Red vs. Black Cows

[Ky hills]

Probably. The general public doesn't have an eye for cattle. If you put a black Angus, a black Simmental, a black Limousine, a black Gelbvieh, and maybe even a black Brangus in a pen. The average consumer probably couldn't pick out the Angus.
When the Covid thing settles down. Their is a steak house about an 45 minutes away that advertises serving only Certified Hereford Beef. I'd sure like to go try a steak and see if I can tell a difference. I doubt I can, but I bet it will be good!

I agree most of the consumers have no idea what the animals are, that's why it aggravates me so much that they are being manipulated into thinking they are assuredly getting a certain product when in realty it may or may not be. I have seen registered Angus bulls that looked more like crosses, than some known crosses. Usually if I can have time to look them over I can tell a different breed of bull, cows and calves are more difficult for me. I am quite certain a significant number of black cattle are very high percentage continental breeding marketed as Angus.
I have sold calves in sales that are geared toward CHB. Sometimes I have thought the graders have taken liberties with what's accepted in those sales too. I've bought some groups of red baldies that are supposed to be only crosses of Hereford x Red Angus. I have ended up with a few Brahman crosses and even a dehorned longhorn in the groups, as well as a solid red dexter looking calf. I've eaten quite a bit of Hereford beef but not CHB.

 

[Dave]

I've bought some groups of red baldies that are supposed to be only crosses of Hereford x Red Angus. I have ended up with a few Brahman crosses and even a dehorned longhorn in the groups, as well as a solid red dexter looking calf. I've eaten quite a bit of Hereford beef but not CHB.

Didn't you pick out those Brahman, Longhorn, and Dexter before you bought the group? Do they not let you sort things off a group in the ring? Here the buyers would recognize them and have them cut out in a heart beat.

 

[Ky hills]

Didn't you pick out those Brahman, Longhorn, and Dexter before you bought the group? Do they not let you sort things off a group in the ring? Here the buyers would recognize them and have them cut out in a heart beat.

No, that's not an option for us peons. In that particular sale the cattle are actually graded, individually by a state grader, and sale committee rep. Obviously they let some things slip. In that stockyards it's not possible to see the cattle before hand unless you would go the night before the sale. During the few seconds in the ring it's frantic trying to get the auctioneers attention to take your bid as they are used to mainly taking bids from order buyers. Ion getting the cattle home, I soon found out each time a calf that didn't match the descriptions. In most cases I just kept them for my herd, the reason I was buying those groups was to sell as bred heifers, in which some of the same graders would have not accepted them at that point because the difference was more pronounced at that older age.

 

[Son of Butch]

Hello! I am very new to cattle. I have a small herd of 8, 7 heifers and a bull. 3 BWF and the rest are Solid Black. They are just now 1 yr old....

i keep reading that there is a penalty at the sale barn for red cows. I have also seen it at the sale barn the Monday before Thanksgiving. A Hereford sold for less than $300 but a solid black cow sold for $600 something.

Thanks in advance.
Jeff

Think of the red cows as an opportunity.
Buy same quality cheaper than black and use your black bull.
Or buy red white face females and use your black bull to produce baldies.

 

[callmefence]

Think of the red cows as an opportunity.
Buy same quality cheaper than black and use your black bull.
Or buy red white face females and use your black bull to produce baldies.

You mean use discounts to your advantage and give the customer what they want. What kinda business plan is that...... crazy talk...

 

[SBMF 2015]

Didn't you pick out those Brahman, Longhorn, and Dexter before you bought the group? Do they not let you sort things off a group in the ring? Here the buyers would recognize them and have them cut out in a heart beat.

We never split cattle once they hit the ring, but the sale barn owner gave us strict guide lines as to what we could group together and what couldn't. Most feeder sales we sold blacks and baldies separate. If we mixed them it took away a couple bidders.
Reds with reds, Herefords off. Smokes together, but no rat tails. All rainbow cattle as singles. Horns only with horns.

 

[Dave]

Here the cattle are sorted by sale yard employees. Some are real good, some not so much. I have seen cattle cut out in the ring for about every reason you can think of. Color, too big, too small, horns, unwanted cross breed, sickly looking, etc etc. They do it a lot quicker for big buyers but money talks. And if has to be done early on before they get hooked up in the bidding. If the auctioneer wants $1.25 and doesn't want to cut one out. Offer $1.30 with one cut out. Watch how fast that calf gets cut out. Also if you see something which doesn't belong and they won't take it out make it noticed that you will just keep your money in your pocket. Last week at that long feeder sale I was at I was sitting beside a buyer. He asked for two reds to be cut out about 20 blacks. For what ever reason the auctioneer wouldn't do it. The buyer softly said to me it is getting late everyone is grumpy. Then in those few seconds of quiet as one bunch is herded out of the ring and the next group brought in he loudly said I would have paid a lot more for the blacks. He didn't shout but loud enough I am sure they heard him. After that they listened to him more and cut a few out when he asked them to.

 

[SBMF 2015]

Your right Dave money talks. When I was a little kid or maybe before me. The sale barn I sorted at was owned by the sale managers father. He sat next to the auctioneer and set the price on what ever was in the ring. I have always heard the story that one day the packet buyers were visiting and not bidding like he thought they should. So with 200 fats left to sell he not so politely told all the buyers that if they weren't there to buy cattle then the sale was over, and that he had just bought the rest of the sale so they all needed to go home! Then he went around to the stand, shut the lights off and went on the office.
The buyers only control a sale of you let them.
I saw a lot of nights where the sale barn would buy 1/3 of a feeder sale or more. Just to protect the sellers. They would ship the cattle to KS to a feed lot out there.

