Santa Gertrudis EPD questions

[Toxxie 24]

can anyone tell me how ( BW 1.09) should be interpreted as related to the santa gertrudis breed? my son purchased a young bull today with the intention of using him on mostly english type cattle. is this too high? what numbers should we be looking for?

 

[TAH]

@WildRoseBeef @greybeard @farmerjan

 

[Latestarter]

Greetings and welcome to BYC. I see TAH already tagged a few of our cattle folks. I'm going to add another couple who may or may not be able to help with your Q:
@jhm47 @cjc I have no idea... sorry . Are you located in South TX? Most folks put a general location in their profile as when they ask questions, many answers will depend on where you're located. From a quick google search it's an interesting breed. I hope you'll share a pic or two for us to ohhhh and ahhhh over. Please make yourself at home and browse around some.

 

[Toxxie 24]

thanks for the input so far. i am in north mississippi.

 

[farmerjan]

BW means the birthweight of the animal in comparison to the avg of the breed. Don't know the avg for Santa gertrudis but they are a pretty big animal so this bull was larger than the avg. Not a huge amount but significant enough. They are a big framed breed also. Used to be a woman here in Va who had them; related to the King Ranch family, Helen Grove. She eventually sold out and went back, but really nice and had some nice cattle. They were pretty good sized, but "ear cattle" don't sell good here. I think alot of her calves got shipped south. It was a big operation. Anyway, I have seen some of them up close. What English cattle are you thinking? I would NOT use this bull on any heifers, period. If the cows are larger framed they might be okay but I personally don't have any experience with the breed up close. Some big framed animals put more length on calves and some put more bulk. It's the bulk kind that will get you into a lot of trouble as the heads and shoulders will be blocky and cause problems with calving. Limi's are a bigger framed animal than the typical angus around here, but they are more long and many people use them on angus COWS, but not first calf heifers.
@jhm47 is an AI tech out west and may have the most knowledge of the breed. We have a commercial operation here in VA, mostly angus and crosses, some char and red poll and hereford mixed in. Black sells here so don't raise too many other colors except to keep for brood cows since the calves get docked so bad.

 

[Toxxie 24]

 

[farmerjan]

Nice looking for a young bull. How old is the bull? He's got alot of "bull neck" and looks to be fairly blocky in the front end. Many of the "ear cattle" have bigger front ends than rear from what little I have been exposed to. Maybe @greybeard has some knowledge of them since he is from the south where there are more of the ear cattle breeds and crosses.

 

[greybeard]

One of my favorite breeds, but we've only had a few here and that was years ago.
Breed avg for purebred Gerts BW is about 83 lbs, with some variance from around 60 to 100lbs. With my Beefmasters, I can live with an 80lb birth weight every single day, except on heifers, and can usually be okay with that as long as I know the due date and can keep them up close to the house when they get close.


According to TAMU as of 2014 here are the numbers on most of the beef breeds:
(keep in mind, this generally refers to sire and dam being the same breed--it can change a lot in any cross.)

 

[Toxxie 24]

Is the 83 lb average an up to date number? I guess that could vary with herds and regions? I was thinking I read the average was closer to 72 lbs.,the few breeders I have talked with around north Mississippi and north Alabama have said their averages are around 68-70. Everything he will be bred to will Gelbvieh , Hereford , Charolais , brangus .... With angus influence.,.. Yea, this could be interesting..

 

[Toxxie 24]

He is 12 months old as of Jan 1