Red Angus vs Black Angus??

[Lorenzo]

I noticed in this season sales that MANY people are selling mostly the red ones and keeping the black ones...

When I say "most people" I refer to breeders, not to "meat producers". I asked one of them why and he told me that if in the final stage of a competition you have two identical bulls of different colours, the jury will always choose the black one...

Another thing I noticed is that red angus are favourite between northern farmers with much hot weather and favourite among the meat producers to cross breed them with Hereford to avoid putting too much colour in their herds and obviously because the cross breed calf is much better for the beef industry.

What is happening up there?
BTW, do you know that my country (Uruguay) has the biggest pure Hereford herd (rodeo) in the world??

L

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I'm a little puzzled by your comments. Are you talking about "northern" farmers in your country or ours??
I'm assuming your talking about in your country.
Black is the "preferred" color at this time here also. Although, in my breed (Simmental) the really good reds are getting top dollar.
What did you mean "herd (Rodeo)". Here, a rodeo is an event people go to & watch bull riding, etc.

 

[Lorenzo]

Sorry if I was not clear
I was talking about my country.
Here we call rodeo at what (I think) you call herd ???
We use it when we want to talk about the amount of animals in a given farm, region, country, etc.
Thanks for your answer.
L

 

[lazy ace]

Red Angus is gaining popularity. Replacement quality heifers are topping sale barns consistantly. Some are bringing 900 dollars a head coming off the cow. Black Angus is still number one but Red Angus is on a roll with commercial cattlemen.

have a cold one

lazy ace

 

[*Cowgirl*]

Red Angus is gaining popularity. Replacement quality heifers are topping sale barns consistantly. Some are bringing 900 dollars a head coming off the cow. Black Angus is still number one but Red Angus is on a roll with commercial cattlemen.

have a cold one

lazy ace

A lot of registered black heifers are bring at least 3X that, and I'm not just talking about those deestined to win national shows. (they bring more than that)

 

[lazy ace]

Red Angus is gaining popularity. Replacement quality heifers are topping sale barns consistently. Some are bringing 900 dollars a head coming off the cow. Black Angus is still number one but Red Angus is on a roll with commercial cattlemen.

have a cold one

lazy ace

A lot of registered black heifers are bring at least 3X that, and I'm not just talking about those destined to win national shows. (they bring more than that)

I'm sorry I should have clarified myself I was talking about non registered commercial heifers. This fall a neighbor sold one hundred replacements weighing 550 selling at 1.68. These heifers smoked the black hided heifers weighing the same weight. Last spring roughly 350 commercial head from different commercial breeders averaged about 1000 dollars a calf, again out selling the black hided counterparts.

Some of the registered sales this fall are averaging anywhere from $3300 up to $5000. Red Angus is gaining popularity everywhere you look.

have a cold one

lazy ace

 

[VanC]

I think people are slowly but surely coming back to the notion that good cattle are good cattle, regardless of hide color.

Plus it seems that a lot of commercial producers like to leave their options open. With a red cow herd they can use a black bull and get black calves. If they want red, use a red bull. If they want yellow, use a Charolais. But if you have a black cow herd and the market suddenly decides it wants something else, you have two options: sell your herd and buy another or live with it for a few generations until you can get it switched over by "breeding up" to whatever the market wants.

That being said, black is still king around here, and probably will be for awhile, so what the heck do I know! ;-)

 

[Scotty]

Red Angus is gaining popularity. Replacement quality heifers are topping sale barns consistently. Some are bringing 900 dollars a head coming off the cow. Black Angus is still number one but Red Angus is on a roll with commercial cattlemen.

have a cold one

lazy ace

A lot of registered black heifers are bring at least 3X that, and I'm not just talking about those destined to win national shows. (they bring more than that)

I'm sorry I should have clarified myself I was talking about non registered commercial heifers. This fall a neighbor sold one hundred replacements weighing 550 selling at 1.68. These heifers smoked the black hided heifers weighing the same weight. Last spring roughly 350 commercial head from different commercial breeders averaged about 1000 dollars a calf, again out selling the black hided counterparts.

Some of the registered sales this fall are averaging anywhere from $3300 up to $5000. Red Angus is gaining popularity everywhere you look.

have a cold one

lazy ace

Could they have smoked them so bad becasue they were of superior quality. Quality IMO will always outsell color. Or should anyway.

 

[lazy ace]

VanC, black is still king around here too, but like Scotty says quality not color is driving the market. People are seeing through color. Red is coming back but I don't think it will ever take over black.

have a cold one

lazy ace

 

[Shorthornguy]

JMO Durham Red is the breed of the future. Red Angus on the paternal side and Shorthorn on the maternal side.

 

[Oldtimer]

I believe one of the reasons there are so many more still raising black than red is that there is so much more choice in genetics available...I know just looking at my area there is 20+ black bull or heifer sales- compared to 3 or 4 red ones--- and most semen catalogs list 4 or 5 times the number of available black sires..
That and many years of promotion by the the Black Angus folks and CAB ....

And for years the buyers gave more for black than any other color...That kind of slipped away with the last couple years high demand and high prices, but just lately as the prices and demand were slipping- I began seeing the reds being discounted a couple bucks again.....Exactly same looking and quality cattle- just weren't black....

 

[la4angus]

JMO Durham Red is the breed of the future. Red Angus on the paternal side and Shorthorn on the maternal side.

Unless the shorthorn execs want to start promoting them, they are dead in the water. So far your powers that be won't do anything to promote the Red Angus.

 

[Oldtimer]

50 years ago when herefords were king up in this country, many folks ran Beef Shorthorn bulls as a second breed...Then the black angus kind of took over that job- and the beef shorthorn became all show cattle types and not something a commercial breeder would want....

We used several shorthorn bulls back then and had many crossbred cows...But the shorthorn throws in something again that the buyers don't like, especially if crossed with herefords, too much white or roan coloring....I remember when I was a kid I used to think the roany cows were the best they always seemed to have more milk and raise bigger calves... But the buyers back then were a lot more colorblind too- and actually liked those big old roany calves...

 

[brent6482003]

I have raised purebred reg angus, both black & red. Black seems to always hold their price over red. Even through private sales or public it seems black holds solid.

 

[RedAngus121]

I was at Peiper red angus spring bull sale this past spring and they sell both red and black bulls. They were both a very nice set of bulls.

The Reds Averaged 5,344
the blacks Averaged 2864

It just didnt seem there was as many guys there to buy the black cattle.

 

[BA]

RedAngus121 - I don't know if the Pieper sale is a good example. They had black bulls selling terrible this fall, but they aren't known for the Blacks. If they had the same rep for selling blacks as reds, it might have been a different story. I'm not trying to stick up for the blacks, but I don't think Piepers is a good example.

 

[Victoria]

Red is the colour of choice here. There are purebred Black Angus people switching to Red because that is what their commercial customers are demanding for bulls. The showring still has black placing over red most times but this last season a red bull went out and beat his black brothers.

 

[RedAngus121]

yeah thats very true. I thought there black bulls were also very good but like you said there not known for there black bulls.

 

[brent6482003]

I have always done better with black angus in the profit margin.
Texas!

 

[brent6482003]

Black is still #1 choice in Texas...