twins: one red one black

[gipper66]

I bred a registered black angus cow to a registered Braford bull. The bull has Hereford markings and is dark red. The cow gave birth to twins nov. 4, 2013. Both calves are bulls. One is red with a white face, the other is black with a white face. If the cow is homozygous black, which I assume she is, how could these colors be explained?

 

[dun]

Not all black Angus are homozygous black. If you look back at her pedigree you will probably see someone indicated as "rc" for red carrier

 

[Taurus]

Not all black Angus are homozygous black. If you look back at her pedigree you will probably see someone indicated as "rc" for red carrier

Yup, there's few registered black angus that are red carriers and lot of commercial angus are rc.

 

[Till-Hill]

Bought 8 registered angus cows bred half Hereford ended up with 3 red calves.

 

[gipper66]

Let me correct myself. This cow is not registered. In the spring of 2009, I bought some heifers at a angus production sale. They ran this heifer and her flushmates in the ring together, buyer to buy 1 of the 3, his choice. Registration was pending on this lot. When the registration papers on the other lots that I bought came, this cows was missing. I had to have some genetic testing done at the sellers expense and she was found to be AMC. So she was not registered even though she could have been. However, looking back through her pedigree, I cannot find anything to suggest that she might be red carrier.

 

[randiliana]

Obviously the cow isn't homozygous black...

 

[pdfangus]

not all the red carriers in the breed are known.....
but with dna testing more are known today than ever before...

 

[Lucky_P]

Or...her sire(or even the dam, in some instances) may not be the one they thought it was... or, the neighbor's bull may have come visiting, or...

Had a big gray, whitefaced SimAngus cow once, bred to a black 3/4AN-1/4 SM bull that I knew was a red-carrier. She had a pretty red white-faced, spotted heifer(freemartin), and a solid black bull. Not an unexpected outcome - but I knew what was behind both cow and bull.

 

[gipper66]

The cow was an ET calf, she may not even be who they said she was. There are some red carriers through out her pedigree, but none indicated in the last 4 generations.

 

[dun]

The cow was an ET calf, she may not even be who they said she was. There are some red carriers through out her pedigree, but none indicated in the last 4 generations.

Doesn;t matter how many generations back they are. Unless the 50:50 chance of her throwing the red gene to the calf happens when she's bred to a red bull it can be a long time before a red calf happens.

 

[Taurus]

Yup I goes many years without any red calves born and majority of my herd is red carriers. Got the first red calf 3 years ago then have another red calf out of the same black cow last year. This black cow can be traced back to her great grandmother which is a red angus but there are no red animals in the generations between her and this black cow I have right now.

If she has red carriers in her pedigree then she is obviously a red carrier.

 

[gipper66]

Yup I goes many years without any red calves born and majority of my herd is red carriers. Got the first red calf 3 years ago then have another red calf out of the same black cow last year. This black cow can be traced back to her great grandmother which is a red angus but there are no red animals in the generations between her and this black cow I have right now.

If she has red carriers in her pedigree then she is obviously a red carrier.

In this cows pedigree, all ancestors which were carriers were marked as RDC. At some point all of the RDC's descendants were marked as RDF, or free of the red gene. Some of the RDF's but have actually been RDC.

 

[Jake]

Yup I goes many years without any red calves born and majority of my herd is red carriers. Got the first red calf 3 years ago then have another red calf out of the same black cow last year. This black cow can be traced back to her great grandmother which is a red angus but there are no red animals in the generations between her and this black cow I have right now.

If she has red carriers in her pedigree then she is obviously a red carrier.

In this cows pedigree, all ancestors which were carriers were marked as RDC. At some point all of the RDC's descendants were marked as RDF, or free of the red gene. Some of the RDF's but have actually been RDC.

Most likely the how isn't what she was believed to be. Neighbors bull is most likely her sire unless she has DNA typed to her parents on the papers