Is this a diluter heifer?

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Randi explained it perfectly!
So, IF the bull is visually BLACK in color - not charcoal or something in between, then it is very logical that the COW is carrying the diluter gene. And bred the exact same way, she could have a solid black calf - just depending on whether she passes on the diluter gene or not ( if she is heterozygous diluted).

 

[VanC]

Just to clarify, rat tails can occur when an animal that carries the diluter gene is crossed with an animal that carries a black gene. It is more common with diluter Simmentals, but it can, and has, happened with Gelbvieh, Charolais, or any other breed that carries the diluter.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

VanC - that is correct. And, the research is inconclusive as to whether they are truly a problem. I believe most of the poor performance on feedlots is due to less hair in colder climates.
I have had many diluted cattle over the years. I have NEVER had a poor performer. One of my best show heifers (many many many years ago) was a SILVER. She won Gr Ch as a Spring Calf and again the next year with a different judge as a yearling. Obviously, she didn't have a poor performance! there must be something to the "rattail" issue, but I have never seen it.

 

[VanC]

VanC - that is correct. And, the research is inconclusive as to whether they are truly a problem. I believe most of the poor performance on feedlots is due to less hair in colder climates.
I have had many diluted cattle over the years. I have NEVER had a poor performer. One of my best show heifers (many many many years ago) was a SILVER. She won Gr Ch as a Spring Calf and again the next year with a different judge as a yearling. Obviously, she didn't have a poor performance! there must be something to the "rattail" issue, but I have never seen it.

Just because an animal carries the diluter gene doesn't mean it will be a poor performer. Far from it. It's only the rat tails that seem to have problems. I believe you are right: it's probably due to the sparse hair coat.

Here is something from a study done in 1999:

Inheritance of the "rat-tail" syndrome and its effect on calf performance
R. R. Schalles and L. V. Cundiff
Department of Animal Sciences and Industry, Kansas State University, Manhattan 66506, USA.

A form of congenital hypotrichosis, commonly know as the "rat-tail syndrome," occurs in a small percentage of calves produced by crossing some Continental cattle breeds with cattle that are black in color. These calves are characterized by short, curly, malformed, sometimes sparse hair and a lack of normal tail switch development. In our first study, performance of 43 rat-tail calves was compared with that of 570 non-rat-tail calves of the same breeding and contemporary groups. All rat-tail calves were sired by Simmental bulls and were from cows with various percentages of Angus breeding. The rat-tail condition had no effect on birth weight, weaning weight, or gain from birth to weaning. However, rat-tail calves had significantly lower rates of gain during the winter months from weaning to yearling than non-rat-tail calves, resulting in a 19 kg lighter yearling weight. Gains of steers from yearling to slaughter were not significantly different, but rat-tail steers were 36 kg lighter (P = .01) and 13 d older (P = .15) at slaughter than the non-rat-tail steers. In a second study, Angus-Simmental F1 males and females with the rat-tail condition were mated to produce 64 F2 offspring that were used to determine the mode of inheritance of this syndrome. Analysis showed that the rat-tail syndrome is controlled by interacting genes at two loci. Cattle that express the syndrome must have at least one dominant gene for black color and be heterozygous at the other locus involved.

 

[kansaskid]

Hi, I am new to this discussion, so bear with me. I have a lot of black gelbvieh cows, and am crossing them with red angus bulls. I am getting a fair amount of grey calves that are normal, but getting some rat tail calves (tight curly hair, short tail etc.) I would like to know how to test to determine that an animal is a non-diluter, how to test and where to have the test done. Kansaskid

 

[WalnutCrest]

Igenity

 

[tistis]

This little guy is kind of golden ..

 

[3waycross]

He is, but without the tests you are just guessing. BUT, since we're just guessing I'll guess NO!

 

[Andyva]

Everyone seems to get locked in on one type of genetic deviation, when there are many, with their own rules. Like the African horn gene for example. Usually horns are recessive, but it depends on which mutation you are dealing with. Maybe the so called dilution gene in gebviehs works more like the dun gene in Dexters only affecting black animals and not red. That would explain why it comes up in the balncers and not the reds. This would be different than the way the dilution gene works with charolais from what I understand.

 

[randiliana]

I believe that the dilution in Simmentals and Gelbveih is different than in Char. But it does lighten red, just not to the extent of Charolais. No copies is usually Darker red, one copy a little lighter and 2 copies make a very light red to tan colour. In blacks, it is just black or grey I think

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

I am pretty sure the calf above is the color he is supposed to be.

 

[Lucky_P]

Best discussion of coat color I could find on the net here:
http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/colors.html

Used to be an even more in-depth article at Braunviehcenter.com...but it's no longer there, I guess.

 

[Hereford76]

Thanks, CKS.

Cattleman, the problem is, that you have several different genes working to make any animal the color that it is. First and foremost, you have the BASE color, that is BLACK, RED, or WILD. Then you have the diluter genes, or the spotting genes, or brindle genes and so on. The test for HOMO BLACK just tests for the BASE color. So a homo black animal can still carry any number of additional genes.

For example, most (if not all) Murray Gray cattle are Homozygous black, but they also carry a diluter gene, which makes them gray. There are several different diluter genes out there, I think they are all dominant to non-diluter.

In the case of Holstien cattle, most of them are Homozygous for Black as well, and they are also homozygous for the recessive SPOTTING gene.

You can have a GRAY, SPOTTED animal that is HOMO for the black gene, cause the diluter, and spots all work in addition to the BASE color.

Check out my blog, http://easygenes.blogspot.com/
or some of these websites
http://www.sss-mag.com/fernhill/cowcolor.html#base
http://www.braunviehcenter.com/cattle_g ... part2.html
http://www.depts.ttu.edu/afs/ANSC3402/H ... lleles.pdf

Is the spotting gene in Holstein the same gene as carried in some herefords?

 

[randiliana]

No, it is the same as the one carried by Shorthorns. The Hereford one is an 'incompletely' dominant gene, which means that if one copy(hetero) is carried it expresses differently than if 2 copies are there (homo). Think bald faced vs white face with the feather neck, white belly and feet/legs. But there are also other genes out there that influence how much white is on an animal as well.

The Holstien/Shorthorn spotting gene is a recessive gene, which means that it takes 2 copies (homo) for the animal to be spotted. 1 copy can be passed down for many generations without ever showing itself, until it meets up with another copy at some point and you will suddenly (out of the blue) have a spotted animal. Works the same as the red gene.

 

[Andyva]

Spotting gene is in the simmentals too. Sometimes if you see a cow that looks like a Hereford that throws a wildly spotted calf it's because she has more Simmental than Hereford. Used to have a lot of Simmentals around here marked up like Herefords back in the late eighties.