Muddy
Well-known member
Anyone has done with switching a herd of a breed to another breed? I'm looking at some red Angus cattle and already expanding the existed herd of red Angus cows & reducing black Angus cow numbers.
Switching to another breed?
- Thread starter Muddy
- Start date
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frieghttrain
Well-known member
Why go to red? I like red best to but the market doesn't.
creekdrive
Well-known member
I might be slightly biased but hard to go wrong with a herd of good Red Angus cows. If you have Red cows it's pretty easy to change the color of calf to suit whatever sells best in your area...
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Muddy
Well-known member
Not too hard to paint their calves black. We will stay with black bulls, tho.frieghttrain":1kvlfgz9 said:
Our purchased red Angus cows from few years ago, finally dropped few red heifers this spring and the calves looks promising as replacements. The lone home raised red angus cow also dropped her first red heifer as well and we like how quiet the calf is, even in a chute.
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Muddy
Well-known member
My exact point! It's hard to change black, no matter what color the bull is. If they want red baldies, run a herf bull. If they want black baldies, run a black herf bull. If they want yellows, run a char bull. And to be honest, it's much easy to uniforming your calf crop from red cows than the hetero black cows.creekdrive":3vxw9hap said:
We changed our 200+ herds of red and white sims into black sim/angus in around 10 years with the majority of them being black, black w/f now. Still get a few throwback color calves from the older cow herd, but those are getting few and far between. Going on 16 years from the time we started, but, once we cull the 2004 and older cows, our transformation will be complete. Next transformation will be putting white faces on them. Looking into black hereford...
Switching to Red Angus is pretty easy. If the cows are registered Red Angus and you use a registered black Angus on them the calves can still be registered (if they are good enough quality) as Red Angus with a disqualifying characteristic (black). Our herd is mostly Red Angus with a few commercial cows of Red Angus crossed with Gelbvieh, Hereford and Simmenthal. We could record almost all of the cows for record keeping purposes as they are almost all sired by a Red Angus bull.
Quality Red calves around here sell as well as quality black calves. It's when the quality is lower is when you see a price dock on the reds. It's kind of funny that locally good Red Angus cows are in a greater demand than any other breed/s.
Quality Red calves around here sell as well as quality black calves. It's when the quality is lower is when you see a price dock on the reds. It's kind of funny that locally good Red Angus cows are in a greater demand than any other breed/s.
FlyingLSimmentals
Well-known member
I have found myself really interested in Red Angus cows here lately might partially be because of some of the pics Creekdrive has posted. Matter of fact I got a young Registered Red Simmental bull I raised that I wish I had some Red Angus females to put him with. If only I had more acreage and could get some quality red angus females I'd try him out instead of selling him. I've always been a sucker for red cattle and at the moment our herd bull appears to be homo black and I'm beginning to miss finding the red little ones.
Ky hills
Well-known member
While I like some things about most breeds of cattle. red ones have always been my favorites. For the market, red cows can be bred to Angus or homozygous black bulls and have black calves. I have a Hereford bull this year, with Hereford and BWF cows. I am hoping to get some replacement heifers to keep, and the steer calves can be sold at a Hereford influence feeder calf sale. Also have a recently purchased red Limousin bull with mostly Angus cows, so most of those calves will be black.
I had used Angus bulls for several years, and while I like Angus very much, I have found that I prefer Herefords as the main cow breed that I have.
I had used Angus bulls for several years, and while I like Angus very much, I have found that I prefer Herefords as the main cow breed that I have.
True Grit Farms
Well-known member
I guess it all depends on where your at and what you want to raise color wise. Around here in the south red calves cost you big time. The black baldies out sold the red baldies by a good .10+ cents a pound at the sale barn. And at the bull test red Angus averaged $1,500. and the black Angus averaged $2,600. And there was 10 times as many black Angus bulls. At the bred commercial heifer sales there was only about a $500. dollar difference in between the colors.
The worst mistake that I've made in the cattle business so far money wise, is using a Hereford bull. And the worst part is his calves are the best that we've raise to this point. If you can afford to raise red cattle more power to you. But we're going back to black. I want the buyers $money and they and they want black calves.
The worst mistake that I've made in the cattle business so far money wise, is using a Hereford bull. And the worst part is his calves are the best that we've raise to this point. If you can afford to raise red cattle more power to you. But we're going back to black. I want the buyers $money and they and they want black calves.
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Anonymous
blacks tend to sell well around here and or baldies , the red Angus and of course semi/angus and most all the semi /angus are black ! seem to do good also there used to be a lot herford in this area .a few of best natured cows all way around wer herf cross , semi/herfords have all had great disposition and good moma! but hrefords dont really sell that good anymore ive been watching red angus association, and i like where there going with things ,been kicking around the idea of getting some full blood semis cross them with red angus. for base ! then if the the black sale trend keeps up dont belive it would be to hard to top them off with black semi /angus/but that may be expensive route to go only time will tell !
Clodhopper
Well-known member
Around here the reds are making a big comeback. I think what has happened is the reds that are still around are high quality, and some people have recognized that. Not to stir the pot, but there's a lot of black junk around. No matter the color, the quality makes the difference.
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Anonymous
:hide: Not ! to start a war but around here a lot of black just look bad anymore you know the ones that should have taken a ride ,stayed in the herd !but black sells ! it is after all the business breed !
Ky hills
Well-known member
That is true here as well True Grit. Straight bred Herefords are really docked here at the stockyards too. For a few years there has been a Hereford influenced feeder calf sale in which consignors cattle are comingled into graded groups to sell. They have done equal to or maybe even better than the top selling lots in the regular sales. There are folks from other states that bring cattle to the sale. Tennessee also has one of those sales as well.
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Muddy
Well-known member
Guys, I get it. Blacks sell better than reds but we're talking about cows not feeder calves and I have no desire for using red bulls on our cows. The red cows just happens to be better quality than most black cows we have.
Son of Butch
Well-known member
Yes, from Jersey to Holstein.Muddy":1l4rm6j2 said:
Bought the first 5 holstein springing heifers in the fall of 1963 and sold our last Jersey cow in 1972.
FlyingLSimmentals
Well-known member
Sounds plenty easy to me. If the red cows are the best quality go with them and run a Homozygous Black Bull and receive black calves.
Muddy":imkhz8ma said:
Anytime you put "red" and "black" in a question on these boards, the debate will begin. It's unavoidable. I'm not really sure the question though - especially with such as gentle move as going black angus to red angus and using a black angus bull. It seems to me that that actually is all there is to the transition - short of the registration info Dun gave you. It seems to me that if you can get higher quality females for less - red or otherwise - and turn the calves black with a black angus bull, you've made a wise financial move and seemlessly made the transition. Then just do what we all do - keep back the best heifers from the best cows (red or black) and make hay while the sun's shining.
Nesikep
Well-known member
I hear it's been raining pretty hard though!angus9259":2r3kio1d said:
