Maine Anjou

[D.R. Cattle]

What can be said about Maine Anjou? I don't know much about them, but it would seem with all the rage about black these days, breeders would be in search of Black MA. Pros and Cons? A lady in town has one for her small herd (about a dozen) and she raves about him. She sells his calves to the local 4-H and FFA kids. They look pretty darn good especially considering the mutt looking cows she puts him on.

 

[Anonymous]

We have 7 in our herd of commmercial cows. Ours are all black as well.
From my experience with the few we have;
Pros: They have a good disposition, raise a good calf each year and , add a little rear end to the caves they have.
Cons:Calves can get a little blocky looking and depending on who is looking at them maybe just alittle too fuzzy for Texas.
Overall they do pretty good for us.

 

[txag]

we used a black maine on our brangus/hereford females for a couple of years and sold some of the steers for show steers. we sold all the other calves through the ring (terminal cross) and they did ok. the bull we had was solid black (heterozygous) w/some white on the feet so some of the calves were black, some red, majority were white-faced, some had stockings but basically ok.

we don't retain many of the brangus/hereford females anymore & are replacing them w/herefords so the few we have left are now being bred to a brangus bull

 

[Anonymous]

big and take lots of imputs. had one that calved, ran with rest of cows, kept looking worse and worse as grass kept looking better. hit her again with a pour on wormer while she was eating feed, a 5 gal bucket for her and a 5 gal bucket for the other 16 head just to keep them bucket broke, murray calves grazed, her calf nursed and nursed, she ended up body condition POOR! wouldn't rebreed and had eaten more feed than the rest of the herd combined. still weighed 1700 lb + when I culled her. didn't fit my management plan - cow calf not a feedlot! she weaned huge calves that took forever to finish

 

[txag]

big and take lots of imputs. had one that calved, ran with rest of cows, kept looking worse and worse as grass kept looking better. hit her again with a pour on wormer while she was eating feed, a 5 gal bucket for her and a 5 gal bucket for the other 16 head just to keep them bucket broke, murray calves grazed, her calf nursed and nursed, she ended up body condition POOR! wouldn't rebreed and had eaten more feed than the rest of the herd combined. still weighed 1700 lb + when I culled her. didn't fit my management plan - cow calf not a feedlot! she weaned huge calves that took forever to finish

D.R.,

were you asking about using them for bulls or cows? maybe i misunderstood, but i thought you were asking about bulls.

 

[D.R. Cattle]

Actually I was referring to bulls, but also a general description of the breed. I wondered what kind of calves would come from black Maine bulls and F1 tigerstripes or Brafords. Blocky seems to be a good compliment to tigers, as well as black if you could actually get that. The furry part would difficult in our climate.

 

[txag]

the maines would probably work about the same as if you put a black simmental bull on your tigers. depending on the bull, he'll probably add size & thickness & yes, blockiness. also, like simmies, the maine breed didn't originally have black animals.....the black was bred in (probably w/angus). they also have registrations w/percentage animals....not sure what those are but think they can be half-bloods & registered. whether or not he's homozygous black will determine the calf colors you get.
as for hair, there are maine breeders here in texas & as mentioned on the beginners board, temps can get 100+ for days at a time & that's w/humidity, so i suppose they could also work in your environment.

for what it's worth, i'd probably stay w/a good angus or brangus bull if you want black.

 

[Oldtimer]

I have some neighbors that have used black 1/2 Maine 1/2 Angus bulls for years on their angus cows. Mainly to get a little more weight and growth out of their calves. I think they have had pretty good luck with them. Calves look good in the fall.

I've kind of shyed away from them mainly because of the possible birth weight and calving problems. Especially in throwing them back on hereford or baldy cows. Even with the light birthweight angus bulls I use I've had heterosis, feed, weather, maternal genetics and whatever else causes a huge calf throw me a curve once in a while. Last year I pulled one calf from a hereford cow that weighed 148 lbs. And it was sired by a low birthweight-low birth epd angus. Wonder what he'd have weighed if he was part Maine!

 

[txag]

I have some neighbors that have used black 1/2 Maine 1/2 Angus bulls for years on their angus cows. Mainly to get a little more weight and growth out of their calves. I think they have had pretty good luck with them. Calves look good in the fall.

I've kind of shyed away from them mainly because of the possible birth weight and calving problems. Especially in throwing them back on hereford or baldy cows. Even with the light birthweight angus bulls I use I've had heterosis, feed, weather, maternal genetics and whatever else causes a huge calf throw me a curve once in a while. Last year I pulled one calf from a hereford cow that weighed 148 lbs. And it was sired by a low birthweight-low birth epd angus. Wonder what he'd have weighed if he was part Maine!

i guess it just depends on the bull. we only had one maine bull and never pulled or lost a calf from him. kind of funny thing was the big cows would have big calves out of him & the little cows would have little calves although they all had pretty good growth once they hit the ground.

 

[A. delaGarza]

Maine Anjou Bulls = calving problems