Getting the smoke out?

[Logan52]

Several years ago I had a small herd of registered Red Poll cattle. Loved their docility and fertility but got tired of the discount in price that resulted from the red color. Bought a nice Charolais bull and kept all the heifers for two years. They grew out really well, beautiful yellow cows that matured around 1500 lbs. and were calf raising machines.
But what to breed them to? Bought a nice black Angus bull and got half solid black calves and half smokes. Same with a SimAngus bull I have used most recently.
Thinking about keeping heifers again. If I keep only the solid black ones will I lessen the number of smokey calves that result? Or will the roughly half and half (black and smoke) continue?

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

I believe that's the diluter gene popping up. Not much you can do about it.

 

[SBMF 2015]

We run mostly Charolais, Angus,and F1 cross mommas. If you keep the black hided F1's and cross them back to an Angus you will be fine. You may get a a smoke every once in a while, but it won't be very many.

 

[RockinRB]

If you keep the black heifers, you won't get any smokey calves out of them if you breed them to a black bull. If you go back over them with another charolais bull then you will get yellows and smokeys again.

 

[Logan52]

Thanks for the information. I am leaning toward keeping the black heifers and selling the smokes.
Here in my part of Kentucky, a black cow will outsell a gray cow of the same quality. This may explain it. You can get uniform color from a black to black cross but you never know what will come out of a smokey colored cow.

 

[Warren Allison]

1/ 2 of those yellow cows eggs carried the red gene and half of the eggs carried the Char dilute gene. So with half of your calves being black and half being smoky, this is about right. The black gene is dominant over the red gene, but the dilute gene makes the smoky color. The black heifers should be heterozygous for black.. , carrying one black and one red gene. So, the dilute gene SHOULD be gone from them. Bred to a homozygous black bull, all of their claves SHOULD be black. However, @Caustic Burno or @Brute 23 ...forget which one, on another thread posted a pic of a white cow that was 7/8ths Angus and 1/8th Charolais, with a smoky calf that was 15/16ths Angus. That dilute gene form Car blood is hard to predictr. Once you get that dilute mess started in your herd, you may never totally get rid of it.

 

[Warren Allison]

1/ 2 of those yellow cows eggs carried the red gene and half of the eggs carried the Char dilute gene. So with half of your calves being black and half being smoky, this is about right. The black gene is dominant over the red gene, but the dilute gene makes the smoky color. The black heifers should be heterozygous for black.. , carrying one black and one red gene. So, the dilute gene SHOULD be gone from them. Bred to a homozygous black bull, all of their claves SHOULD be black. However, @Caustic Burno or @Brute 23 ...forget which one, on another thread posted a pic of a white cow that was 7/8ths Angus and 1/8th Charolais, with a smoky calf that was 15/16ths Angus. That dilute gene form Car blood is hard to predictr. Once you get that dilute mess started in your herd, you may never totally get rid of it.

It was on the Diluter thread and it is Lucky P's cow.

 

[Caustic Burno]

1/ 2 of those yellow cows eggs carried the red gene and half of the eggs carried the Char dilute gene. So with half of your calves being black and half being smoky, this is about right. The black gene is dominant over the red gene, but the dilute gene makes the smoky color. The black heifers should be heterozygous for black.. , carrying one black and one red gene. So, the dilute gene SHOULD be gone from them. Bred to a homozygous black bull, all of their claves SHOULD be black. However, @Caustic Burno or @Brute 23 ...forget which one, on another thread posted a pic of a white cow that was 7/8ths Angus and 1/8th Charolais, with a smoky calf that was 15/16ths Angus. That dilute gene form Car blood is hard to predictr. Once you get that dilute mess started in your herd, you may never totally get rid of it.

The only way to get rid of it is sell them.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Warren Allison the American Charolais was a breed up program of Charolais and Brahman genetics.
It's a composite breed, that's one reason the hybrid vigor is so good.

Charolais USA

 

[Lucky_P]

The BLACK heifers do not carry the color dilution/inhibitor gene. Bred to a non-diluted red or black bull, they will deliver solid non-diluted calves. Smokey is not just gonna 'jump out of the woodpile'... if the dilution/inhibitor gene is there, it'll be expressed... easy to pick out in black-factored cattle, but not necessarily so in reds... red cattle heterozygous for the color dilution gene may not be all that noticeably diluted.

That white 7/8 Angus cow I posted the photo of, in the other thread, would have been no more than 1/32 Charolais, but that color inhibitor gene carried along down the family tree... and it's possible that she may also have carried a copy of the Simmental color dilution gene, in addition to the Charolais color inhibitor gene.

 

[coachg]

Keep the black heifers and breed to a black bull . You will get black calves consistently. If one craps out color wise you get docked on 1 not the whole calf crop . Son was using a black limousine bull on crossed bred commercial cows . Tremendous calves but about half red . Put one of our black angus bulls on them 2 years ago . Haven't had a red hided one since !

 

[rnh2]

Several years ago I had a small herd of registered Red Poll cattle. Loved their docility and fertility but got tired of the discount in price that resulted from the red color. Bought a nice Charolais bull and kept all the heifers for two years. They grew out really well, beautiful yellow cows that matured around 1500 lbs. and were calf raising machines.
But what to breed them to? Bought a nice black Angus bull and got half solid black calves and half smokes. Same with a SimAngus bull I have used most recently.
Thinking about keeping heifers again. If I keep only the solid black ones will I lessen the number of smokey calves that result? Or will the roughly half and half (black and smoke) continue?

Love red polls!