Black vs. Other

[CAB]

This thread has so many great topics within it. First of all, what do all you folks think about the Red Angus association's decission to let the breed cross with pure Black Angus cattle and still paper. I wish that had never happened. I'm sure that it probably already was, but I always respected the Reds because I thought that they had did a better job as breeders keeping the breed true to certain traits. Biggies for me would be udder quality, fertility, disposition, and carcass quality. I hope that the breed doesn't monguelise itself like the blacks have somewhat to the point each pedigree has to be studied itself within the breed. As far as color is concerned, I think there are advantages to each color per say, such as black oaks up sun better when ity's hot, but downside also soaks it up when it's hot. I have spent the last decade marketing our own cattle through door to door routes, and mostly farmer's markets. We have some people that actually know somewhat what they are talking about when they come up to inquire, but most are going off of something that they have read or heard on TV or in the media. The Cab program in the beginning struggled to get going, but as earlier mentioned is all about marketing and also some deep pockets from old family breeders. When I have someone come up to ask me if the cattle were black, I always answer like this. I always taught my kids this way, I don't care if the calf is purple, if his good, he's good. If he's bad' he's bad. That simple. I tell people that all the time. The fast food "Angus burger", is so much BS that it is rediculas IMHO, but it is trickle down advertises from the great Cab program. Jump on the wagon.
  Now about the BWF breed of cattle. I have a neighbor that has joined that new breed. I think it's pretty much a counterfiet deal. He has straight Herefords running there, straight blacks, BWF Simmi An X cattle BWF X BWF cattle. How that all works out within their ass. I have no idea. If that group is going to get together and develope a great "NEW BREED" of cattle, they need to get their crap together quickly. JMO. That's enough to think about for now. Sorry again about the long post.

 

[Rocky Hill Simmental]

In my opinion, the color doesn't really matter - but to feedlot operators, meat processors, and even show judges, it seems that black cattle rule. If the black hided calves are the ones selling high, that's that producers are going to be breeding for.

A lot of people are unaware that there are actually exotic black breeds, they think they're all angus and the bwf simmentals are hereford crosses. At our district fair one of the specators asked me if how I knew that my cattle were simmentals (or something along those lines, I wasn't exactly sure what he was asking) so I explained to him the difference between a black simmental and an angus. I don't think he believed though. My bwf simmental heifer one grand champion at this show and when one group of people walked by I heard one of them remark, "Look! There's the champion black baldy cow!" ....I never knew black baldy was a breed, I always thought it was a coloring. 

When my uncle first bought his black baldy/bwf simmental bull, he showed him to one of his friends and his friend asked him what made him want to get a hereford bull.

You just need to be careful when you select what black cattle you breed. Some are really poor looking.

 

[knabe]

isn't breeding for color is single trait selection?

 

[CAB]

  And it's so important too, like hair, and choked frontends. LOL

 

[chambero]

Lots of you talk about consistency on other posts but yet you gripe about being consitent with color.  Color isn't edible, but it is certainly indicative of other similar characteristics amongst a group of animals.

If you take a random group of 1000 black hided animals and 1000 "other", I bet the variance amongst carcass characteristics is a lot tighter on the black animals than the other ones.  Actually a whole lot of people bet a whole lot of investment $$ on that very fact.

The vast majority of "colored" cattle as whole vary a lot more than black cattle.  Most black cattle (on a commercial basis) have a pretty high amount of Angus in them which implies a better than average chance that they will grade will.  As you all know, Angus get crossed with other things (usually common exotic breeds) to get more muscle and growth (weight = $$ in the commercial world for the cow-calf operator).

The big $$ behind the feedlots rely on hard data, not just prejudices or marketing campaigns.  There is a reason why black cattle are so heavily preferred. 

As a group, black cattle have a lot less health issues in the pasture.  Herefords were always notorious for pink eye (which really is a pain to deal with when you can't get cattle up all the time for doctoring).  But Herefords were given a real try for a long time and they were just outcompeted by their Angus counterparts. 

You also have some real attitude issues with some of "colored" exotics.  Many more are just too big and won't grade.  There again - that's part of why they were crossed with Angus. 

Lots of colored cattle down here get it from Brahman-influenced animals.  As popular as eared cattle are, I want no part of them for a variety of issues.  I will grant you can't hardly kill one though, they are really tough in the pasture.

