I also found this article that doesn't seem to try to hide the fact that Angus was used to develop the Black Hereford breed. My opinion is and we all know what opinions are like, we all have one, they're no different than the other beef breeds that used Angus to jump on the black color wagon.
Back in the Black
By Candace Krebs
After 25 years in the registered cattle business, Joe Hoagland thinks he may have solved a modern-day dilemma — how to keep Herefords in the black. He's breeding cattle that retain the Hereford signature white face while acknowledging the market's preference for a black hide.
Joe and his wife Norma own and manage the American Black Hereford Association from their J&N Ranch near Leavenworth, Kan. When the Hoaglands started raising registered Herefords in the Kansas Flint Hills in 1978, white-faced red cattle were the predominant breed.
Later they bought the ranch near Kansas City — a location that seemed ideal for a registered cattle operation. They managed to sell about 40 bulls per year for a time, but then business dwindled. "We switched from Hereford to Angus when we couldn't sell our traditional Hereford bulls in this market," Hoagland says. But by then, at least six or seven other breeders were selling registered Angus in the surrounding county.
"Certified Angus Beef (CAB) catapulted Angus to the forefront," he observes. "The antithesis of that became the Hereford. And the Continental breeds were somewhere in between."
Despite the challenges, the Hoaglands wanted to stay in the purebred business. "We had the sale barn and the proximity to Kansas City where many of the breed associations are located," says Hoagland. "I've been active with the American Royal. We had a natural place for people to come out and look."
John Gage, another polled Hereford breeder in the area, set up the original Black Hereford association in 1974. The Hoaglands bought it in 1998, along with some of Gage's foundation seedstock.
"Herefords don't grade as well as Angus, and straight Hereford steers are pretty significantly discounted," Hoagland says. "But a Hereford-Angus cross will bring as much or more than an Angus and qualify for CAB status, as well as for the Certified Hereford Beef program."
So far, the couple has sold Black Hereford cattle into six states, and the association includes breeders in four states.
Black Herefords are developed by breeding an F1 black baldie cow to a registered Hereford bull to get a 3⁄4-blood black-whiteface calf. That animal crossed with another F1 results in a 5⁄8-blood calf. Statistically, traditional Angus-Hereford pairings produce red-hided calves 25 percent of the time. But in a 5⁄8-blood calf, the recessive genes for the red color are bred out and a genetically homozygous black animal results.
Rhonda Vann, a research animal scientist at Mississippi State University's Brown Loam Experiment Station, contacted the Hoaglands about including their cattle in carcass data trials starting last fall. The five-year project will use ultrasound information and live animal and carcass evaluations in comparisons that include traditional Angus and Hereford cattle.
"I've seen lots of breeds come and go," Vann says. "It's one of the natural cycles that happen in the cattle industry. Just because they're black doesn't always mean they're better. But I do think the English breeds are coming back."
While Black Hereford bulls bred to black cows produce consistently black, white-faced calves, Vann says many cattlemen would also like a black-baldie-type cow for their base cow herds.
Vann's research could become the basis for establishing carcass EPDs (estimated progeny differences). That's essential to the breed's success, since the cattle industry is increasingly driven by carcass performance, she says. "Our industry is really trying to push for a consistent, reliable product. We need to identify cattle
that work."
Jeff Hill, Land O'Lakes Farmland Feed beef specialist based at Lawrence, Kan., agrees. "The industry is trying to evolve into more niche marketing, including source-verification programs."
"Ten years ago, less than 5 percent of beef cattle were sold on some type of carcass quality basis," Hill adds. "Today we're getting close to 40 to 50 percent, and in another five years, the number could be 100 percent. Our industry is changing that fast."
Demand for high fertility and maternal traits are also part of the shift. "The trend in the '70s was toward much larger cows," Hill adds. "But the number one criterion for cow-calf profitability is the cost of production. A lot of that is the cost of the feed. Low feed costs are the traditional strength of British-type cattle.
"People are getting more business-minded about the industry; I think that will continue," he says. "I don't think we'd still be in the purebred business if we had not gone into Black Herefords," Hoagland adds. "It's fun to be involved in something new."
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More information:
Joe Hoagland's web site,
http://www.blackhereford.com, contains more information about Black Herefords and photos of the unique breed.
