Charolais x Speckle Park ?????

[sunnyblueskies]

Anybody tried to cross Charolais x cows with Speckle Park?
We usually run Charolais x cows with Charolais and Shorthorn, few years ago some Red Angus too. This year I wanted to purchase another Shorthorn as heiferbull, but the spermtest fell through and I needed a replacement quick. So I picked a speckle park because he was close by and available. Anybody have some pictures of what x's like that look like? Our herd is mainly tan. Some white, a few shorthorn red.
Just curious.
Thanks.

 

[SBMF 2015]

Those white park markings would be a $0.25 discount here in a feeder calf. And if you keep any females those black ears can show up seven generations later.
We run Char x blk Angus. Pretty hard to beat. Used to have a red Angus bull in the mix. Those tan / strawberry blonde calves make pretty good replacement females.

 

[cattleman99]

Had a neighbors speckle park jump the fence many years ago and breed a full blood Simmental. Got a heifer calf I kept because kids fell in love with it and it was a good calf. Have kept a line going over the years and have upgraded the current dam to purebred status. She is raising 15/16 Simmental calves and they still look like purebred Speckle Parks. You can't breed the colour out.

 

[Son of Butch]

About the only knock you'll hear on British White/Speckled Park cattle is the coloring. They're good cattle, just not many around.

 

[moses388]

Hopefully someone has pictures of Charolais x Speckle Park. I am guessing you would have the Speckle Park pattern, but the black would be diluted to a gray or brown color. Try a Google image search for "charolais x speckle park."

The forum says you are in Alberta Canada. Are you near Olds, Alberta? Wanda Marsman of Hillsdown Gelbvieh is having a herd dispersal. If you change your mind about that Speckle Park bull, maybe Hillsdown would have something....

 

[Hoser]

My neighbour ran a speckle park bull on mostly charolais cows for a few years. The calves were, all white, brown spotted, yellow spotted, gray spotted or black spotted just like a speckle park.

 

[Hoser]

Where in Alberta are you? I'm up by High Prairie.

 

[SBMF 2015]

About the only knock you'll hear on British White/Speckled Park cattle is the coloring. They're good cattle, just not many around.

Their 1950's Angus. Small framed, no growth.
A neighbor I consult for had 6 pb cows. He finishes his own calves. Those 6 park x calves eat just as much corn as his good bwf calves do. His park strs finish at 1,150 and the hfrs struggle to reach 1,000. The rest of the cattle finish averaging 1,300. It's hard to get a good bid on a load of fats when part of the load won't have 600 lb carcasses.

 

[sunnyblueskies]

Where in Alberta are you? I'm up by High Prairie.

NE, Bonnyville area, Cold Lake area kinda thing.

 

[Cloudbreak Farms]

Their 1950's Angus. Small framed, no growth.
A neighbor I consult for had 6 pb cows. He finishes his own calves. Those 6 park x calves eat just as much corn as his good bwf calves do. His park strs finish at 1,150 and the hfrs struggle to reach 1,000. The rest of the cattle finish averaging 1,300. It's hard to get a good bid on a load of fats when part of the load won't have 600 lb carcasses.

Depends what you want to breed them for. If you want quality beef that marbles better that anything on grass, use Speckle park.

 

[Cloudbreak Farms]

Anybody tried to cross Charolais x cows with Speckle Park?
We usually run Charolais x cows with Charolais and Shorthorn, few years ago some Red Angus too. This year I wanted to purchase another Shorthorn as heiferbull, but the spermtest fell through and I needed a replacement quick. So I picked a speckle park because he was close by and available. Anybody have some pictures of what x's like that look like? Our herd is mainly tan. Some white, a few shorthorn red.
Just curious.
Thanks.

Put a Speckle Park bull over a Charolais X cow last year and got a lovely calf. Markings are dark brown rather than black. I prefer the black markings to keep a consistent line so will run the bull over Angus and Speckle Park cows/heifers.

 

[sunnyblueskies]

Put a Speckle Park bull over a Charolais X cow last year and got a lovely calf. Markings are dark brown rather than black. I prefer the black markings to keep a consistent line so will run the bull over Angus and Speckle Park cows/heifers.

Cute looking calf. I'm not sure if we ended up with any calves of the speckle park to be honest. None that I could tell by the colouring anyway. There were a few smaller then usual calves in that group, but who knows without DNA testing. We kept him for another season, see if anything unusual coloured will show up. And yes he was semen tested, so that was not an issue. =)
Bringing him in last year was more of a 'enticing the main bull' kind of idea because he was getting lazy by himself. There were only 20 heifers to breed and bringing that little speckle park in did the trick, competition, competition. =)
Thanks for posting your picture.