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Anonymous
what are the pro's and con's of this breed?
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Anonymous
The Braunvieh females milk well and wean heavy calves, but you probably need to be sure not to get Braunvieh females with too much milk and poor udders. A Braunvieh/Angus cow makes a really nice commercial brood cow.
Braunvieh are known for growing well in the feedlot and their carcasses yield well. The one thing that Braunvieh do, that many other Continental breeds don't do, is that they also grade well. So, when crossed with a Hereford or Angus, you can produce carcasses that have both good yield and grade.
In general Braunvieh cattle are heavy muscled and have plenty of guts.
The negatives of the breed are:
1. there are not many "calving ease" Braunvieh bulls available and Braunvieh birth weights in general are probably a little heavier than some of the other Continental breeds (just my thought but I don't have any research to prove this).
2. the majority of Braunvieh bulls are either horned or heterozygous polled so you will likely get some horned calves when bred to cows with the horn gene unless you can find a homozygous polled Braunvieh bull.
3. probably the reason that Braunvieh haven't gained in popularity with more commercial producers is their color. They have the appearance of a heavy muscled Brown Swiss which hurts their value at the sale barn. However, when bred to black Angus you get a black calves. When bred to red cattle (ie Herefords) Brauvieh sired calves will occasionally have a tiger striped appearance which many buyers also discount.
The good news for the Braunvieh breed is that several breeders are developing black Braunvieh which I think will be well received by commercial producers.
Braunvieh are known for growing well in the feedlot and their carcasses yield well. The one thing that Braunvieh do, that many other Continental breeds don't do, is that they also grade well. So, when crossed with a Hereford or Angus, you can produce carcasses that have both good yield and grade.
In general Braunvieh cattle are heavy muscled and have plenty of guts.
The negatives of the breed are:
1. there are not many "calving ease" Braunvieh bulls available and Braunvieh birth weights in general are probably a little heavier than some of the other Continental breeds (just my thought but I don't have any research to prove this).
2. the majority of Braunvieh bulls are either horned or heterozygous polled so you will likely get some horned calves when bred to cows with the horn gene unless you can find a homozygous polled Braunvieh bull.
3. probably the reason that Braunvieh haven't gained in popularity with more commercial producers is their color. They have the appearance of a heavy muscled Brown Swiss which hurts their value at the sale barn. However, when bred to black Angus you get a black calves. When bred to red cattle (ie Herefords) Brauvieh sired calves will occasionally have a tiger striped appearance which many buyers also discount.
The good news for the Braunvieh breed is that several breeders are developing black Braunvieh which I think will be well received by commercial producers.
Of course they look like heavily muscled Brown Swiss, that's what they are.
We bred a bunch of Braunvieh cows to a homozygous polled, homozygous black bull, I think it wa year before last. The folks paid a bunch for the semen but only go two calves out of 10 breedings. One died at birth, the other went to the feedlot.
Turns out, all the hype about him being homozygous didn't account for his rather inferior calf.
dun
We bred a bunch of Braunvieh cows to a homozygous polled, homozygous black bull, I think it wa year before last. The folks paid a bunch for the semen but only go two calves out of 10 breedings. One died at birth, the other went to the feedlot.
Turns out, all the hype about him being homozygous didn't account for his rather inferior calf.
dun
Kricket":24sfjf12 said:
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Anonymous
dun":1evoproy said:
Well dun,
you never really did tell us what you think of Braunvieh. How do they work in your MO enviornment? Are you dead set against them or do they offer some good things to the commercial producer?
I really don't think your example told us much. So, they only got two cows bred. It is possible that the semen was handled incorrectly at time of collection, transport, or when the straws were being prepared at breeding time, any of which would lower the viability of the semen. It is also possible that the person doing the "arm work" wasn't very good at getting the semen into the uterus.
The fact that one calf died at birth may have nothing to do with the characteristics of the breed. It could have been due to poor management.
The fact that the only live calf was "inferior" doesn't tell me much either. The cow still contributes half of the genetics and may have been an "inferior" animal herself.
I have used semen from some of the top bulls in four different breeds and have occasionally been disappointed by the calf. A classic example is the Angus bull New Design 878. According to things I read in sale catalogs, AI catalogs, and breed journals, 878 is one of the best bulls to come around in the Angus breed in a long time. I have a 878 calf at home out of a great cow; the calf is just average. It doesn't mean that 878 is a bad bull or that Angus are a bad breed, but even the great ones sire an average or below average calf now and then.
What I was more or less hinting around at is that the Braunvieh folks are still chasing their tails in many cases. They're almost a member of the bull of the week club. The bull that's hot stuff this year may not even be available next. The semen wasn't collected by a CSS certified stud, I suspect that was part of the problem. The possibility of no real quality control in either the collection, processing or storage. Too many calving problems for my taste, the do grade well, almost as well as our Red Angus and red baldies with more weight. Those 1500-1600 lbs cows eat a whole lot more forage then my little cows do.
The one inferior calf could have just been the failure to knick well with the cow. I've seen other calves of hers and several of the bulls have gone to herds in TX and OK as herd sires, but they weren't black.
One thing that I don;t care for is the amount of hair in their ears. They all look so much alike (at least to me) and half the time you can't read the ear tag. Disposition seems to be about the same as the majority of other breeds, more hot heads then Herefords, fewer by far then limo. Nothing to write home about there.
Lack of reliable EPDs (bear in mind I haven't looked into them for several years), poor calving and large size are the reasons we decided against them about 4 years ago when we were looking to at some Continental influence. I've only worked with two regestered Braunvieh herds but they had genetics from all ove rthe place, from NE to TX
dun
The one inferior calf could have just been the failure to knick well with the cow. I've seen other calves of hers and several of the bulls have gone to herds in TX and OK as herd sires, but they weren't black.
One thing that I don;t care for is the amount of hair in their ears. They all look so much alike (at least to me) and half the time you can't read the ear tag. Disposition seems to be about the same as the majority of other breeds, more hot heads then Herefords, fewer by far then limo. Nothing to write home about there.
Lack of reliable EPDs (bear in mind I haven't looked into them for several years), poor calving and large size are the reasons we decided against them about 4 years ago when we were looking to at some Continental influence. I've only worked with two regestered Braunvieh herds but they had genetics from all ove rthe place, from NE to TX
dun
