Murray Grey & Tarentaise

[cattlecait]

Does anyone have personal experience with either of these breeds? I've looked at the association websites, but, of course, they say lots of good things about both breeds. I want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I like the looks of both of them, I like more uncommon breeds and think they're beautiful cattle. However, beautiful doesn't always turn a profit.

How much of a pain would it be to keep a herd of cows of both breeds and a bull of each, and seperate the cows by breed when I turn the bulls in? Would it be feasible to keep both breeds and try to raise purebred calves?

This is *fairly* new to me, and I have the next couple of years of college to think about it, but I can daydream, right?

Thanks!

 

[Workinonit Farm]

MSSCAMP and her family bred and raised Murray Greys for years as well as a fellow whose screen name was SpringerFarms. Hopefully MSSCAMP will see this and help you out.

What I know of them, I know from other's experiences (not much direct first-hand) and the Murray Greys are nice cattle. Where I work they crossed about 50 of the cows (Blk Angus) with Murray Greys last year and those calves (born this past fall) are out-doing their purbred peers in every way shape and form! They look great! Their temperament (of the calves) seem to be calmer/quieter and more easy going than those of the fullblood/purebreds. Their colors are mostly smokey/chocolate-silver looking.

As far as how they will do at sale time, I think they will do fine. I've had "off-color" claves bring more than blacks on several occasions. Good quality animals are good quality animals.

Katherine

 

[MO_cows]

We have a small herd of Tarentaise. They have performed well for us. There are some nice folks up around Gillette, Wyoming that raise Tarentaise, you might want to take a day trip up there and look at some cattle in the flesh. Haight Ranch - their contact info. should be on the association web site.

If you have any specific questions or would like pics you are welcome to PM me or post back here.

 

[showing71]

We've had Tarentaise for going on 20+ years, and we also have Red and Black Angus. I'll be straight up with what my experiences have been.

-Purebred cows make excellent mothers, very protective, good milk. However, we've found a few bloodlines have, for lack of a better word, dumb calves. The ones who can't figure out how to suck and seem overall slow, which usually it only lasts a few days, but its a pain during that time. We've tried to get rid of those lines. We have also had problems with big calves (100+ lbs), and we try very hard to stay away from that when we AI and select our herd bulls. But talking with some other Tar breeders, 90 lb calves aren't that uncommon. The cows can have the big calves though with no problems. This is why all our Tar heifers get bred to calving ease Red Angus bulls, just to be safe. Even with our selective breeding and culling, we seem to have some problems still. We have also had problems with teats, even though we have been culling hard against it. The teats seem to balloon out, making it hard for the calves to suck. Again, this is usually found in certain bloodlines. We've culled so hard for these problem traits that we've gone from 70 head of Tars down to 38 head.

-Bulls are aggressive breeders. We've never had a problem with a yearling not testing well on his BSE. They cover the cows well. In our operation, we AI the cows before they go to summer pasture, and the bull covers whoever doesn't stick. So one Tar bull is with ~40 hd and everybody gets bred by the time the bull is pulled.

-When we wean calves, we have found the Purebred Tars end up weighing 100 lbs less than the Angus, Red Angus, and crossbreds. Same with yearling weights, the Tars always seem to be a bit lighter. However, crossbred Tars are the heaviest on those weights. Our heaviest yearling weight on our heifers (they have no corn, just hay and grass) was 1000 lbs, and she was out of a Tar cow and Angus bull.

-If you are thinking of exhibiting Tars for any reason, I will caution you on that. I've had judges ask me what breed they were. They are not made for the show ring, no matter how good. (at least in my area)

-Where I'm at, we have a hard time selling purebreds to go onto other purebred herds. The demand here is in the Tar crosses. We have a huge demand for Angus x Tar heifers. Most of the purebred females we sell end up getting bred to black bulls, and most of the purebred bulls we sell end up going on crossbred cows (of any breed mix).

