We raised purebred Charolais cattle along with our Shorthorns until 4 years ago. I find this interesting as i had two calves supposed to be sired by Baldridge Fastrack, that were this color. I just assumed that somehow one of our Shorthorn bulls bred the cows, although they were AI bred and then taken to a pasture and exposed to a Purebred Charolais bull that was 5 miles from any other cattle. I remember scatching my head about these two calves, and wondering how this could happen.
Of the two roan Charolais calves I had, one was a bull, the other was a heifer. The bull was steered and he made a pretty good show steer for a neighbour kid. Everyone thought he was a crossbred, but in my mind there was always a little doubt. The heifer was not registered and I kept her and she went into our commercial herd. She was here until two years ago. I was always going to get her DNA's but never did do it. After seeing your picture, I am wishing I now had done it. My heifer was almost identical to yours in color.
My Charolais herd was quite unique as it was bred up from a purebred Angus herd to purebred status. I often noticed that, in the summer time, when the cows were slick, that many of them had a distinct white face and a different shade of " off white " on their bodies. One day I had a cattleman visiting our herd and I mentioned this to him while we were looking at the cows. He commented that he had been in Europe in the second world war, and that in many parts of France there were few fences left and large herds of cattle of different breeds were often seen running together. This explaination probably made as much sense as any other I have heard.
If you look up the foundation of the Charolais breed, it says they originated from the blending of British Shorthorn and French native cattle. I have also seen fullblood Salers cattle that were roan in color. Any breed that had the ability to produce roan cattle is supposed to have originated from Shorthorn in their background, however, I have never found any documentation that says that Salers had Shorthorn blood in their background.
