Longhorn/Charolais prs.

[Busterz]

Was that Charolais bull a low birth weight bull? Or does the Longhorn influence keep the birth weight down?

Did you have a bw epd on him or a actual birth weight?

 

[Ryan]

Was that Charolais bull a low birth weight bull? Or does the Longhorn influence keep the birth weight down?

Did you have a bw epd on him or a actual birth weight?

The longhorns will keep the birthweights down. Once a longhorn cow has a couple three calves she can deliver them pretty quick, even if they are bigger. One of my buddy's cows had a 94 pounder this spring, quick and easy.

charangusman wrote:

You can still get horns on a longhorn and angus cross, my uncle has a 25 long horn cattle and runs a angus bull on then, 75% of the calves have 6 inch horns on each side when they are a year old.

Methinks there is something other than angus in that angus bull your uncle is using.
Everything I've read, learned, and experienced (not that I'm some all-knowing cowman), a homozygous polled bull will only throw calves that are polled. No matter what cow he breeds.
Never heard of a half-angus horned calf.

Maybe someone smarter than me about this stuff (like Doc) can clear this up.
I am always open to gaining new knowledge.

You are correct. Homozygous dominant bulls for the Polled trait will always sire polled calves. 100% of the time. Sometimes they might produce scurred calves, but that is a different gene. The bull siring those calves is not Homozygous Dominant, he must be heterozygous if they are getting both polled and horned calves out of horned females and a polled bull.

Ryan

 

[charangusman08]

No, no offense, but your wrong, that angus bull is a registered angus bull, most of the calves have horns, some long, some crappy looking, horns in the longhorn must be dominate because they have horns. BTW Wild Cattle said 90% of those longhorn/charolais cross had horns. Around my area, the charolais cattle are all polled! :nod:

 

[DaletheDairyFarmer]

The horn gene is reccessive in all cattle polled is dominate there is no difference by breed. If the registered angus is siring horned calves then his genetic makeup is not totally angus as 1oo% pure angus are homozygous polled.

 

[Ryan]

No, no offense, but your wrong, that angus bull is a registered angus bull, most of the calves have horns, some long, some crappy looking, horns in the longhorn must be dominate because they have horns. BTW Wild Cattle said 90% of those longhorn/charolais cross had horns. Around my area, the charolais cattle are all polled! :nod:

not all charolais are polled. if they are not polled, then they are usually dehorned. just because he is registered angus does not mean he is 100% angus. that has been discussed on these boards more than once. in ALL cattle, polled is dominant and horned is recessive. If an animal is polled, and producing horned calves, that animal must be heterozygous in regards to the horn gene.

Dale, you are spot on.

Ryan

 

[KNERSIE]

There is also the african horn gene with a slightly different set of rules, don't know if longhorns have that or not.

 

[Wild Cattle]

Was that Charolais bull a low birth weight bull? Or does the Longhorn influence keep the birth weight down?

Did you have a bw epd on him or a actual birth weight?

This is a comercial Charolais Bull no EPD's, I pick these comercial bulls on phenotype. Bull cost $800.
He is not the quality I am looking for but is ok. I have a great source for moderate framed horned Charolais bulls that I like quite a bit better than this one and I intend to up grade next year.I pick the best bulls I can find and don't care if they are polled or horned. I have 60 of these longhorn cows and am running three bulls with them.

I am not worried with BW's on my bulls as I pick cows that can handle having a big calf without my help.

In my opinion if you are breeding a bull to a cow of the same breed and you half to worry about BW(its shape, not weight that matters to me) then you have done a poor job of selecting your females.

Paul T

 

[ANAZAZI]

Do you know about blonde daquitaine? a heavy, but slender. and extremely long calf, wich means very little calving problems for such a big calf. And they build more muscle than char any day of the week.
I use blonde on swedish red cows that has only a tad more muscle than longhorns, and they give calves that outdo a char or char-simi cross regardig muscle, and keep up in growth. This year I am also running a piedmontese bull, but he has some pain in his feet so we will see how that goes.

