red angus vs black angus

[novatech]

I'm going to be blunt about this. MY opinion is that from it's inception CAB was designed to boost registration numbers for the Angus Assoc. The vast majority of people that buy CAB assume it is 100% Angus. This is why the Brand name was selected. Scamming the naive American consumer. I would say this was brilliant on their part. Not good as the word good can be connotated with not being the lie that the name it in fact is, IMO. This type of marketing is now common place and has become an acceptable practice, just not in my book. The truth is that CAB has always depended on cross breeding as their main source of quality beef to meet their high standards.
The way I look at it is when people decide on a purebred of any breed they should be concerned with their genetic improvement for stock that will eventually enter a cross breeding program. It has been said many times on these boards that no one breed can do it all. Crossbreeding is the backbone of the cattle industry. Crossbred cattle will outperform straight breds both for quality and volume when taken as a whole. The majority of CAB accepted beef proves what I am saying. Yet the public is led to believe it is all Angus.
So to be honest I could be rationalizing in my mind why the Red Angus are going to be a better choice. So I also try and convince you of the same. I flat cannot support any organization that thinks it is right to deceive the public.
This is me and I am not about judgeing others for what they think is right or wrong.

 

[James T]

I thought Red Angus was developed for the South American market. Had something to do with their climate/temperatures? And now CRAB? :lol2:

 

[dun]

CAB was actaully was dreamed up to sell black Angus bulls. It was and is highly effective.

 

[3waycross]

I'm going to be blunt about this. MY opinion is that from it's inception CAB was designed to boost registration numbers for the Angus Assoc. The vast majority of people that buy CAB assume it is 100% Angus. This is why the Brand name was selected. Scamming the naive American consumer. I would say this was brilliant on their part. Not good as the word good can be connotated with not being the lie that the name it in fact is, IMO. This type of marketing is now common place and has become an acceptable practice, just not in my book. The truth is that CAB has always depended on cross breeding as their main source of quality beef to meet their high standards.
The way I look at it is when people decide on a purebred of any breed they should be concerned with their genetic improvement for stock that will eventually enter a cross breeding program. It has been said many times on these boards that no one breed can do it all. Crossbreeding is the backbone of the cattle industry. Crossbred cattle will outperform straight breds both for quality and volume when taken as a whole. The majority of CAB accepted beef proves what I am saying. Yet the public is led to believe it is all Angus.
So to be honest I could be rationalizing in my mind why the Red Angus are going to be a better choice. So I also try and convince you of the same. I flat cannot support any organization that thinks it is right to deceive the public.
This is me and I am not about judgeing others for what they think is right or wrong.

:clap: :tiphat: :deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse:

 

[HomePlaceAngus]

You're right about it hanging longer back in the 50-60s. I had the chance to go through a large packing plant back then and the carcesses were hanging with what seemed to be about a inch of green mold on them. I can't remember how long they had been hanging there.

 

[HDRider]

I had mostly black angus until the start of last summer when I started buying reds, I have now sold all but about 20 of my best blacks and the rest are reds. I bought 25 head of reds off of one ranch and pieced together the rest of the herd buy buying several lots of 5-6 off of different places. Most of my reds are between 1000-1200 lbs. In my opinion the reds are more efficient, prettier, and more gentle. They are also super mothers, not to say the blacks aren't good mamas too. One of the things I like most about them is that in the heat of the summer when the blacks shade up the reds are still out grazing. I am trying to purchase more as we speak and it just seems like 90% of the reds I look at are quality cattle. The only down side is they can be a little pricy, but I think they are worth it. Right now I dont ever see myself switching from red angus.

You bring something up that bothers me. Black is hot and they will seek shade. I admit getting caught up into thinking black is beautiful. I think my reason is sound, that is what the market wants.

That said, light color cattle in the south just makes sense. I actually feel wrong with black cattle out in the heat, knowing I could have just as easily put lighter colors on my green. They would feed while black sits in the shade. Feeding adds weight, being black is just being black, sitting in the shade.

 

[andybob]

Aberdeen Angus were developed from cattle which had evolved in the northern temperate highlands of Scotland, it makes no sense to expect them to perform efficiently in hot climates, to take advantage of CAB premiums it makes more sense to keep a base herd of adapted red cattle then use the black bull as a terminal over a percentage of the red cows. There are less than 100 Angus that can trace their ancestory 100% back to the origonal foundation cattle, these efficient medium weight cattle are the type my grandfather bred in Scotland selling trademark Scotch beef untill his death in 1965, the largest remaining herd of heritage Angus are here at Laverstoke Park Farm in Hampshire England. For Southern climates I would use a Sanga or Bos Indicus breed or composite as a base breed to retain a high degree of heat tolerance, if a black base breed is really desired, the Drakensberger is a black Sanga breed with thousands of years natural selection in challenging African conditions.

 

[seth]

novatech: The truth is that CAB has always depended on cross breeding as their main source of quality beef to meet their high standards.

Wherever did you get that weird and biased idea? While it is true that CAB will include some black hided cross bred cattle, to say that they depend on crossbred cattle as their "main source" is just ridiculous. And yes, CAB was conceived as a way to boost the sale of Angus bulls and it has done so.

I raise both black and red registered Angus cattle and the biggest difference in the two colors is foot quality. There are much more foot problems in the reds, including excessive toe curvature and flat heels. In general it is easier to find high quality black Angus than reds.

 

[cow pollinater]

I really don't have a dog in the fight(actually I have dogs on all sides of the fight) as I have registered, angus, charolais, and am working on brangus.I used to have registerd reds and shipped thier snotty butts to the sale. My commercial cows are mostly a mix of the three. That being said, the Angus association has every right to promote the breed as being a better carcass. If you look at accross breed EPD's, there aren't alot of cattle that can match angus on carcass traits when we compare breed vs. breed. Absolutely cattle bred for carcass traits from ANY breed can match or beat average angus cattle but for a shot in the dark at buying a high quality steak, a consumers best choice is to get one with angus genetics in it since as a whole that breed average better on carcass traits.
The place where the differance between red vs. black occured had more to do with smart marketing than it did cattle genetics. Since reds and blacks are fairly inter-changeable, there's not much reason to believe that the red angus association couldn't have come up with a promotional tool before the black angus did... but they didn't... to the victor goes the spoils. ;-)

 

[novatech]

novatech: The truth is that CAB has always depended on cross breeding as their main source of quality beef to meet their high standards.

Wherever did you get that weird and biased idea? While it is true that CAB will include some black hided cross bred cattle, to say that they depend on crossbred cattle as their "main source" is just ridiculous. And yes, CAB was conceived as a way to boost the sale of Angus bulls and it has done so.

I raise both black and red registered Angus cattle and the biggest difference in the two colors is foot quality. There are much more foot problems in the reds, including excessive toe curvature and flat heels. In general it is easier to find high quality black Angus than reds.

Even Frankie didn't argue the fact that more CAB qualifiers are crossbred than pure bred. The notion that they are not is what is ridiculous. As far as the info. Do your own Googling. While your at it lets flip the coin, show me where I'm wrong. If more pure bred Angus qualified you can bet your bottom dollar t Angus. Assoc. would be advertising the heck out of it. The Assoc. is also a very strong advocate of cross breeding. The Angus Assoc. is also doing a great job of trying to educate their breeders on upgrading their herds. I have no doubt that if people would listen to their advice the overall genetics would improve to a point where a lot more purebred could be used.

In general it is easier to find high quality black Angus than reds.

Well ya think it might be because you got a few more to choose from?