Red Angus are gaining in populariety, but they were pretty sorry compared to their black brethren until fairly recently.  There just aren't enough of them.  I've known a few commercial producers that experienced with PB Shorthorns, but every one of them got out in a hurry.  Its my understanding they just aren't hardy enough under our conditions.  Some of their crosses have been fine (i.e. the Santa Gertrudis).  They are another one just dramatically limited by numbers.

Heavily Angus influenced animals are very "middle of the road" on almost every trait there is.  They are the antithesis of single-trait selection.

And we never have any trouble at all finding feedlot buyers for our black cattle out of "club calf" lines.  We've got data to prove they do just fine as a group in the feedlot and on the rail.

 

[Show Dad]

OMG!  Red Charolais! (My wife thinks they should turn out pink.)

Well you will learn something everyday if you read the Planet!

 

[knabe]

blacks,  "They are the antithesis of single-trait selection."

i agree with this comment to a degree.  1000 other, are not selected with the same constraints as the 1000 blacks, so of course the angus influence wins.  i'll grant you, it doesn't appear any other breed has placed as balanced a program in the numbers angus do.  this is simply momentum.

If one had verifiable records with better performance, they still wouldn't pay more for it till the stereotype is changed with facts and this always takes more time as reality always lags perception, kinda like carbon and temp.

percentages grading choice is going down for a variety of reasons, not just the me to conversion to blacks and increasing the variability and tightness of fit.


i agree, them herefords need to fix the eyes, horns and one or two other carcass related traits to compete.  some health issues in the pasture are related to hybrid vigor, of course excluding pink eye.

 

[SWMO]

OK I'll weigh in on this.  I have watched our blacks and our whites (or anything not black)  and I believe that in this area of the United States we have to consider the heat factor.  In SWMissouri our white and other colored cattle that are not black seem to handle the heat much better. The whites will be out grazing during the heat of the day and the blacks will be standing under the nearest shade.  And unfortunately with the abundance of fescue in or neck of the woods heat and heat tolerance is a huge factor in the commercial industry.

 

[chambero]

Our black cattle don't have any trees to hide under  ;D.

 

[aj]

I have noticed that in pastures with blacks and reds... the black cattle will be fighting flies about an hour earlier than reds. What breed is the "blacks" breed?Salers, longhorns, simmental,limousin,gelbievh,yaks,maine anjou,chianina,lowlines,quarterhorse,soth devon,charolais,shorthorn plus.  They are so consistently the same type.

 

[CAB]

  I personally would love to see the kill sheets with 1000 hd each of Angus, Red Angus, and a good group of preferably HH carcasses. That would be interesting. Do you people think that the lower percentage of cattle grading choice has anything to do with all of the new by-product feedstuffs. Bar none the best carcass that I ever had go through our meat truck has been out of a steer sired by Heatseeker. Fastest growing cattle, or first to be finished every year are the black Angus sired groups.

 

[renegade]

When i say i would like to raise black herefords, i know that they are essentially a black baldy but they have more hereford breeding than angus. If you just cross a black bull with a hereford cow or vise versa then you get a black baldy but i really dont like those as well as the animals with mostly hereford lineage.  Call me crazy ;D(trust me you can) but i think that when you cross more and more hereford into an animal you are going to get more and more hereford characteristics... attitude, carcass traits, markings... but at the same time you have the dominant genes still affecting the animal from the angus side... coloring, pigmentation, carcass traits... so you are improving on the black baldy in my mind. I dont say that they have to be registerd but i dont know if you can still classify them as a black baldy... they will still perform well but not the same as a 50/50 baldy would. Just my opinion( doesnt count for much yet, im still a kid 8) )

As far as trends go there is always going to be "fads", but these are usually trying to improve the industry to meet consumer wants and needs. even if you just look into different breeds (im going to go back to herefords again). When they were first developed over seas they were huge, when they first came here they were crossed with long horns to get the horns for protection on the texas plains, then they were little shorties and now they are a larger version.

 

[CAB]

How many of you have had any experience with the greatest black baldie ever, the Hereford bull on top of the best milking cow in the world, the American Holstien? Now there's a baldie that needs to be incorperated into the new BWF breed association's pedigree.

 

[chambero]

I have noticed that in pastures with blacks and reds... the black cattle will be fighting flies about an hour earlier than reds. What breed is the "blacks" breed?Salers, longhorns, simmental,limousin,gelbievh,yaks,maine anjou,chianina,lowlines,quarterhorse,soth devon,charolais,shorthorn plus. They are so consistently the same type.