 

[Silver_Knight]

Can anyone explain why this cross is better than just Char on Char?

 

[Wild Cattle]

I am running 60 LH cows in this pasture, If I was to Charolais cows I would run 35hd max. Feed costs for the 60 LH cows Will be less than the cost on 35 Charolais cows.

We bought the LH cows as fresh pairs or heavy bred. They averaged about $385/hd. Calves will be sold at 400 lbs, I expect them to be discounted and bring about .95 to $1.00/lb.

That cross is better because it will make money...

Paul T

 

[charangusman08]

Can anyone explain why this cross is better than just Char on Char?

No, because this cross isn't better than char on char, my opinion on these cattle is that they are neat looking, I have seen better crosses of charolais and not so good crosses, to me this is not so good cross. To me angus and charolais is the best char cross. Thats my opinion. Also tell me this about dominate genes:

1. Why aren't charolais/angus crosses most of the time yellow? Black is dominate just like polled is, yet you get a yellow calf most of the time from a char/angus cross.

2. What I said in #1, why can't they have horns from a polled bull to a horned cow like longhorns who have huge horns, have horns since a black cow can have a yellow calf from a charolais bull?

Just thought I would throw that out there!

 

[Silver_Knight]

I am running 60 LH cows in this pasture, If I was to Charolais cows I would run 35hd max. Feed costs for the 60 LH cows Will be less than the cost on 35 Charolais cows.

We bought the LH cows as fresh pairs or heavy bred. They averaged about $385/hd. Calves will be sold at 400 lbs, I expect them to be discounted and bring about .95 to $1.00/lb.

That cross is better because it will make money...

Paul T

Where did you find heavy bred LH cows that were bred to Charolais? Is this a common cross in Texas? I am in the Texas hill country and there are a lot of LH operations around this area.

 

[greenwillowhereford II]

I'm guessing that they weren't necessarily bred to a Char when he bought them. He's the one breeding them to the Char. As for knocking the horns off Longhorns, I don't know why a purebred Angus shouldn't since I have personally seen that a purebred Polled Hereford did. Flying G used to lease some of their really rough acreage and a polled Hereford bull to some fellows who had probably 30 head of Longhorn cows. Every calf that I saw was polled.

 

[Busterz]

I am running 60 LH cows in this pasture, If I was to Charolais cows I would run 35hd max. Feed costs for the 60 LH cows Will be less than the cost on 35 Charolais cows.

We bought the LH cows as fresh pairs or heavy bred. They averaged about $385/hd. Calves will be sold at 400 lbs, I expect them to be discounted and bring about .95 to $1.00/lb.

That cross is better because it will make money...

Paul T

I think you have a good program. I have been running those type of numbers through my head for a couple years now and I can't figure out how it wouldn't make some money. We have similar climate to the Texas panhandle and probably similar grass. I think the Longhorn cattle would be very efficient mothers. And the price is right for the cows. I think its a good cross for the dry climate we have and the charolais produces consistent calves with growth potential.

I even like the fact that the charolais have white hydes which helps with heat tolerance out here where there are no trees for shade.

Somebody said its not the best cross. Well they may not win the American Royal but they make economic sense to me.

The only things I wonder about are what calves from a red limousin bull would look like and whether you could do embryo transfer with the longhorn cows with embryos from another breed (like angus) and still make money.

 

[warpaint]

As I said in my previous post, this is a cross that works well.

In my experience, (as Ryan pointed out,) even crossing a polled char bull on a longhorn doesn't mean you will get a polled calf.
Some do and some don't.

But, these calves 99% percent of the time will hit the ground running, and grow quickly.
To those that ask, why a longhornXchar, low birthwieght, quick growth, and as often as not, (in my experience), a good return at the barn.