dun":1xx1mh2y said:KMacGinley":1xx1mh2y said:redcowsrule33":1xx1mh2y said:No offense to those who have them but beefalo go into my "why?" category. Right along with alpacas and designer dogs. :mrgreen:
My red angus make me lol but not because they suck. Sorry you had a bad experience.
I guess I feel like beefalo are mules doing a horse's job. I am certain they have their merits. I have great respect for many Bos taurus/Bos indicus breeds. Why add Bison bison to the mix? If you like buffalo meat raise buffalo.
That being said, if you have a great beefalo calf, enjoy her. When it comes down to it, the breed behind a great animal is less important than the animal herself.
Please, beefalo peeple, don't send me propaganda I won't convert. But I respect you as breeders nonetheless.
PS Good for you to have some Simmis!
That was what the professor said... They are like mules/ they are sterile at the first cross. If this is true/ I wonder how they get away claiming them as buffalo cross?
Regardless of what the prof said, they are not all sterile. If they were there wouldn;t be a second cross. The Beefalo I've looked body wise more Holsteiny and not particularly beefy until the buffalo part was down below a 1/4.
Tere used to be 2 groups working on the hybridization. I don;t recall which was which. One group used buff cows and cattle bulls and the other used cattle cows and buff bulls. One hybred was called cattelo the other beefalo. Haven;t herd of cattelo in a long time.
From around the web:
According to the New York Times article, only 10,000 out of 300,000 bison are actually pure bison. So almost all bison are cattle-bison hybrids to some extent, except for the herds in Yellowstone, Wind Cave National Park, and a few others.
As far as evolution goes, the only offspring from a cattle-bison cross that can reproduce are those that are fertile. There may be some sterile offspring, but they won't contribute anything to future populations since they can't reproduce.
Both cattle and bison have 30 chromosomes, with about 25,000 or so genes, so I'm sure there are plenty of cattle genes that don't affect fertility, and vice versa.
The New York Times quoted James Derr, from the Texas A&M University, as saying that,
"They [cattle ranchers] purposely crossed bison with domestic cattle to make a better beef animal. Bison did better in harsh conditions and are more resistant to parasites and native viral diseases."
I suppose that helps explain, in part, why the hybrids are so prevalent.
Beefalocw":2abhenz8 said:Beefalo are fertile, and gentle. The first generations are more iffy on being fertile, but by the time you get 37.5% bison they are very fertile. In order to register a full blood, you have to pay for a DNA test from UC Davis for bison markers. There are 20 distinct bison markers, and you can't register without having a certain number of these markers present in your cattle.
I have had a couple of 2500 lb bulls that were as gentle as a dog. One used to scratch his head on my truck bumper, and would pick the truck up over a foot just scratching his head. They like to be brushed, and petted. They handle weather better than most cattle, as they have 5 layers of hair and they have sweat glands. When most cattle are layed up under a tree, beefalo will be out eating, making you money.
The meat is much leaner than regular beef, but is naturally tender. As with all lean meat, cooking time is reduced, and can overcook if cooked as regular beef, so reduced temperature, and cooking time is the rule.
It is low in Cholesterol, and is recommended by the heart association.
I certainly don't care what breed of cattle you raise, but felt I needed to defend beefalo a little. Having sweat glands is important here in the South, so I recommend a least some beefalo in the mix, or a little Brahma as they are the only 2 breeds that allow your cattle to sweat.
Check out the facts instead of just posting thoughts about fertility, etc without basis.
http://ranchers.net/photopost/showphoto ... puser/5447
3waycross":gnsd9zo9 said:PS BTW, those Bison that were introduced on the Rocky Mtn Arsenal near Denver (Commerce City, to be exact) were put there with the idea in mind to provide another population of the pure Bison should a disease hit the herd on the National Bison Refuge. I also saw above that someone mentioned the bison being pure at Yellowstone. There may be some that are pure but many are contaminated due to mixing with the cattle herds that graze near the park. In fact, Montana at one time would allow you to kill bison in a seasonal hunt that ranged off the park. There was a concern among ranchers that the bison would carry brucellosis to their cattle. The hunt was ended because of the bad press it was getting from animal groups.
Beefalocw":kr07375f said:No, all cattle breeds do not have sweat glands, most have to pant like a dog. Only cattle with either Bison, or Brahma in them have sweat glands.
Bigfoot,Bigfoot":2yv8j7do said:Taurus,
You have some very interesting friends and neighbors. It must be very handy to have their knowledge base to pull from.
I can't remember how old the beefalo cow was when my friend brought her from an exotic sale, but she was already mature cow. That was back in 2001 and she is still kicking to this day. Pretty very docile cow.Beefalocw":gzx5xdiw said:I had a 22 year old cow that suddenly stopped calving, so we had her butchered, she had growths on her ovaries. That could happen with any cow. She was a grand champion. According to the records the guy had before I purchased her, and my own, including 2 sets of twins in her lifetime, she calved 24 calves. Can you imagine that out of an Angus? Also her teeth, although starting to wear, were still in fair shape when she was slaughtered.
We had to DNA test, first blood, later tail hair to UC Davis in California. I have a theory, it is my own, that Bison, and Cattle are the same species, only changes within the species brought out certain traits over a long period of time.
The DNA test were so specific, that they could tell you if the sire was really another bull than you thought when you filled out the paperwork to register them.
Beefalo prefer better grass, but certainly will eat just about anything if needed. Interesting about the Rocky Mtn Arsenal herd.
:bs:Beefalocw":11tpvmh8 said:Look it up, except for the noted sweat glands in the nose, brama, and beefalo are the two bloodlines with sweatglands on the skin. Maybe you have some of one or the other bloodline in your cattle. It is well known that regular european breeds of cattle and other regular bovine breeds can't sweat except the nose. I don't have any idea
wildcatkit52":1tzusewz said:I just read this thread... Wow... I e been researching Beefalo off and on for 6 years... Peoe who made some of these posts obviously haven't done any and consider an opinion they heard of someone else as factual information. Craziness! Even professors and news outlets do it. In fact, looking at two articles from that Mother Earth pub state completely the opposite as fact about Beefalo! Other peoe argue that they are not a breed. Did not ALL breeds start as something else crossed with another?
Did these cattle/buffalo crosses fail once? Yes. Why? At that time do to the lack of popularity of the man "hoarding" the breed turned into controversy and DNA testing. Was that testing anywhere near as good as it is today? Not hardly. Were the people doing the testing as knowledgable as those who do it today? Nope. Testing done on the same DNA today shows different results than what those in the past concluded do to the similarity of the crossed animals.
How are Beefalo doing now? Are any breeders from this thread ready to post up current trends in today's beef market?