The vast majority of black cattle in the feedlots have a fairly high percentage of Angus in them crossed with an exotic or Brahman-influenced breed.  A whole lot of people smarter than I am think they find more consistency there than other options. 

 

[knabe]

which breed benefits the most from dominant, recessive or additive genes in a crossbred program.

for sake of comparison, disregard, horns and pigment. (not trying to favor herefords or penalize angus here as these two can be bred out rather quickly.)

 

[chambero]

   I personally would love to see the kill sheets with 1000 hd each of Angus, Red Angus, and a good group of preferably HH carcasses. That would be interesting. Do you people think that the lower percentage of cattle grading choice has anything to do with all of the new by-product feedstuffs. Bar none the best carcass that I ever had go through our meat truck has been out of a steer sired by Heatseeker. Fastest growing cattle, or first to be finished every year are the black Angus sired groups.

I wonder about the feedstuffs too.  The feedlot our cattle have been going to the past couple of years get fed it.

The average size of "ranches" is getting so much smaller pretty quickly also.  I wonder if the small hobby rancher that cuts a few corners on management has an impact on it.  The buyers we deal with require pretty stringent documentation on vaccinations, birth dates, etc. to try to help with the consistency aspect.  Few of the feedlots I know of take any animals without quite a bit of supporting paperwork now.

Too my surprise, we've seen several feedlots refuse to take Charolais-X animals (smokeys and yellow calves).  Those same feedlots will still take our handfull of red animals, but will kick back the smokeys/yellows.  So its not just a black vs. everyting else issue.  It is nothing but a prejudice against Charolais because of apparent grading issues.  I don't know if that is a trend or not, but we've got the same story from two feedlots in NE and one in CO.  A lot of big commercial guys in our area have done away with their Charolais bulls because of it.  We had a lot of people down here using Charolais bulls on black cows for a while, but they are all going back Angus for the most part.

 

[CAB]

  Don't like to make it look like I'm picking on breeds because I like pretty much all breeds of cattle, but I think that the deal with the Chars as well as possibly the Limi's is that they are both high cutability cattle, but probably won't marble with some of the other softer, if you will, bred cattle. Those 2 breeds in IMO need to get on the tenderness gene tracking kick quickly and intensely. There are huge advantages to high cutting cattle also. Put a pencil to live to rail percentages verses rail to package and you will get a huge eye opener as far as to which is the more important by far, but the high cutting cattle also have to grade.

 

[CAB]

  As far as Knabe's question about which breed benifits most by Xing, I think that a small to moderate framed Angus cow bred to either a  Santa Gertrudis or a Beefmaster bull. I think that that X is tremendous. I have seen pure junk cows bred to good bulls have calves that are just plain growing fools.

 

[knabe]

here's an interesting charolais bull

http://www.fredranch.com/

go to Freds Fast Company F69

here's his bovigen stats

-1.1 / 2,0,1    +16.73 / 1,1,0,2

first set is tenderness, second set is marbling and quality grade.  pretty respectable

BW  -2.1
WW +21
YW  +32
Milk  +18
Scrtl +0.03


here's a couple of other interesting charolais bulls

http://www.ultimategenetics.com/listing/index.php?animalid=366
http://www.ultimategenetics.com/listing/index.php?animalid=394

here's another
http://www.effertzkeyranch.com/herdsires.html 
look for keys tenacious

i'd say, compared to maine's, there are a LOT more reported results on bovigen's site.
maine's still only have results on 14 animals.  sad.

 

[garybob]

How many of you have had any experience with the greatest black baldie ever, the Hereford bull on top of the best milking cow in the world, the American Holstien? Now there's a baldie that needs to be incorperated into the new BWF breed association's pedigree.

I was raised around a herd of those line-backed BWF cows. A little thin as two-year olds, after weaning their first calves, by, man, by age four, they were pretty cows. I don't know if you could re-create them today, as high-maintenance as Modern Holsteins have become. The girls my Daddy had were out of some Holsteins and Holstein-Swiss ( Solid Black, excellent udders, TOUGH) that wouldn't be called good -producing cows by current Dairymen. They were the result of calving-ease Hereford Bulls used on our heifers. Like many in the Ozarks, we ran a grass-based Dairy Farm in the 1970's and '80's.