Who should I flush to??
I just bought a cow sired by Merchant. she is about 72 inches tall and has plenty of rib and strength. she is a little straight in her leg and needs more udder help. more so on teat length and fore udder attachment.
Lately iv been debating on Zenith and Marconi.
Want answers
Zenith is negative for rear legs and foot angle plus teat length is short which isn't good for your cow. There are almost 700 proven Holstein bulls our there so you have plenty of choices. Don't flush the cow unless she has a good pedigree. Also use Holstein USA's website to calculate inbreeding with your bull that you select. If I were flushing I would use the best bull I could find and try to find a bull that has name appeal (Oman, Toystory, Shottle, Million, etc). Or use a genomic bull that is super high like Aftershock or some other high type genomic bull. I wouldn't let semen costs hinder my choice if a Shottle or Man-Oman was the best bull for the cow.
I completely agree with you but Im not really trying to merchanise her eggs. im planting all the eggs for my own purposes. Im looking for cows that are good, hardy animals. But my goal is a high type herd.
And again i completely agree with having a good pedigree but this cow calved 3 quartered as a heifer. she was a show heifer that has a great udder... other than the one less quarter.
Thanks for the idea on Holstein website I will try that.
What else would you suggest?
My breeding goals are most likely different than yours. I do want great udders and feet & legs but I don't want large animals. I want an efficient, profitable cow that breeds back and lasts a long time. If I were flushing I would consider Freddie, Super, Lawn Boy-P, Micheal, Ernesto, Million, Potter plus a few others. I wouldn't use an Oman or Shottle son unless he is perfect for my goals like Freddie and Super. For your goals maybe Select sires such as Sanchez, Damion, Gabor or Graybil. At our local fair there were a lot of Talent daughters in the ring both for R&W's and the B&W Hostien shows.Originally Posted by kipphinz
Have you considered using sexed semen on the flush??? I'm just wondering our vet has been discouraging it because of the lower fertility, but I heard other herds have been doing it without telling him and didn't see a difference.
Our farm does a fair amount of flushing and marketing of Registered Holsteins. My favorite cows in the free stall right now are Regancrest Damion (Select Sires) and Comestar Lheros (Semex)dtrs. However you need to watch the butterfat % if you use Damion. If you want show calves use aspen (semex) or atlas ( abs- he is dead but semen is available) they are fancy.
Last edited by hey farmer; 01-19-2010 at 08:45 PM.
Now I wont disagree a bit.
We do actually have the same goals I want cows with good udders, good ft/leg and efficient. I want a herd with a high BAA and to have show quality
Big cows have been inspiring to me. maybe not as efficient but simply a personal choice.
That is why i like this cow because I already have the frame, the strength, the openness, and the power. she is only slightly posty and i would rather have that to breed with than sickled to start with. She is a good uddered cow. just lost a quarter from mother nature.
I love the bull families, but... I believe in proper mating rather than using bulls with good names. Not that i would never use them!
See Zenith, will put set to her leg, and will bring up her udder. Zeniths are know for very youthful udders to my experience. He is also known to make tight ribbed and frail cows. for her... not a problem. she has plenty of strength and is very deep. then yes zenith has short teats... this cow could use that. and zenith makes high pinned cows. she has a slight slope and could use the width of zenith as well
Another bull brought up to me was Lightning from Select. I like this bull but Zenith has a total of 15,000 daughters compared to Lightning of 300 daughters
Now to me, having a 99% reliability compared to a 80% reliability seem more promising.
And i know I do recall I said I want a show herd. Having a 71 pt 3 titted Merchant will not look great with a pedigree. I am starting my own herd with a full time job off the side without taking out any loans. I am looking for another flush cow for merchandising to help fund my way through the process.
Tell me if im blown hot steam here guys
I assume the 71 pt Merchant is who we are flushing to. Correct? I will proceed with that in mind.
I would highly recommend not to flush her due to her low score. I was told by my experienced ET vet that when selecting cows to flush only choose the best cows that have good parentages too. This way you get a good family history compared to a fluke of a good cow. The main reason you don't want to flush a low scoring cow is that you will put a lot of money into flushing for below average embryos. ($300 just for my vet to show up) And remember not all flushes will produce embryos either. You may get 20 good eggs or none. I have an 83 point Murphy that was an embryo transfer herself and I don't plan on flushing her because I can do better. Also I submitted genomic samples for Genex of a calf I had (from their embryos) which I found out they didn't even submit the paperwork because the dam of the calf scored 72. Sorry to come down on you but I hope that helps you decide.
