Montana Charolais

[DRB]

i spent a short vacation in Montana last week..saw some nice cattle and met some nice people...saw mostly black cattle..but did see a few herds of Charolais...a rancher in Choteau Mt. told me that charolais mamas didn't work because of the winter sun reflecting off the snow blistered charolais udders..thought this was interesting...hadn't heard this before...have you???you got to love those big yellow calves though...

 

[novaman]

I have a Charolais herd and we have plenty of snow. Never had any such problem.

 

[DRB]

seedstock or comercial? I keep charolais mamas and a horned herford bull...top the local sale every year...weight and price...

 

[S.R.R.]

a rancher in Choteau Mt. told me that charolais mamas didn't work because of the winter sun reflecting off the snow blistered charolais udders.....

That is a load of BS! :roll: If you take a trip out to eastern Canada you will see charolais all over the place and for a large part of the year you will also see snow all over the place as well!! I am not saying it can't happen but it sure is not common.

 

[mtnman]

Tell that to AB Cobb at Augusta, MT area, about 30 miles from Choteau, and DeBruycker about 30 miles the other way from Choteau.

Combined, they run about 3,000-4,000 head of Charolias cows.




mtnman

 

[DRB]

sure wish i had known about these guys a week ago..i did see some charolais when we were driving through the Blackfeet reservation...i would have loved to stop and talk to some charolais people while i was up there...maybe next year...the people i talked to ran Choteau tradingpost...seemed like very nice folks to me..but as usual black cow folks don't get along with white cow folks...

 

[CopeMan]

What other ranches did you see while on your Montana trip?

 

[badroute]

A neighboring ranch to me run about 2200 head of registered Charolais. They do have a few problems with sunburnt bags but probably no more than with a hereford or red cow. They have the only set of Charolais cows within a 200 mile radius but still seem to sell 300-400 bulls every year private treaty.

 

[bward]

I think Charlais have an orangey red hide under all that white hair that is quite resistant to udder sunburn. ???

By the way. The weekend before last we took a road trip to Casper Wyoming. All we saw were 1000 and 1200 pound black cows surviving on sage and woody weeds. The calves were small, and most of the cows had rough coats and were on the 'slim' side. My cows would starve under such conditions.

 

[Oldtimer]

I think bwords and badroutes posts gave 2 of the reasons for the predominance of black cattle in Montana...Much of this country is not suited for large framed cows- and I have heard several comment about the sunburn/cancer eye problems they had with the old Herefords and lighter pigmented cows...

I think one other reason for the predominance of angus cattle are that many pasture calve with the cows being on their own- and the angus have lower birthweights and less calving problems than the Herefords and Charolais...

 

[MikeC]

I'm throwing the BS flag here OT.


http://www.eatoncharolais.com/home

 

[Oldtimer]

I'm throwing the BS flag here OT.


http://www.eatoncharolais.com/home

Don't really get what you mean Mike? Yeah there are some Charolais breeders around here- nearest to me is a county away- Anderson Charolais- and they have very nice Charolais cattle...But where he is the only local Charolais sale every year in the whole northeast corner of the state there are 20 angus ranch sales...Even an angus sale the same day as his.....

There are a few commercial guys that run Char bulls as terminal sires on their black cattle, but very few commercial charolais herds...I can only think of 2 in the whole county...

Any cow can live in this country- but for some reason or reasons the angus (both red and black) have come to be the breed most have gone to....Must be some good reasons....

 

[DRB]

I said I saw mostly "black cattle" who knows what they were...now days all you know when you buy black is that it is black..it my be Simm, angus, limo., branuv...even herford...but when you see that white, yellow , cream colored calf you know what you are getting...

 

[IHman]

seedstock or comercial? I keep charolais mamas and a horned herford bull...top the local sale every year...weight and price...

Do you have any pics you could share of those Char/Hereford calves?

 

[badroute]

MikeC,

Of all the bulls Eatons sell more than half go out of state and I mean way out of state. I believe they take a whole potload to Alabama alone.

 

[MikeC]

MikeC,

Of all the bulls Eatons sell more than half go out of state and I mean way out of state. I believe they take a whole potload to Alabama alone.

Yep. You're probably right there. Eaton has a pretty good program.

He feeds a lot of Char calves for slaughter too.