British White Cross ?

[Stocker Steve]

A local guy is advertising some 1200 to 1300 pound British Whites bred black angus. They look like good cows. He claims they will all throw a solid colored calf ??? Hard to believe. What is the inheritance for whites like this ?

Also, is there a better British White terminal cross than angus? Simi is currently the local favorite for terminal cross.

 

[Aaron]

What is the price?

 

[brimmer X]

British white cattle are good animals. I have a couple crosses left in my herd. I have had 2 calves from those females last month. One was from an F-1 BWxBrahman cow. The calf was sired by a hereford. The heifer calve is red white face. The other calf is from a 1/2 bruanvieh 1/4 british white 1/4 brahman cow. Sire is from my heifer bull 7/8 angus 1/8 maine, believed to be homo black. The calf is a traditional british white marked animal. It is hard to get the white out of the offspring. It does happen sometimes, but a lot of angus sires on bw cows will result in some skunk back animals. These and others favor longhorn cattle which get docked at the barn.
I can only assume, the dock you take today is less than in previous years. British white cattle, in my experience, are productive animals, but the color is not what buyers at the sale barn want. That is why only a few crosses remain on our farm. For what is worth, I'd probably breed BW cows to a Charolais to remove most of the black, and sell as continental/english cross.

 

[Stocker Steve]

What is the price?

U$S 1,250 to 1,350

 

[Stocker Steve]

I'd probably breed BW cows to a Charolais to remove most of the black, and sell as continental/english cross.

What does a diluted white Char X look like ?

 

[Taurus]

That is not bad price for the cows but you will lost $$ in the Angus sired calves when you take them to the sale barn. The calves will marked like BW or skunks no matter what breed the homo black bull is. Brimmerx do makes a great suggest on Charolais bull on BW cows, it will just remove the black and the cross should be white/smokey grey.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Not sure how mostly marked means color "dominate", but this is what I found:

is the very large percentage of British White cross calves
that bear quite classic British White markings. Having crossed
with black Angus many years ago, I'd say that about 60% of all
my cross bred calves were typical milk white with black point
calves, and the remainder were line-backed.

 

[Taurus]

Not sure how mostly marked means color "dominate", but this is what I found:

is the very large percentage of British White cross calves
that bear quite classic British White markings. Having crossed
with black Angus many years ago, I'd say that about 60% of all
my cross bred calves were typical milk white with black point
calves, and the remainder were line-backed.

The guy I got my shorthorn cows from, have a commercial herd of BW and their crosses, runs with Red Angus bulls but it seems that they never had any solid colored calves. Some are black points, some are red points, some are red skunks and some are black skunks but never black or red solid calf. He backgrounded these calves so he don't have to take them to the sale barn. My bud had some BW cows ran with a Hereford bull and he got mostly black baldies with some red baldies but they have too much feather neck on these calves.

 

[Rosielou]

http://www.jwest.biz/BritishWhiteCrossCalves.htm this website has some examples of different crosses. It might help.

BW cows when crossed with black angus will almost always result in a black and white spotted calf. However, BA x BW crosses will sometimes produce solid black calves when bred back to BA, but sometimes can also throw a spotted calf too. I currently have 5 BW crosses, 2 heifer calves and 3 cows, and most of the calves have been solid black bull calves who grow off just as well or better than my others. This year two of my BW crosses dropped 2 spotted calves. The spots can be very dominant and can pass for a few generations.

This is my best BW cross with this years calf. She is pushing 8+ yrs and has had only 3 spotted calves. I bought her as a 4 year old with a spotted bull calf. When bred back to BA, she has only given me 2 spotted calves and the rest have been black.

This is her daughter. She is sired by BA. She has only thrown black calves.

My other BW with last years calf. She will only throw spotted calves or calves with the original BW black points.

If the color doesn't bother you(if it does breed them to char, it should knock off spots), buy those mommas. They make amazing cows and can raise a great calf too.

 

[townfarmer]

Some of the BW Angus cross cattle in the link provided look for all the world like speckle park cattle.

Andrew

 

[Aaron]

What is the price?

U$S 1,250 to 1,350

At that price and today's market prices, the calves could come out hot pink in color and I could care less. With one live calf on the ground, your already talking decent profit. Was talking to a guy looking to buy bred heifers from me this fall - $1800 will be a good starting point on price on them.

 

[Stocker Steve]

BW cows when crossed with black angus will almost always result in a black and white spotted calf. However, BA x BW crosses will sometimes produce solid black calves when bred back to BA, but sometimes can also throw a spotted calf too.

Great post and photos. Thank you.
I think some of the experts purchased BW crosses and this resulted in the always black/never black BA calf confusion.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Was talking to a guy looking to buy bred heifers from me this fall - $1800 will be a good starting point on price on them.

Shiny blacks are $1750 and up here, but I don't buy that kind. :cowboy: I was hoping to swim some unappreciated girls across at Birchdale. Maybe I now need to buy a Char bull to go with the new colored cow collection.

 

[branguscowgirl]

Rosielou, seeing your cattle and the web site photos sure make me want to get some BW mamma cows! I like them!
Thanks for sharing the pictures!