I would also not recommend flushing to sexed semen. ET work can be a headache if pregnancies are not created.
If your starting your own herd spend the money buying good cattle, registered if possible. Buy good frozen embryos if you really want to to ET work.
I was mistaken that you were not looking into the show ring. Also if your not marketing cattle then big names aren't important.
I think it's great you have high goals!!! but please remember the bottom line is to be profitable. Show cows for the most part are freaks of nature. It takes a heck of a 2yr old to score 88-89, and a 3 yr old to score 91-92 and so forth. That is why out of thousands of cows scored yearly only a few mature cows go on to score 95 or above. Which is what you want in a show cow to be competative. All cows can not be show cows.....The way I improved our herd was to go purchased a proven 4-6 year old EX cow with a good flush history. For between $4000-$6000 you can find a 5-6 or more generation generation of EX cows out of the breeds best cow familes. By starting with deep cow families you will for sure raise your % sucess rate on haveing a more typier herd. Hope out of those mateings you get that special cow to show. I agree with BMVF I personally would not flush this cow because of the low score. As far as the bulls I mentioned for flushing when I walked thru World Dairy EXPO this last fall the 4 bulls I mentioned were well represented as proper mateing on many cows, I just wish there was more Durham and Goldwyn semen availible for less than $400.
[QUOTE=I just wish there was more Durham and Goldwyn semen availible for less than $400.[/QUOTE]
I personally like the Goldwyn sons better than their pop. He had such a low DPR that I can't use him. Same with Shottle, as good as his traits are I can't use a bull that has daughters that are tough to breed back. I easily notice which bull had a low DPR when I breed his daughters.
You know guys like I said I cant disagree. And its hard to really say anything other than if she was full in all quarters she would probably be a VG cow. If you would see a picture of her maybe you would think differently. I just see her as one of the cows I could use to build numbers of the cows I really like. she will have nothing to do with merchanising.
And Im with ya all the way. my goal is to do just what your saying. I am looking at a VG 87 Rubens and a EX 91 Gibson also for flushing. Both of them are red carriers so between the two of them I want to flush red and sell of the red heifers as a way to help fund this along with getting my name out in the industry. Rubens has a really good flush history so far... the Gibson has never been flushed but has a good pedigree behind her and has a decent price.
I thank all of you for ur advise keep it coming
And once I get up and going... then maybe I want to go find a EX 93 or maybe higher cow to really focus on my making the herd better. Because I figure if I dont like the cows that I get, I can just not breed them back and put embroy in.
If you aren't working under the impression that there will be a market for embryos from a 71 pt cow, then I'd say go ahead and flush her if it's a family you like and want to improve.
I will be doing the same thing shortly with a heifer I have. Not registered, mother never classified but I know the family and would like more of them in my herd.
As for bulls, I wouldn't know what to tell you as I'm not one for showring type.
Can't disagree about the goldwyn sons maybe better, the ones I've seen on sales do tend to be too feminine. I'm fortunate to have big strong cows so he worked. Kingsmill sale is on Friday hopeing to pick up a couple animals.Here's the link to the sale. http://www.holsteinworld.com/catalogs10/Kingsmill/ I think there will be some good buys. kipphinz good luck on you quest....inside info that maybe worth something (or maybe not) There is a red bull at Foundation Sires his name is Fieldhouse REDLOU friend of said this bull is starting to turn heads in the Canada.
Sincerely "The Farmer"
The business of flushing and embryo transfer, is an incredible gamble, what ever bull you pick, make sure you are 110% satisfied with the selection, and do your homework. If its strictly to increase the value of your herd with no merchandising then dont listen to anyone but yourself. I have poured incredible amounts of money into E.T. work, using what everyone else thought. In the end, if you dont have a contract in front of you before you start, it doesn't matter what they thought.
If you are going to venture into merchandising, make sure all your ducks, and I mean all your ducks are in a row first!
Thanks cowman1820. I really appriciate that. Yeah I think I have a bull picked out for her. Think its the best suitabe match for the cow.
Thanks again
so what bull did you pick? did all go well? never had the luxary of getting more than 10 eggs a time, love to hear the stories, like.... only used 1 straw, it was 100 degrees out, 30 good eggs or something crazy
Zenith, waiting it out until spring to do it but I will let you know.
-thanks for the support i really appriciate it
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