On your question about having 2 purebred herds, it can be done. Like I said, we have 3 purebred herds and it works well for us. You just have to keep good records and have enough pasture to do it.

Just my :2cents: .

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I'm not trying to criticise, but if you have so many problems with Tars, AND they don't give you better weights, WHY would you continue raising a herd of them? You could AI using Tar sires if you love the crossbreds & have a good market for them.
I don't have any MG or actually "know" anyone that does, but the info I've seen posted on here, I have always been very impressed with them.

 

[showing71]

I'm not trying to criticise, but if you have so many problems with Tars, AND they don't give you better weights, WHY would you continue raising a herd of them? You could AI using Tar sires if you love the crossbreds & have a good market for them.
I don't have any MG or actually "know" anyone that does, but the info I've seen posted on here, I have always been very impressed with them.

Because there is a market for the purebreds, even if they don't go onto other purebred herds (but there are not many purebred herds, last time I looked there are about 40 purebred herds that I know of who raise registered stock). As I mentioned, we got rid of our problem bloodlines by culling approx. 30 head. The OP wanted to know the good, bad, and ugly, and she had seen a lot of the good on the breed association websites, so I was being honest with the bad and ugly I have seen over the years. I guess I should have done more "breed pimping."

I guess I should have been more specific on the problems, we had those problems before we culled. They do still have lighter weights on purebreds, but they grow and add fat a lot slower than the Angus and Red Angus.

Edit: I should add that last time our purebred steers went in to slaughter, they graded 95% choice, 2% prime, and 3% select. So they do have good carcasses even for being a bit lighter.

 

[djinwa]

I'm impressed with willingness to share weaknesses in a herd. I wonder how many here would do that?

 

[showing71]

I'm impressed with willingness to share weaknesses in a herd. I wonder how many here would do that?

I wish more people would do it when other inquire about breeds, so you know what to expect. Don't regret having this breed, but knowing some of the weaknesses up front would have made it easier to look for problem bloodlines, and what to expect with calving and weights so it wasn't a shock.

 

[Lon]

I'm impressed with willingness to share weaknesses in a herd. I wonder how many here would do that?

i agree. someone that raises the breed and says here is the bad part about them is one honest person in my book.

 

[agmantoo]

I have a Murray Gray bull that I run with my commercial Angus herd of 96 brood cows. He is is very docile and is constantly checking for a cow in season. The herd calves year round. Additionally I feed no grain ever and no hay, in normal rainfall years, as the herd is rotationally grazed 24/365 on fescue. I am in NC and the bull came from California. He never had fescue grass until arriving here. All told, the Murray Gray has held up better than the registered Angus bulls I owned previously. The calves look good and market great. I am retaining my better heifers to get the MG/Angus cross as future brood cows. I will breed these to a fescue raised Angus bull. I like the premium the black hided calves bring here.

 

[gberry]

We have Murray Greys. The biggest problem is see with them is the low numbers available. It is hard to find and even harder to buy good females. We have used AI for several years and have found several bulls that we are happy with, but our original herd of females (bought 6 years ago) is down to about 40% mainly due to not breeding back or raising sorry calves. We run them with our commercial herd of angus and black baldies and breed them all to MGs. They generally lag behind the commercial cows (as would be expected due to hybrid vigor). Also, the commercial cows have been raised here for generations, and the MGs were raised in Ohio and Kentucky. Despite this, I think the MG tolerate the heat as well or better. They mostly have good dispositions. They seem to be less fertile than our commercial cows, but that may be due to hybrid vigor.

I have been considering getting rid of mine because it is very hard to find good seedstock and that makes culling decisions unnecessarily difficult.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I would have to assume availability would be a problem for both breeds.

 

[msscamp]

Does anyone have personal experience with either of these breeds? I've looked at the association websites, but, of course, they say lots of good things about both breeds. I want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I like the looks of both of them, I like more uncommon breeds and think they're beautiful cattle. However, beautiful doesn't always turn a profit.

