I don't know how many cattle men I've talked to admit they are missing something, but it's hard to argue when they think their calves are going to bring 15 cents a pound more at weaning, simply because they're black. We can provide all the proof we want, but until that changes, it's going to be hard to get a significant commercial market share. I hear things are a little different in Canada. I hope so.
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Here in Canada, there are still areas that preferences for black hides, but where I live in Western Canada, it is more based on quality of the animal than on color. I find that here, the black hided preference is influenced more by the cattle buyers than it is by the feedlots who place the orders. If you have a set of buyers on a market, that are fairly open minded on quality rather than just color, you will see the price differences disappear. In this day and age, I have no idea why the beef industry is still based on something as insignificant as color. I know that part of this is due to the CAB program, but we also have the CAB program in Canada.
I just sold a few odds and end cattle on June 29th. Two were off age heifers born from recips that did not keep their embryo last year. One heifer was red and one was black. They were born in late May and have been on grass since early May this spring. The red heifer weighed 885 and sold for $1.46/ lb for a gross sale of $1292.10. The black heifer weighed 840 and sold for $137.50 for a gross of $1155.00. The black heifer was 3 days younger than the red heifer. Both were sired by a Shorthorn clean up bull and the black heifer was out of a Simmental/Angus dam and the red heifer was out of a Shorthorn dam. I considered both heifers to be of similar quality, yet there was a difference of $137.00 between the two heifers. ( these prices probably sound high to most reading this, but remember the Canadian dollar is 25-28% lower than the American dollar)
I also sold 3 older cows that were used as recips for several years here. One was black and weighed 1690. She sold for $.9150/ lb and grossed $1546.35. This black cow was 13 years old. I also sold 2 red Shorthorn cows. They sold together and averaged 1622 lbs and they brought $94.50 for an average gross of $1532.80.One of these cows was 17 years old and the other one was 12 years old. These cows were hog fat, and had not seen any grain since they had their first calves, and I thought they sold very well.
On another note, I just did a bit of an analysis on our bull sales this spring. We sold 29 bulls for an average price of $5325. Of these, 28 bulls sold to commercial producers , and most of them were going to be used on black cows. One bull sold to a purebred producer. The roan bulls that sold to commercial producers averaged $6272.00. The red bulls sold to commercial producers averaged $4333. We did not have any white bulls last year, but I am sure if we had some, they would have been in the top end of the sale prices. We sold 3 white open heifers in our sale and they averaged $5416, with 2 of them selling to commercial producers that planned to breed them to Angus bulls.
In some ways, we are almost seeing the reverse of what is happening in the US. In our herd, color adds value. I will take all the roans and whites I can, but we also raise lots of red bulls and heifers as there are still lots wanting them as well.