 

[stocky]

I wish those cows were for sale here in my area. Those are just slaughter prices for them. I saw an ad for some open reg white parks heifers in central Mo for 2500 each, last week.
I just freshened out 34 reg white parks heifers, all bred to reg black angus bulls. There were 16 solid black calves, 1 black calf with a white spot in it's forehead, and 17 white parks colored calves (white with black ears, noses, and feet) with only a couple having a few specks of black in the white.
I also finished freshening 26 white parks heifers bred to a jersey bull. There were 13 white with brown ears, 1 solid brown, 1 solid black, and 11 speckled and spotted calves with brown and white. Those were about the same percentages as the 20 WP heifers I freshened last year with a jersey bull.
The White Parks colors are very dominate. Out of an angus, hereford, or limousin bull, you will get 50-60 percent white parks colors and 40-50 percent the color of the bull. There will be an occasional spotted or line back calf. If the white parks cows are crossbreeds, to begin with, you will get a much larger assortment of colors.
The bull that will take the WP colors out is the charolais. You will never get a full WP colored calf out of the charolais or at least we haven't in well over 1,000 births. You will get white to gray to yellow and a few of the white colored ones will have cream colored ears. They grow like crazy and sell really well, out of a charolais bull.

 

[Rosielou]

BW cows when crossed with black angus will almost always result in a black and white spotted calf. However, BA x BW crosses will sometimes produce solid black calves when bred back to BA, but sometimes can also throw a spotted calf too.

Great post and photos. Thank you.
I think some of the experts purchased BW crosses and this resulted in the always black/never black BA calf confusion.

No problem. Are they fullbloods or just purebred? Either way, those prices are great for BWs. They're kind of tough to find around here and expensive, but also my favorite breed, so if I were you I probably would've snatched those up lol. A year or so ago I went to check out a guy who was selling his herd and the lowest he would go on an unregistered was $1800 and she was around 8 and only a purebred(though supposedly nice lines). She was a nice animal but wasn't worth $1800.

Rosielou, seeing your cattle and the web site photos sure make me want to get some BW mamma cows! I like them!
Thanks for sharing the pictures!

Thank you! They're my favorite breed for a reason :nod:

Here are some more pictures of my BW crosses.

I'm actually skeptical if this one is crossed or not(sometimes they can just be overmarked). She has yet to throw anything but the original BW colored calves. I call her Jane.

last years calf of hers.

BW X BA momma and BA sire. I call her Denver.

BW X BA. This cow has always kept good condition no matter what(she's standing weird, sorry). She is 8+ and my favorite cow. She's such a pet she can be a nuisance. She is 1 of 3 cows I'm very attached to.

 

[Aaron]

Was talking to a guy looking to buy bred heifers from me this fall - $1800 will be a good starting point on price on them.

Shiny blacks are $1750 and up here, but I don't buy that kind. :cowboy: I was hoping to swim some unappreciated girls across at Birchdale. Maybe I now need to buy a Char bull to go with the new colored cow collection.

The unappreciated, open heifers, can be bought much cheaper at the sales barn. I like the ones I keep. That being said, I am sure we can come to some arrangement that will work for you in the future. I am working under the notion that shiny blacks in your area will be worth well over 2k this fall.

 

[randiliana]

A local guy is advertising some 1200 to 1300 pound British Whites bred black angus. They look like good cows. He claims they will all throw a solid colored calf ??? Hard to believe. What is the inheritance for whites like this ?

Also, is there a better British White terminal cross than angus? Simi is currently the local favorite for terminal cross.

British White cattle are in general Homozygous for the 'colour sided' pattern, which is dominant to solid coloured. Usually you can tell by looking which are homo and which are hetero. The homozygous ones will usually be all white with coloured points (ears, nose, feet). Heterozygous will usually have the black points as well, but also have a varying amount of colour on their sides (ranging from speckles to solid with the skunk markings)

If you take a group of PB British White and breed them Angus you will most likely get all speckled/line backed calves. In fact it really won't matter what solid coloured breed you use you will still get coloured calves, the breed may change the base colour of the calve (Char will likely give you smoky and silver calves, and Black Angus will give you black) But you will still have the speckles.

Once you cross them to a solid coloured breed, if you were to breed those calves back to another solid breed you would get about 50% solid and 50% speckled.

 

[Taurus]

A local guy is advertising some 1200 to 1300 pound British Whites bred black angus. They look like good cows. He claims they will all throw a solid colored calf ??? Hard to believe. What is the inheritance for whites like this ?

Also, is there a better British White terminal cross than angus? Simi is currently the local favorite for terminal cross.

Once you cross them to a solid coloured breed, if you were to breed those calves back to another solid breed you would get about 50% solid and 50% speckled.

So if I bred a solid colored BW cross to another solid breed, what is the odds for her to give us a speckled calf?

 

[stocky]

If you read my post earlier in this thread, you can see my experience is much different than other people who have posted. In 10 years of breeding purebred and crossbred white parks to red limousin bulls, we never had a speckled calf. We had solid black, solid red, or White parks colored calves. With hereford, it was 50 percent red or black white face and 50 percent white parks. With the black angus, it was 50 percent solid black, 50 percent white parks, a few with some small black spots. I have not had any line back or spotted or speckled calves out of the angus bulls and white parks cows. The two breeds that throw about 50 percent speckled calves are the jersey bull and the brangus bull. Alot of the spotted and speckled cows I have seen have got some ear, coming from a brangus. In the posted pics, alot of the spotted animals have some ear, also. With purebred or registered white parks, you can get a solid black or solid red or spotted cow once in awhile. Out of 150 purebred white parks, I have 5 solid black cows, 1 red cow, 2 black and white spotted cows, a couple with a blueish look, and one reddish looking cow. I have 6 crossbreeds that are speckled and they all have some brangus in them. My other crossbreeds are standard white parks marked except for the 1/2 jersey heifers that are white with brown ears, black, brown, or speckled---kind of a rainbow out of the jersey. My answer to Taurus is that in the case of using angus, limo, charolais, or hereford, I have not seen a speckled calf out of any of those solid breeds.