This little guy surprised me!

[Taurus]

Double Post

 

[Taurus]

the other morning I was surprised to find momma and this little guy in the pasture. Not only was momma not due for a few more weeks but he appears to be the mailmans...both dam and sire are supposedly fullblood herefords. Now I am no expert but I've never seen a hereford with this color pattern..is it possible for hereford to throw such color?? My thoughts are that one of the parents is NOT full hereford as I was told (they are not registered)

Have a neighbor who runs some holstein in his dairy herd been teasing him about sneaking over to knock up my cows or that maybe he botched the banding of the one holstein steer I have from him! :shock:

Good news is he was healthy even though he was early, dam's milk had not come in when he hit the ground but it did come on strong the next day. Dam is 11 yrs old and this is the first bull calf she's ever had (he's a steer now). She is starting to show her age in having to work a little harder to keep condition but is an excellent mother and has great calves so we'll see how she does raising this one and keeping up through the winter...may be her last one.

If she is 11 now and doing this well she will likely go to 15 - 18 and not give you any probs - keep her

I have had many cows over 15 give me good calves

Keep the heifers from her

Longevity and productivity when combined are a good thing

You need those push button cows to make a dollar

And I am in agreement - looks like a dairy pattern to me - but it bothers me that he is not black and white - any other possibilities for a daddy in the area? There are Holsteins that run with a red colour - what colour is this bull with loose morals?

Best to all

Bez

OP stated that the herefords she have is not registered. So they might have a simmental in them. My grandfather used to have herefords and simmentals in his commerical herd. He used a simmental bull on them and the calves out of the hereford cows looks like a simmental while others looks like just their mother.

 

[Beefy]

(the cow looks like she has simmental in her too)

 

[Crazy Farmgirl]

Bez...I have retained all of her heifers and they are doing very well, so long as momma continues to raise her calves with minimal input ($) and breeds back in timely manner (last year she calved 10/12/2012) I'll keep her.

As for the bull she was bred to he is also unregistered, 9yrs old, calves are a little on the high side for birth weight but very easy calving (bred heifers with him last year, bw 88-105# all delivered unassisted). He is very docile and adds alot of muscle (especially in the rear) which was the goal when I bought him. There are no other bulls within miles of me, so he is the only option for sire.

This is him last winter:

Beefy... you mentioned that the dam looked as though she has simmental in her also; could you elaborate on what you see that makes you think that. All the simmental around here are black so I'm curious as to what traits you see and that I could look for that may indicate some simmi in the gene pool.

here is another pic of the dam (with last years calf same sire)

I'll admit it does bother me that the original breeder was not straight with me about the breed of the cow, not because she is more than likely not fullblooded hereford but that he felt the need to be deceptive about it! That is just not good business in my eyes, especially in areas like this where word travels fast and reputations are built and destroyed by word of mouth.

 

[chippie]

Is your bull a red neck? If so, he looks more Simmental than your cow. I have seen quite a few Simmental cattle marked like him.

 

[Crazy Farmgirl]

Is your bull a red neck? If so, he looks more Simmental than your cow. I have seen quite a few Simmental cattle marked like him.

Yes he does have a "red neck". These are pics from this morning. I would appreciate if someone could explain what it is that makes him LOOK like a Simmental. I am not familiar enough with them to know what characteristics to look for.

 

[dun]

I had a similar shock 15 years ago. Granny is black and had alwasy been bred to a black angus bull and all of her calves were black. The first time I bred her to a Hereford I looked out one morning and there was a little red baldy calf racing around the pasture. In all of the years since shes's been bred to a red Fleck, a Polled Hereford or a Red Angus. Last year was the first red calf she has had since that first red baldy and this year she had a red bull. Every year we hope for another red heifer.

 

[Beefy]

well nothing just SCREAMS out simmental other than the calf, but having seen him and going back to look at the cow, i can definitely see some influence in her NOW. she has some pretty good socks on her, but that doesnt necessarily mean anything as some herefords have a lot of white up the leg too. her head is shaped more like a simmental to me, being sort of longer and oval whereas a hereford GENERALLY has a more round or square face to me. she is just built more like a simmental, being a little leggier, longer and musclular. she has what i call a simmental butt. the bull looks very much like a simmental in the first and last photos of your last bull pics. his build mostly, and hindquarters. is the featherneck cow and the black and white cow related to them?

 

[Galloways1]

As BEEFY stated, they both have some Simmental characteristics. The black cow pictured (head) is surrely part simmy.

My dad raised herefords, then started using traditional spotted Simmental. We had a pile of calves marked just like your bull.

 

[Crazy Farmgirl]

The black cow pictured is at least 50% simmi (bought her as a calf with her dam, standing next to her in the pic). The guy I got her from was running a black simmental bull. In that pic the three cows (not the bull) pictured are all related, black cow is daughter to light red cow standing next to her and the cow on the other side of the bull is also the light red cows daughter (produced from AI here) None are related to the bull

 

[Dylan Biggs]

(the cow looks like she has simmental in her too)

Looks that way to me also.

 

[Nite Hawk]

We have had a good number of simmis around this area for a long time, and they are either "splashy" colored or solid red. From what I have heard the black color in Simmis came from breeders cross breeding to black angus for the polled factor /easy calving.Not sure if that is true or not, but I don't know of any Simmental breeders that breed black cattle around here or that have any black cattle in their herds at all, their cattle are all red / splashy colored.
Nite Hawk

 

[Brandonm22]

The vast majority of Simmental breeders around here raise black cattle. Driving down the highway you would think they were commercial Angus. I have long since given up identifying breeds of cattle by visual evaluation.

 

[Brandonm22]

It looks like 2/3s of the Purebred Simmentals at ABS here in the US are black. The rest are solid red. The white faced, "flashy", and yellow Simmentals of my youth appear to be no longer en vogue......in the US

http://abs-bs.absglobal.com/beef/simmental_ss_main.asp?

 

[dun]

It looks like 2/3s of the Purebred Simmentals at ABS here in the US are black. The rest are solid red. The white faced, "flashy", and yellow Simmentals of my youth appear to be no longer en vogue......in the US

http://abs-bs.absglobal.com/beef/simmental_ss_main.asp?

You pretty much have to go to fullbloodss to get the tradtional Simmenthal markings.