Longhorn cross questions

[bigrob]

Don;t recall any longhorns with the african horn gene!

Dun,
It is highly possible that some om them have it, you know it does not show when horned are bred to horned. Like the scur gene, most of the ayrshire type cows have it, but it shows rarely because very few are polled.
From time to time there are remarks on CT that all calves wont be polled when longhorns are crossed with homo polled bulls, and maybe it is rbb stating it every time or maybe there are more with the same experience, I do not remember.
Some "homo polled" bulls are heterozygous of course and the roughly half the calves have horns. If there are just a few, it might indeed be the african horn gene, most certainly so if all horned calves are born bulls. You lead me to the articles about it, for which I am thankful.

What is the African horn gene? I don't believe I've ever heard of this

[bigrob]

The Char bulls won't always knock the spots off. But will take alot of the color away. No breed living will dehorn all the calves in a herd of longhorn cows. Char and Red limousin make the best cross on longhorn cows i have seen. Red Limousin may have a bit of and edge on making the calves a solid color.

What could I expect in a limousin/longhorn cross? I am very interested in using the limousin, be ause that is what my grandfather used to run.

[bigrob]

In this case you are better off forgetting about knocking off the horns and concentrate on improving calf quality. You can always dehorn.
The Charolais will not knock all the spots off but will instead dilute the spots (buckskin or grey) and this stamp all the calves as being out of a Charolais bull.
A fullblood or close to fullblood Limo does work here as they do not have breeds in their background that will spot or show white.
Another breed that works is a fullblood Saler. They do not seem to spot and don't throw too much white.

This is kind of what my plans are. Get some good F1's and throw on a brangus or something of that sort to get a better calf with more muscle and alot less horn and possibly get a much better price.

[U Lazy 2 Ranch]

I have bred LH cows to Angus and herford bulls the herford cross made good mamas. never kept any from the angus.Out of the ones i raised from the angus they had the frame of the LH. the herfords bulked up a bit better. Im not cutting down the angus but i just bought the cheapest bulls i could find back then. now i do a better job buying bulls.imo

[bigrob]

I have bred LH cows to Angus and herford bulls the herford cross made good mamas. never kept any from the angus.Out of the ones i raised from the angus they had the frame of the LH. the herfords bulked up a bit better. Im not cutting down the angus but i just bought the cheapest bulls i could find back then. now i do a better job buying bulls.imo

Thanks. I have read the Hereford crosses are really good mothers. If I use a Hereford/longhorn F1 what bull would you recommend for them?

[Massey135]

I have bred LH cows to Angus and herford bulls the herford cross made good mamas. never kept any from the angus.Out of the ones i raised from the angus they had the frame of the LH. the herfords bulked up a bit better. Im not cutting down the angus but i just bought the cheapest bulls i could find back then. now i do a better job buying bulls.imo

Thanks. I have read the Hereford crosses are really good mothers. If I use a Hereford/longhorn F1 what bull would you recommend for them?

Those hereford/longhorn f1s will be wild colored. The only cross I would personally use a limo over char for terminal use would be on longhorn cows. They do a better job and uniforming the longhorn x calf. Just from longhorn x herds ive seen and passed by, the limo does a great job at covering the spots and stamping solid red calves. Uniformity is the reason I prefer a char over limo on random crossbred cows as all will express the diluter and with red limo being a recessive color- you'll get colors all across the board.

If I wanted to create an F1 replacement starting with the longhorn, I would use a gert or brangus. No other breed that ive used will stamp their calves like these two composites. GERT x LONGHORN f1 X Fullblood LIMO=

[Galloway2]

No breed living will dehorn all the calves in a herd of longhorn cows.

I sold a Black Galloway bull to a guy with 50 Lonnghorn cows. All F1 calves were polled. The F1 calves all came out solid colored, except the ones that had a white stripe on their back, the calves did too.

[U Lazy 2 Ranch]

I have bred LH cows to Angus and herford bulls the herford cross made good mamas. never kept any from the angus.Out of the ones i raised from the angus they had the frame of the LH. the herfords bulked up a bit better. Im not cutting down the angus but i just bought the cheapest bulls i could find back then. now i do a better job buying bulls.imo

Thanks. I have read the Hereford crosses are really good mothers. If I use a Hereford/longhorn F1 what bull would you recommend for them?

I use a char bull on the cross cows seems to work well for me.

