Volume 16 Issue 1 January 2017 What’s Inside Exotic Crossbreds Deliver on Performance— Double S Land and Cattle Ltd. Strives for Performance in their Simmental/ Charolais-cross beef herd.
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From the Gate Post — What is an Optimal Birth Weight? / Qu’est-ce qu’un poids à la naissance optimal ?
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Breed Improvement — The Dance Steps of Genomic / Les pas de danse de la génomique
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Vet’s Advice — The Benefits and Disadvantages of Twins
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Birth Weights Effect on Profit - Part 2
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What’s Happening
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Publication Mail Agreement # 40012794
Commercial Country
Exotic Crossbreds Deliver on Performance
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Story By Lee Hart
ouble S Land and Cattle Ltd. strives for performance in their Simmental -cross beef herd. “Our focus really is on performance, calves with higher birthweights that wean in the 675 to 730 pound range, then after 90 days on a backgrounding ration, steers leave the yard around 900 to 950 pounds and head to a finishing program,” says Chris Sargent, who along with his family, ranches with his father Rodney. Rodney was born and raised near Mirror, east of Lacombe, and launched the family farm more than 50 years ago. They’ve been raising Simmentalcross cattle for roughly 35 years. “Simmental and Charolais cattle both work well in crossbreeding programs with British breeds,” says Rodney. “But from the outset, I wanted to maximize the pounds of beef produced and putting the two exotic breeds together has worked well for us.” The Sargent family runs 400 head of commercial cows, which are bred to both Simmental and Charolais bulls. They also prefer to select horned bulls for their breeding program — again striving for that added performance. They buy mostly red Simmental bulls and Full-French Charolais bulls.. “There aren’t a lot of horned bulls around, but they are there if you look for them,” says Chris. “We don’t focus all of our attention on EPDs either. We are more interested in how the animal looks and how they will fit into our program. We have bought bulls that have birthweights up to 125 pounds, and they have done very well.” “Horned bulls aren’t as popular these days either, so they are usually a bit cheaper too,” says Rodney. “We deal with a great group breeders and if they happen to have a horned bull calf that looks like he will perform well, they save it for us and let us know.” Cows in the Double S herd on average weigh around 1,600 pounds, and for the most part comfortably handle 110 to 120 pound calves at birth. They calve out on a 50-acre calving pasture with plenty of shelter and windbreaks. The Sargent family may have to assist the odd one if there is a mal-presentation or a complication due to twins, but the cows generally handle calving on their own. The Sargents manage a tight calving season. Beginning in late March, it is 60 days for the cows (between 75 and 80 percent calve within the first cycle) and 45 days for the heifers. “If you want to sell a nice even group of calves, you have to keep the calving time-frame tight,” says Rodney. With calving done by mid-May, cow-calf pairs remain at home for a couple more continued on page 12
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