How much of a pain would it be to keep a herd of cows of both breeds and a bull of each, and seperate the cows by breed when I turn the bulls in? Would it be feasible to keep both breeds and try to raise purebred calves?

This is *fairly* new to me, and I have the next couple of years of college to think about it, but I can daydream, right?

Thanks!

You bet you can daydream, and yes, I have a little experience with Murray Grey's. We started breeding up to a predominately Murray Grey herd from a Black Angus herd in the mid 70's, and never looked back. We continued to run a few Black Angus cross, but the herd was mostly Murray Grey. They are a breed that is known for low birth weight yet rapid growth after they hit the ground, outstanding mothering, good milking, ability to convert feed to weight gain, ability to finish on grass alone, docility, marbleing, and they more than live up to those claims. The only ugly thing about the Murray Grey breed is that you will have a hard time finding quality animals due to the lack of promotion by the associations and you will probably run into an occasional animal that doesn't conform to the breed standard and could cause you some problems, but that happens in every breed. I don't know what website you're looking at, there are several different Murray Grey Association websites - American, International, and I think Northwest is the other one - but all of them are accurate as to the breed standards the last time I checked. Have to add one thing - depending on your area the coloring of Murray Grey's tend to make people think they are Charlois and you could get docked at the salebarn because of the lighter bone. That is the biggest problem we ran into with them.

 

[ScarpaLedgeFarm]

I have raised just about every breed you could think of, but, I couldn't find a breed that met my demanding needs. I wanted a cow that set itself a part in taste, could finish on grass alone, or convert feeds well, calve on their own, safe to be around, and fetch a premium. After many failed attempts we found the greys.

I do raise several breeds, including simmis, angus, maine an jous, chi's and club calves, but I literally have a waiting list for the grays beef and get around $5 per pound hanging weight. We raise the others for the show ring, greys just dont get the hair for shows around here.

The biggest problem with the breed is a lack of available animals/bloodlines in the us and that Australia doesn't sell us their top bulls. However since I started in the breed, I was the only one in the area, their are now 15 breeders in my area,. I have had angus, belty, Devon, and Herford breeders buying my bulls, even dairy farms and continue to. I would recommend them to anyone looking to improve the taste and calving ease on their cattle, and lower their feed bill. However, like any breed, look for a reputable breeder.

 

[gberry]

ScarpaLedgeFarm, where are you located and where did you get your original MGs?

 

[Australian]

The main reason you probably don't get sold the best bulls from Australia that there aren't many. I feel they are getting bred out here in Australia. I feel they are not as good as they used to be. Too much Angus or "other breeds". They are not near as popular in our area as they used to be. Not enough weight in them and they don't do as well in poorer country. The feed has to be kept up to them to any good.

 

[W.T]

Showing 71 your honesty is very refreshing, the whole industry could learn a lot from you. 15 years ago i tired to buy some tar bulls to turn out with a large herd and I called a tar breeder I was told that they would not sell me any bulls to turn out on open range because they would not survive. And that was the end of my tar cattle we bred them out to red Angus after that.

 

[showing71]

Showing 71 your honesty is very refreshing, the whole industry could learn a lot from you. 15 years ago i tired to buy some tar bulls to turn out with a large herd and I called a tar breeder I was told that they would not sell me any bulls to turn out on open range because they would not survive. And that was the end of my tar cattle we bred them out to red Angus after that.

Thanks, I wasn't trying to knock the breed, because obviously they work in some markets for us since we still have them, if they didn't fill some kind of market, they'd be gone. I just want people to be aware of what they're getting into, especially since we had to start with poorer quality animals (with the characteristics I mentioned in my 1st post) and breed up to where we're at today. And this can be applied to any breed, not just Tars. I'm surprised the breeder wouldn't sell you bulls, we've sent some bulls out west that have performed perfectly fine. Who was the breeder?