[Rustler9]

The Beefmaster/Longhorn cross makes one heck of a mama cow taht you can breed to any bull you want to. I've used this cross for several years. Almost all have come out solid colored-red or dun or what we call in the Longhorn world Parker brown which is a black cow with brown on the ears, muzzle and down the back. People can knock Longhorns all they want to but I know plenty of people who are making money using Longhorn and Longhorn cross mama cows. These cows have the mothering ability, longevity and great foraging ability that some others don't have.

[Red Bull Breeder]

The Char bulls won't always knock the spots off. But will take alot of the color away. No breed living will dehorn all the calves in a herd of longhorn cows. Char and Red limousin make the best cross on longhorn cows i have seen. Red Limousin may have a bit of and edge on making the calves a solid color.

What could I expect in a limousin/longhorn cross? I am very interested in using the limousin, be ause that is what my grandfather used to run.

If you use a red fullblood limousin bull most all the calves will be yellow to red and solid color. A friend on mine has some limousinxlonghorn cows bred back to a char bull that does well at the sale barn. They are nice morderate framed cow with some meat on there bones. Breed back well and live off the land pretty well.

[bigrob]

I have bred LH cows to Angus and herford bulls the herford cross made good mamas. never kept any from the angus.Out of the ones i raised from the angus they had the frame of the LH. the herfords bulked up a bit better. Im not cutting down the angus but i just bought the cheapest bulls i could find back then. now i do a better job buying bulls.imo

Thanks. I have read the Hereford crosses are really good mothers. If I use a Hereford/longhorn F1 what bull would you recommend for them?

Those hereford/longhorn f1s will be wild colored. The only cross I would personally use a limo over char for terminal use would be on longhorn cows. They do a better job and uniforming the longhorn x calf. Just from longhorn x herds ive seen and passed by, the limo does a great job at covering the spots and stamping solid red calves. Uniformity is the reason I prefer a char over limo on random crossbred cows as all will express the diluter and with red limo being a recessive color- you'll get colors all across the board.

If I wanted to create an F1 replacement starting with the longhorn, I would use a gert or brangus. No other breed that ive used will stamp their calves like these two composites. GERT x LONGHORN f1 X Fullblood LIMO=

I've been thinking about using the brangus on some longhorn cows but haven't had any feedback on that. I am also very interested in the Santa Gertrudis and limousin breeds as well. Thank you for your advice on this. I really appreciate it

[bigrob]

No breed living will dehorn all the calves in a herd of longhorn cows.

I sold a Black Galloway bull to a guy with 50 Lonnghorn cows. All F1 calves were polled. The F1 calves all came out solid colored, except the ones that had a white stripe on their back, the calves did too.

I'm not familiar with the Galloway breed, but I do see some people say they cross them with angus and get a really good calf. What are the pros to using the Galloway bulls?

[bigrob]

I have bred LH cows to Angus and herford bulls the herford cross made good mamas. never kept any from the angus.Out of the ones i raised from the angus they had the frame of the LH. the herfords bulked up a bit better. Im not cutting down the angus but i just bought the cheapest bulls i could find back then. now i do a better job buying bulls.imo

Thanks. I have read the Hereford crosses are really good mothers. If I use a Hereford/longhorn F1 what bull would you recommend for them?

I use a char bull on the cross cows seems to work well for me.

I'm starting to like the idea of a Charolais bull more and more these days. Won't the calves still be kinda spotted, just yellow and white?

[bigrob]

The Beefmaster/Longhorn cross makes one heck of a mama cow taht you can breed to any bull you want to. I've used this cross for several years. Almost all have come out solid colored-red or dun or what we call in the Longhorn world Parker brown which is a black cow with brown on the ears, muzzle and down the back. People can knock Longhorns all they want to but I know plenty of people who are making money using Longhorn and Longhorn cross mama cows. These cows have the mothering ability, longevity and great foraging ability that some others don't have.

I believe it was some of your older posts I read about the beefmaster/longhorn crosses being exceptional mama cows. What would you use for a terminal bull on this cross personally? Also what would you add to this for a possible replacement?

[bigrob]

The Char bulls won't always knock the spots off. But will take alot of the color away. No breed living will dehorn all the calves in a herd of longhorn cows. Char and Red limousin make the best cross on longhorn cows i have seen. Red Limousin may have a bit of and edge on making the calves a solid color.

What could I expect in a limousin/longhorn cross? I am very interested in using the limousin, be ause that is what my grandfather used to run.

If you use a red fullblood limousin bull most all the calves will be yellow to red and solid color. A friend on mine has some limousinxlonghorn cows bred back to a char bull that does well at the sale barn. They are nice morderate framed cow with some meat on there bones. Breed back well and live off the land pretty well.

Thanks I appreciate the information