By Jeff Schroeder
I spend quite a bit of time archiving forums references to AI bulls for our Bull Buzz index. In the process I've had the opportunity to learn which forums are worth visiting and which ones you're just wasting your time checking. This article's just a list of the main forums I like to check.
It takes quite a bit of work to get a forum to the critical mass required to maintain a legitimate flow of posts. The first four forums listed seem to be well established while the forums at the end either need some work or don't pertain directly to cattle.
Easily the most active and visited cattle oriented forum on the internet. Questions on this forum will get the most in depth replies of of any of the sites listed on this page.
Cattle Today has about as easy a sign up process as you can get for a forum that requires you to have a username. This is certainly a forum to check out for information on the day to day operation of your farm/ranch.
The best "show" forum on the internet. There are quite a few people on this forum can help with advice on feeding and showing of cattle. The famous "Cowboy Terry" comes from this forum and is always happy to give advice on breeding.
Registration is a bit of a pain and they use a cheap Boardhost account to host the forum (yes, sometimes technology DOES matter) and you can't go back and search older threads.
Breedersworld is a sort of middle ground between the commercial/seedstock emphasis of Cattle Today and the show cattle emphasis of Showsteers. It doesn't have quite as many posts as Showsteers but registration is easier and the forum a bit more organized.
On a side note, I'm of the opinion that if a website is as paranoid about mentioning other sites on their forums as the owners of this forum are, it's time for the forum owners to work on improving their site.
Sort of a Showsteers "Light", a lot of threads on the Clubcalves forum can also be found on other forums. There seems to be the same breeding advice being given out over and over to the point that we've had to change the weighting in our Bull Buzz Index to reflect it.
This site uses Boardhost like Showsteers.com but doesn't have the same registration issues as Showsteers.
*Site owned by Third Row Productions, LLC, the owner of Cattle.com.