Charlois Angus Crossbreeding

[Stonewall Joe]

I kinda makes me sick that we are talking about breeds due to the colors they throw instead of what kind of quality they produce. It's just wrong...

when color affects sale price at the barn, it's very relevant, it doesn't have to make sense because you won't affect the buying habits, but color affects the wallet

 

[clarkmorefarm]

Anybody out there crossbreeding Angus cows to Charlois bulls? This is an idea a friend of mine and I have been thinking about. Have any of yall used Charlois bulls on a Heifer project? If so, what is a good CE value for Angus heifers? Appreciate any input, and thanks in advance!

Any reason not to breed the angus heifers with some angus stock with a higher CE to start? Maybe postpone the Charolais one calf crop?

I can see the appeal of getting the Charolais cross, but why not try and make sure they have the odds in their favor on their first calves.

If I wanted to have a char x angus, I would start with some established cows that I had some records or experience with calving and raising a calf.

Heifers come with a lot of risk one way or another, just something to think about.

 

[AmericanPlowBoy]

Be careful with EPDs. It seems you are knowledgeable on them, but also know/remember that numerical values for one breed do not necessarily mean the same thing for another breed. I'm an advocate of hybrid vigor so I like your cross. Hybrid vigor 'maxes out' with a 3 way cross rather than just a 2 way. @Logan52 mentioned that he uses a Sim-Angus bull on his. I like that thought. Check with @Jeanne - Simme Valley for her Simmitals. She produces breed and show stock. She could be a good source for you.

Or you try the saleyards a time or two and decide that selling directly on the hook is the only way to get a fair go...
What I've seen. Isn't a cent or two. If the calf is the wrong colour you can pick up baby calf price on a fully weaned and vaccinated calf. The calf can be the *right* colour and sired by a Jersey bull and top the market that day, but that feels dishonest as heck even knowing that the middle-man did it & you supplied him three generation of ancestry on that calf.
It would only take necessity for me to start selling live cattle off the farm again, after all I've seen from doing that previously. More than once the statement returned didn't match the calves sent which presumably explains that time when the best calf of the group got the lowest price... he'd turned into a different breed when the paperwork came back.

Amen to them Jersey Angus crosses! What a ripoff! Guess the angus do have an epd value for that now, but dang them Jerseys grow so slow!

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Color (along with ear, horns, double muscling, etc...) tells a buyer something of what to expect - unless we are professing all breeds finish the same. To suggest a char and angus will finish the same (size, quantity, marbling, ease to finish etc...) also seems silly. At a sale barn, often all they have to go by is color.

I used to sell all my calves every year to the same penny pinching finisher / butcher. He said he'd give me a dime more per lb to turn them black (back when a dime mattered :) ). Said the hide weight reduction alone would pay him back. He wasn't a guy who just gave his money away because he liked a color. He was measuring every hide when it came off. He was measuring every cup of grain they took. He was measuring what became burger and what become ribeyes. That dime he gave me was not based on "color" even though that's the language he used.

IF the buyer has any real clue how the color relates back to what they are expecting. This is the case in the example that you use. There are far more people/buyers that are just buying the color because the maases, aka social media, have convinced them that the color makes the animal "better" for some unjustified reason.

I'll give a case in point about red angus. I kinda have a preference for red over black myself, but it is all up to the producer's preference/bias. My preference for red stems from the factual evidence that red angus are more efficient in converting forage to pounds of beef! They have more gain for the same feed taken in pound for pound when compared to black angus. Additionally, red angus also end up with less back fat and hence less trimmings/waste when slaughtered. You get more net profit by raising red over black that the red efficiency ends up being the equivalent or even better than the premium paid for certified black angus.

You are correct, but ONLY if the buyer knows what the color means, and not what they think it means.

 

[Dave]

I find all this color talk to be comical. A lot of you must live where the buyers are traders. Not actual buyers who work for and with feedlots. I hear buyers talking about driving through the pens at the feedlots and seeing how the cattle are doing. They know whose cattle do well and whose cattle don't. When buying and feeding cattle by the tens of thousand it is by averages not what an individual might do. That sort of thing gets communicated very well to the buyer. And if they can't tell the difference they will be replaced very quickly.

Here red or black Angus sell the same. So do Char crosses. Straight bred Char on an average are off some. Hereford crosses both red and black sell at the top. Straight bred Hereford are back 15 cent with some exceptions. After that the price will fall off pretty good. And color can come into play. Exactly what is the breeding in some crosses? It can be difficult to tell.

 

[Travlr]

I find all this color talk to be comical. A lot of you must live where the buyers are traders. Not actual buyers who work for and with feedlots. I hear buyers talking about driving through the pens at the feedlots and seeing how the cattle are doing. They know whose cattle do well and whose cattle don't. When buying and feeding cattle by the tens of thousand it is by averages not what an individual might do. That sort of thing gets communicated very well to the buyer. And if they can't tell the difference they will be replaced very quickly.