 

[Ky hills]

The whole thing of money talking and getting things done is no doubt how a lot play the game of buying and selling. Here at most of the markets there's not many farmers in attendance usually and if they are it's to watch there's sell. I used to go and buy some stockers ( they called feeders here, but apparently most places call them stocker calves). Very few individuals buying for themselves, and i think the local buyers like that. They bid against each other but soon cut off. When I would bid they would take me bidding on a single to beyond what a group of 80 would bring. When that happens I usually would let them have a calf that I don't really want that much. Some places they sort them out pretty good and hardly ever are asked to cut one out, then other places some of the buyers will cut something out of about every group and then turn around and buy it to and they most all go to the same pen afterwards.

 

[Silver]

I like having an auction barn to take odds and sods to, but hope to never sell in one again for my main sales.

 

[Son of Butch]

The average consumer probably couldn't pick out the Angus.

Not just average consumers....

I remember a Very Successful non-cattleman Farmer, who was looking at a group of black angus steers I had just bought, tell me he thought Angus were the ones with white faces. It truly shocked me.

 

[Mgutzwiler]

Yes there is; I have red angus and some blacks and Charolais; blacks sell for 10-12cents / per 100lbs more in Kansas it's just a fact.

Many years ago when I was working for a feedlot processing cattle I asked the owner why black angus calves brought more. His reason was because they finished faster than the bigger type breeds. Therefore he didn't have to put more money in feeding them to that finished weight.

 

[Hpacres440p]

Many years ago when I was working for a feedlot processing cattle I asked the owner why black angus calves brought more. His reason was because they finished faster than the bigger type breeds. Therefore he didn't have to put more money in feeding them to that finished weight.

Too bad CAB doesn't apply to RAB as well as BAB. Should be equal...

 

[Dave]

Your right Dave money talks. When I was a little kid or maybe before me. The sale barn I sorted at was owned by the sale managers father. He sat next to the auctioneer and set the price on what ever was in the ring. I have always heard the story that one day the packet buyers were visiting and not bidding like he thought they should. So with 200 fats left to sell he not so politely told all the buyers that if they weren't there to buy cattle then the sale was over, and that he had just bought the rest of the sale so they all needed to go home! Then he went around to the stand, shut the lights off and went on the office.
The buyers only control a sale of you let them.
I saw a lot of nights where the sale barn would buy 1/3 of a feeder sale or more. Just to protect the sellers. They would ship the cattle to KS to a feed lot out there.

The trouble would be if you do that too much you wont have any buyers.

A thought I just had about why they don't cut cattle in the ring is some areas. I have read here where people talk about cattle being weighed when unloaded. That being the case it would be more difficult to cut one out of a bunch, sell the group minus that calf, and then come back and sell the one who was cut. That is one of the advantages of a ring scale and a clerk who operates the scale and a computer. That allows the weights to be adjusted and done so correctly.

 

[SBMF 2015]

The trouble would be if you do that too much you wont have any buyers.

A thought I just had about why they don't cut cattle in the ring is some areas. I have read here where people talk about cattle being weighed when unloaded. That being the case it would be more difficult to cut one out of a bunch, sell the group minus that calf, and then come back and sell the one who was cut. That is one of the advantages of a ring scale and a clerk who operates the scale and a computer. That allows the weights to be adjusted and done so correctly.

We never did it because then we would have to back up all the cattle that we had staged to be sold next. We tried to stay two drafts ahead of the sale so they didn't have to wait on us sorting.

 

[Warren Allison]

Think of the red cows as an opportunity.
Buy same quality cheaper than black and use your black bull.
Or buy red white face females and use your black bull to produce baldies.

I agree. I delivered a Brangus bull t a farm yesterday. It was registered and tested homozygous for black. when I got to the place, I remembered it from way back in the 70's, when they bred registered Charolais. Now, they have a herd of about 40 or 50 pure Charolais,(they no longer fool with keeping a registered herd) that they are breeding to two registered red angus. They had been calving in October and November, and these calves are all a solid, almost blonde....I guess you'd call them reddish-blonde.. that were as finely built as any I have seen. There were about 20 cows like this.. as big as the Charolais, with solid black calves by their sides. Some had a little ear to them. The man told me that they were also red-Angus x Charolais, that he had kept and raised. That was why he had borrowed the Brangus bull from my clients: He breeds the 1st calf heifers to a Brangus, then the rest of the years, he breeds these cows to a homozygous black Simmental bull. I asked him did he do ok selling those red-Angus x Charolais steers, and he said he got docked a little, but not as bad as he used to get docked on the smokies when he used black Angus bulls. He said they bring about .20-.25 on average less than those blacks steers out of his red Angus X Charolais cows, but that he does sell a few of his red Angus x Char steers every year to some 4H and FFA kids to show, as well as some of the heifers and steers out of the red angus X Charolais cows and the black Simmental bull. So, I see your point, as well as others like KY Hills , about the quality of the Red Angus. I looked at his 2 bulls, and they are as well put-together as any black angus bull I have seen, and actually liked their size and conformation better than the black Simmental bull. And those blonde calves and cows...WOW! He doesn't keep any of these black heifers because he has them all sold before they are weaned. And, like you said, he gets as much for them as he would have from black mommas.