shape – which is important to consider when considering a heifer bull.
 |
| A Thunder calf (left) and a McCoy calf (right) for comparison - both were born on the same day. |
 |
| A Solution calf (left) and a McCoy calf (right) for comparison - again, both born within a day of each other. |
 |
| And two McCoy calves. |
Overall – we are
thrilled with how the heifers handled being bred to both Thunder &
McCoy. If you haven’t used either of
these bulls – I’d easily recommend using them in your replacement heifers. (Heck – the calves are good enough, you could
use them in your cows as well.) If
you’re a herd that’s used Thunder in the past and are looking for something new
– try McCoy.
I think you’ll find
he lives up to his name – he is The Real McCoy.
If you have questions
about the cattle – feel free to leave a comment below, or contact us using the
Contact tab above. We love talking
cattle and are happy to share both the positives and negatives…..although this
year, we haven’t really found too much negative.
Which is a blessing
when you’re calving heifers.
Success is reason enough.