Here red or black Angus sell the same. So do Char crosses. Straight bred Char on an average are off some. Hereford crosses both red and black sell at the top. Straight bred Hereford are back 15 cent with some exceptions. After that the price will fall off pretty good. And color can come into play. Exactly what is the breeding in some crosses? It can be difficult to tell.

That's exactly correct... It's the law of averages and buyers know what to look for well beyond the color. But color is what producers see and very few develop the eye it takes to see beyond the color of their calves. You get two same colored groups from different places and one will get more money, and it's not the color that determines the value. You mix color into the equation and it makes it just one more factor, but that's the easiest factor involved. Professional buyers have an eye for potential/quality or they don't last long.

 

[mwj]

Black could effect the price on cattle sold as CAB but most will never go there. A lot of things have to fall in line before a color premium appears.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

I would suspect that color of the hide is very much operational size dependent, which also determines how purchase prices are determined. I've never been to a sale barn during a sale though, let alone enough of them in different places to notice differences in methods of buying and selling livestock. It's not rocket science to guess that a group of 4-5 or 20 animals being sold at a sale barn is going to be 'figured' very differently from a group of 1,000 coming off the open range, or feed lot.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Back when I was smaller potatoes and marketing 15,20,25 animals a year it seemed the black hides always brought a little bit better money even when I thought some of the reds and rwfs were better animals.

Now selling much larger groups at a time I see little difference in color of hide. Send an entire pot load of nice uniform calves and color seems irrelevant.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Back when I was smaller potatoes and marketing 15,20,25 animals a year it seemed the black hides always brought a little bit better money even when I thought some of the reds and rwfs were better animals.

Now selling much larger groups at a time I see little difference in color of hide. Send an entire pot load of nice uniform calves and color seems irrelevant.

A change in mind set over what is really important to focus on. When you end up upside down economically because of your feed management of the herd because of drought or too many livestock or other issue, a slight difference in return based on hide color starts to seem insignificant. At the very least, its not the first thing you think of in herd management any more.

 

[Ky hills]

Back when I was smaller potatoes and marketing 15,20,25 animals a year it seemed the black hides always brought a little bit better money even when I thought some of the reds and rwfs were better animals.

Now selling much larger groups at a time I see little difference in color of hide. Send an entire pot load of nice uniform calves and color seems irrelevant.

You’re right on that, from what I see at the sales is the big difference is with numbers. Doesn’t matter what color even a good quality black calf sold as a single or a smal group of them 2-5 are going to sell for significantly less than a pot load size lot of black calves.
It’s a pretty common thing for folks to buy up groups of singles and put a big group together. They can buy them cheaper and sell them for more as a group on top of any weight gain.
Take a single off color calf and it’s going to be back 10-40 cents probably of black calves, So a lot of the folks that buy those singles and small bunches will buy those non black or off color calves too for considerably less up front and group them up and grow them for a few months and bring a big load lot group back and even those mixed breed groups will sell with 5-10 cents per pound as a similar size group of black calves.
Back in the summer, we saw a big group of steers sell. The auctioneer commented there’s ever breed represented here. A few black calves but mostly others, all kinds of Charolais crosses, Herefords, Brahman influenced, longhorn crosses, shorthorn, maybe even a belt or two, and they brought within .08 of some groups of black calves.
They probably bought some of those calves .40-.50 cents per pound maybe more than that on a few, less than what good black calves were bringing when they bought them.
So yeah numbers make the difference.

 

[regolith]

Amen to them Jersey Angus crosses! What a ripoff! Guess the angus do have an epd value for that now, but dang them Jerseys grow so slow!

My point would be that they weren't Jersey angus crosses... the saleyards in this country are very much "buyer beware". 3/4 Jersey 1/4 HolsteinFriesian will probably produce a black calf, grow it out nicely he'll sell as an Anguscross. It amazes me how people don't look past colour to pick out the actual breed attributes of the animal. I had a tall Swiss heifer built like a racehorse described by two different cattlemen who ought to have known better as a 'small Jersey heifer" and they stuck to that description when I questioned if that really was my heifer number 10.
The one time I know of I sent the agent down the farm with a list of tag numbers and the breed mix of each calf all written out, he came back said there wasn't a market for the full dairy (mostly black and white) weaners but the four angus crosses were worth sending, I said, there's two angus crosses in that group... he took all four.

 

[Ky hills]

I find all this color talk to be comical. A lot of you must live where the buyers are traders. Not actual buyers who work for and with feedlots. I hear buyers talking about driving through the pens at the feedlots and seeing how the cattle are doing. They know whose cattle do well and whose cattle don't. When buying and feeding cattle by the tens of thousand it is by averages not what an individual might do. That sort of thing gets communicated very well to the buyer. And if they can't tell the difference they will be replaced very quickly.

Here red or black Angus sell the same. So do Char crosses. Straight bred Char on an average are off some. Hereford crosses both red and black sell at the top. Straight bred Hereford are back 15 cent with some exceptions. After that the price will fall off pretty good. And color can come into play. Exactly what is the breeding in some crosses? It can be difficult to tell.

