justintime said:
Jody, I did sell my commercial black cows but I still have a group of Angus and black Simmi cows that are used as recips. They are implanted with embryos only once each year. Those that do not hold an embryo have Shorthorn X calves. That is where my black calves come from. While we are talking about color, can you explain the color of the calf in this picture. The dam is the black cow pictured and she is a halfblood Shorthorn sired by Wolf Willow Major Leroy 1M. Her dam is a PB Angus cow. The breeder of th PB Angus cow sold her because she has some white on her udder. Her Leroy daughter is solid black with a little white on her underline, just behind her front legs. The white calf is her natural calf sired by a medium roan Saskvalley Pioneer 126P son. I was using this cow as a recip, but was pretty certain she had not held the embryo pregnancy as I had seen her get bred by the clean up bull. When this calf arrived, I wasn't sure so I had it parentage tested by DNA. It proved it was the cows natural calf by the clean up bull. The calf was solid white with no black pigmentation at all. It could pass as a PB Shorthorn and it is 2 generations from a PB Angus cow.
On the topic of oddities, we had our bulls clipped a couple weeks ago by a neighbour who has clipped close to 3000 bulls across Western Canada since last fall. He mentioned that he has never seen as many PB Angus bulls with scurs as he has seen this winter. Now what is with that? I can understand one or two, or a few even, but he said he saw several while clipping.
JIT- if the dam of that calf- is half shorthorn-- then she is hetero for black- and carries the white gene hidden- although you would expect her to carry the red gene since Major Leroy was not a roan bull. Which theoretically should make her a blue roan-- but as we all know- a roan may only be one hair showing that white. My guess is that her offspring lucked into having a copy of white from both parents- and thus resulted in that solid white calf- so I’m not suprised. Basic punned squares would be:
Bw (dam) x Rw (sire) should yield 25% of the following calves: red roan (Rw), black roan (Bw), black (BR), and white (ww)...
The black calves you speak of getting- make sense to me. I figured so that they would be from the recips cows who didn't stick...
I know of one really bizarre case of color involving shorthorn cattle as well.
Original cow- was half Shorthorn half angus—and a blue roan.
Her first year, she was mated to a black purebred Maine bull- and the calf resulting was a red roan.
The second year, she was mated to a black purebred Sim bull- and again, the resulting calf was a red roan.
I think the 3rd year they finally mated her to a shorthorn bull, but I don’t know this for certain- but I DO know that she again had a red roan calf.
All three red roan calves- were heifers- and each nearly identical in phenotype and coloration.
The best I can come up with was both the Maine and the Sim bull that she was mated to during year one and year two- were hetero for black- and during both times- they injected the red gene into this calf- the cow being (Bw)- injected the white gene into her calf—and out came a red roan- all three times. The odds of this- would basically be 25% chance of the following: Homo black calf, Black Roan calf, Hetero Black/ Red calf, and of course a red roan. She beat the odds none the less.
When we were traveling with the judging team- scurs and odd white spots would show up quite commonly in the Angus breeder's pens. I have that feeling that before we know it- so will TH. Although, I remember reading on a post on here: that the scurred gene is linked with the polled gene- and not the horned gene-- so in all reality Angus can be scurred. Now, we most of the time know this is not the case-- but I'm betting that it could be- esecially if genetically those animals all had a similar ancestor- and were not outsourced and improved.
Going back above- I bring up a point I have always wondered concerning the Red and White holstein patterened shorthorns-- are they really genetically roans, or are the reds with the spotting pattern? Or both?
