Smokies

[randiliana]

OK, this is a Canada vs. US question!! Up here a smoky (grey) calf is worth about the same amount as a longhorn. Heck, if we see someone who has a couple black cows in with a charolais bull we shake our heads. :roll: BUT, when we go down into Montana, we see whole HERDS of black cows being bred charolais. And seeing that a lot of our cattle end/ed up in US why the big difference?!

I say to my hubby that buying smoky heifers would be a great(cheap) way to build up the herd, after all we can buy them for 10-20 cents/lb less than we can anything else. Plus, chances are when bred black we would likely get black (and a few smoky ones), red would give us red or tan and char would likely give us white!! But no go!!

Randi,
Saskatchewan, Canada
My Website
http://www.geocities.com/randiliana2000
My Favorite Canadian Gardening group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CdnRRandSeedexch/
My Favorite Canadian Ranching Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canadianfoodanimals

 

[Brandonm2]

One of my best cows ever was a Smokie (though technically she was 25% Charolais/25% Polled Hereford/50% Angus). If there is a dock on Smokies I have never really noticed it. There is however a definite dock on "rat tails"; which can come from that cross sometimes.

 

[MikeC]

One of my best cows ever was a Smokie (though technically she was 25% Charolais/25% Polled Hereford/50% Angus). If there is a dock on Smokies I have never really noticed it. There is however a definite dock on "rat tails"; which can come from that cross sometimes.

Some of my bull customers breed the Char bulls to Brangus cows. They get top dollar in every market, with premiums in the feedlot.

1-2% rattails is the most I have ever heard of.
Breeding a Char to a red cow won't get a rattail. It's a black gene thing.

 

[Brandonm2]

I have never had a rat tail, my neighbors have never had a rat tail (that I noticed), and I have only seen a few at Stockyards; BUT FEAR of that 1 to 5% costs Charolais a LOT of bull sales. I was at a talk Dr Harlan Ritchie gave ~12 years ago and he saluted the abilities of the Limousin association people because there was absolutely no reason in the cattle for them to be a more popular breed than the Charolais (who was running a distant #5 then I think).

 

[MikeC]

JOURNAL ARTICLE
Inheritance of the "rat-tail" syndrome and its effect on calf performance

R. R. Schalles and L. V. Cundiff
Department of Animal Sciences and Industry, Kansas State University, Manhattan 66506, USA.

A form of congenital hypotrichosis, commonly know as the "rat-tail syndrome," occurs in a small percentage of calves produced by crossing some Continental cattle breeds with cattle that are black in color. These calves are characterized by short, curly, malformed, sometimes sparse hair and a lack of normal tail switch development. In our first study, performance of 43 rat-tail calves was compared with that of 570 non-rat-tail calves of the same breeding and contemporary groups. All rat-tail calves were sired by Simmental bulls and were from cows with various percentages of Angus breeding. The rat-tail condition had no effect on birth weight, weaning weight, or gain from birth to weaning. However, rat-tail calves had significantly lower rates of gain during the winter months from weaning to yearling than non-rat-tail calves, resulting in a 19 kg lighter yearling weight. Gains of steers from yearling to slaughter were not significantly different, but rat-tail steers were 36 kg lighter (P = .01) and 13 d older (P = .15) at slaughter than the non-rat-tail steers. In a second study, Angus-Simmental F1 males and females with the rat-tail condition were mated to produce 64 F2 offspring that were used to determine the mode of inheritance of this syndrome. Analysis showed that the rat-tail syndrome is controlled by interacting genes at two loci. Cattle that express the syndrome must have at least one dominant gene for black color and be heterozygous at the other locus involved.
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From Clemson Univ. Paper:
"The term "rat-tail" comes from the lack of a switch on the tail. A more serious condition is called "elephant- hided" calves. The elephant-hided calves have a genetic condition where the calf is almost hairless. The rat-tail calf is a variation of the same condition. In our project the rat-tail calves performed as good or better than their counterparts. If the rat-tail condition is a mild form of the elephant-hide condition, it does not seem to effect feedlot performance. Let it also be noted that all calves were fed through the winter months which should work against eared and rat-tail calves. The moral here is if they are good calves and you know they will be discounted at the sale, feed them."
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Brandon, It's hard to know WHAT to believe anymore. I have personally never had to defend the "Rattail Syndrome" when conferring with bull buyers. I do not know what percentage of buyers steer clear of Chars because of rattails, but in my arena, it is insignificant.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

Some of the best calves i have seen were out of brangus cows charlais bulls the guy that owned them also owned the local stockyard.

 

[Kent]

OK, this is a Canada vs. US question!! Up here a smoky (grey) calf is worth about the same amount as a longhorn. Heck, if we see someone who has a couple black cows in with a charolais bull we shake our heads. :roll: BUT, when we go down into Montana, we see whole HERDS of black cows being bred charolais. And seeing that a lot of our cattle end/ed up in US why the big difference?!

I say to my hubby that buying smoky heifers would be a great(cheap) way to build up the herd, after all we can buy them for 10-20 cents/lb less than we can anything else. Plus, chances are when bred black we would likely get black (and a few smoky ones), red would give us red or tan and char would likely give us white!! But no go!!

Randi,
Saskatchewan, Canada
My Website
http://www.geocities.com/randiliana2000
My Favorite Canadian Gardening group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CdnRRandSeedexch/
My Favorite Canadian Ranching Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canadianfoodanimals

Randi,

Your situation with smokies being discounted sounds a lot like Hereford cattle here in the Southeastern US. You can buy the cows significantly cheaper, put a good black angus bull on them, and top the market with the baldy steers. Plus, the heifers fetch a darn good price as replacements and make excellent cows. I'm sure the smokies would make fine females, though I've never owned one. A neighbor has some angus x simmental females ("smokies") that he breeds back to Hereford and angus bulls. He has NICE calves every year.

 

[dun]

The difference in value of types/markings/breeds of calves varys not only by country but by region. Herefords are dirt cheap in this area, the closer you get to KS th better the price for an equivilent calf.

dun

 

[Brandonm2]

It's hard to know WHAT to believe anymore. I have personally never had to defend the "Rattail Syndrome" when conferring with bull buyers. I do not know what percentage of buyers steer clear of Chars because of rattails, but in my arena, it is insignificant.

I have suggested Charolais to people who wanted a Continental to put on British cross cows and I have been told that they would get a dock on the rat tails. I once knew a Limousin guy who was brought up the rat tail subject with Smokies more than once. To me if you expose a bull (of whatever breed) to 30 cows and you get 4 rat tails (an unlikely high percentage) you just ship that bull and proabably avoid anything with his sire in the pedigree. It is kind of hard to tag the whole breed with such a rare defect AND one that is NOT potentially disastrous like dwarfism, mulefeet, parrott beaked (and I have seen one make it to 2 years old and be AIed once), bulldogs, prolapses, etc. The original poster is certainly an example of someone who has an aversion to Charolais because of word of mouth stories.

 

[randiliana]

Randi,

Your situation with smokies being discounted sounds a lot like Hereford cattle here in the Southeastern US. You can buy the cows significantly cheaper, put a good black angus bull on them, and top the market with the baldy steers. Plus, the heifers fetch a darn good price as replacements and make excellent cows. I'm sure the smokies would make fine females, though I've never owned one. A neighbor has some angus x simmental females ("smokies") that he breeds back to Hereford and angus bulls. He has NICE calves every year.

You know, actually, the situation with herefords is very similar up here too. The cows themselves are worth a decent price, but not the calves (unless they are replacements). The steers will be 5+ cents off the black steers.