Here there is a mix of buyers that buy for feedlots and others, and there are trader buyers too.
A few few months back, I was talking with our vet who also is a longtime Hereford breeder. He is instrumental in getting up the Hereford influence sales. He said that a local buyer had bought a group of calves at last years Hereford Influence sale to fill an order. He was later received an order from that feedlot to buy them as many of those calves out of that sale as he could get. Said they did well with them and wanted all they could get of those cattle.
When it comes to pot load or big load lots of calves even with Herefords the price gap closes some they may still be back 8-10 cents of black calves.
Regular sales here with singles or small bunches even black calves are back a ways from group prices.
That’s where the discount got off color calves come in real noticeable.
Here it’s just depends on the market preference at the time. Right now good single solid red calves are not too far behind black calves maybe as little as .05 but can be significantly behind at times. Charolais crosses are fairly close to black calves maybe 2-5 cents back
White, pink nosed Charolais are not as far behind as they have usually been. Most time they are about in Hereford territory which is about .30 cents back and sometimes .40.
At the recent Hereford influence sale, the larger groups of Herefords close the gap to 8-12 cents behind if I remember.
A friend that used to run a dairy, fed out his steers. He lived about a hour and a half from a fat cattle market in Ohio. So he would take his finished steers up there to sell.
He said that after he sold out his dairy and took the last of his steers to sell, he stayed and watched them sell. Said he was surprised that everything regardless of breed sold within a couple cents of each other.

 

[regolith]

Im not sure how sales are done there but I stress for the owner to be there when their calves or even cull cows sell. You spend a year getting the calf ready to sell so its best to finish the job.

I'e been to a couple of sales I dare say you're right but... I was sitting there once watching a couple of young cows sell, the auctioneer stated their ages - wrong a year younger for both than they really were - asked if the owner was there and looked around looked straight past my raised hand owner not there. This isn't my place, okay, a woman in a sale barn isn't a visible owner.
It got to the stage that it was *every* time I consigned cattle I wasn't happy with something so I changed my breeding goals and sold direct for meat instead

 

[Dave]

Many times I have watched a set of 30-40 calves come the ring. Within a few seconds a buyer is asking for one out. I try to figure out which they want out and why. Some are easy to spot. However I have seen them cut one calf who is 50 pounds heavier than the average. If they are sharp enough pick out a 660 lb calf out of 40 calves that average 610 and do it is a couple of seconds what else does their trained eye pick up on.

Vastly more calves are sold here in groups. There are very few small operators with less than 50 cows. In fact I know of more people with over1,000 than ones with less than 50. Thus not a lot of singles sold. And a lot of which are sold as singles are the cut outs from larger groups.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Vastly more calves are sold here in groups. There are very few small operators with less than 50 cows. In fact I know of more people with over1,000 than ones with less than 50. Thus not a lot of singles sold. And a lot of which are sold as singles are the cut outs from larger groups.

USDA says average herd size is 47 cows. 79% of operations have less than 50 cows, and only 1% have over 1000 head. So for every neighbor of yours marketing 1000 calves, there's probably 1000's of guys selling just a few head at a time.

 

[kenny thomas]

I'e been to a couple of sales I dare say you're right but... I was sitting there once watching a couple of young cows sell, the auctioneer stated their ages - wrong a year younger for both than they really were - asked if the owner was there and looked around looked straight past my raised hand owner not there. This isn't my place, okay, a woman in a sale barn isn't a visible owner.
It got to the stage that it was *every* time I consigned cattle I wasn't happy with something so I changed my breeding goals and sold direct for meat instead

If done correctly and you have the time and scales to sell directly you can realize more money in the end. If the sale barn discriminates against women you have a right to be mad.

 

[farmerjan]

The sale barns here will discriminate against women also. some worse than others. All a part of the "good ole boy" network. I have been here long enough that most know me well enough that if I say something is xyz, then they can take it to the bank. But it wasn't always like that.. and there is one that is still very discriminatory...and they delighted in "putting one over" a "novice buyer".... learned the hard way and paid my dues... One other, the owners daughter does alot of buying and selling now, and the father of the owner and I have known each other for over 40 years, so there is no problem there.

 

[Dave]

USDA says average herd size is 47 cows. 79% of operations have less than 50 cows, and only 1% have over 1000 head. So for every neighbor of yours marketing 1000 calves, there's probably 1000's of guys selling just a few head at a time.

True nation wide but not in Baker county or surrounding counties.

 

[Dave]

The sale barns here will discriminate against women also. some worse than others. All a part of the "good ole boy" network. I have been here long enough that most know me well enough that if I say something is xyz, then they can take it to the bank. But it wasn't always like that.. and there is one that is still very discriminatory...and they delighted in "putting one over" a "novice buyer".... learned the hard way and paid my dues... One other, the owners daughter does alot of buying and selling now, and the father of the owner and I have known each other for over 40 years, so there is no problem there.

The sale barn at La Grande is owned and run by a young Lady. I don't believe Amber would tolerate it.