Hereford marking question

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jrn28

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I know some have freckles and some with different eye markings, but I didn't think they could have any black markings. I was looking through a catalogue and looked up a bull the had and saw this.

Can they have black markings?
 
No, not solid black. You can get them heavily freckled, like 'Rusty'.

hrp9329.jpg


But that comment alone would probably get me to the sale, or at the very least, motivate a phone call.
 
jrn28":2gjz6o8n said:
I know some have freckles and some with different eye markings, but I didn't think they could have any black markings. I was looking through a catalogue and looked up a bull the had and saw this.

Can they have black markings?


I will assume this is from a sales catalog, the seller lost my interest in two areas. First posting a registered Hereford with "black" markings. Second they "may" keep semen interest! I won't waste my time calling, seeking out owner. They should know before the ad if they are keeping semen interest or not. Black markings, maybe you get less than you bought, might want to keep some of him ...... No thanks, lost me as a buyer and future customer.
 
This particular bull was actually already purchased. Saw him as a foundation sire thought he looked good and wanted to review him. Didn't want to purchase anything from catalogue just liked the look of the bull and found it strange. That really drew me away from him, but left me wondering that's why I asked.
 
When I read this ad, I did not think that they were referring to the animal having any black hair. I thought they were just talking about the pigment of the skin around the eye. I assume the darker pigment would mean less susceptibility to pinkeye and cancer eye. There could still be red or even white hairs growing from that darker pigment.
 
Just because a Hereford animal has some black hairs doesn't mean his pedigree nor purity should be in question. I've seen hundreds of animals over the years with black hairs in tail or an occasional black patch on the body. The old timers always told me that black hair on the tail is a sign of fertility in bulls.

Dr Beevers comments from another site. "In regard to the occasional Hereford animal (other red animals also) that have a patch of black hair somewhere on their body, these are most likely the result of a phenomenon called "reversion." Because the red allele is non-functional, occasionally some individual cells have spontaneous mutations that revert the red allele back to the black. Every cell that is derived from the original mutant will produce black pigment, thus the patch. The patch is localized because as the cells divide they all stay localized to the same area."

"For those animals that have black on the tail, etc... it is most likely due to the selection of modifying genes affecting the base color. I think a lot of this comes from some fairly intense selection on darker color in some lines of cattle. It used to be somewhat restricted to dark polled lines, but you can occassionally see it in more horned lines today."
 
Looks like I need to take the blame for some of this. The ad satiated "black eye pigment ", and for some reason I posted "black markings". While I believe this animal probably has normal eye pigmentation, my problem was how the ad was written. As a buyer I would have smirked and moved on, my biggest smirk is list what you'll be buying not what you may get when you write the check. The seller should know if they are keeping semen interest or not by the time the submit their ad, if not state you're keeping a share and then never use it ....... Don't leave things unanswered.
 

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