"show cattle"

[cswilson]

There were some Full French Charolais cattle that were darn near red when they arrived here.'Mongrels' Ha Ha Ha half us humans fall under that umbrella too and were all doing o.k.-face it one man's mongrel is another man's composite is another man's profit lol.

[greybeard]

Not only are they turning them black, they are making them more moderate framed. Adding better udder traits also seems to be a goal. Then you don’t have to be there to get the calf started once the cow is more than a few years old. By golly, I think they are trying to make them look like Angus!
When you drive south thru ranch country in the USA all you see are black cattle. Commonly described as “Montana” type Angus. They don’t have no time for those larger “east coast” type Angus. It would be very hard to sell any other color.

[greybeard]

Producers will raise what the market demands. Black calves used to sell for 10 cents back not that many years ago, and anyone that had them took them to the markets like Ponoka or Innisfail to sell, now when a good set of black calves are run into the ring the buyers go crazy, even in todays depressed markets. I have been in the purebred business for 30 years, and was NEVER going to allow a black bull on the place. I attended numerous sales and saw the blacks top the reds at every one, so decided to breed half my herd black, and I am not sorry. This year I got 50% black calves all polled. When I sold them I topped the market and the price on the blacks was a couple of cents higher than the reds. The buyers new they were limo calves and that is what they were looking for to fill their orders on that particular day.
My four year old black Limo bull went to a ranch near Cochrane this spring and was used on Sim/Red Ang cross females, the folks are very anxious to see the calves !!!
Polled cattle in the Limo breed didn't impress me for many years, they were short coupled, dumpy and didn't have the performance of the horned cattle. Now it is tough to market a horned bull and the polled cattle are as good doing cattle as any.
Progress is measured by cash in hand in this business, and when times are tough the producer needs every extra dollar he can generate. If it means straying away from the traditional color of cattle, then so be it.

[grassfarmer]

cswilson, Maybe they were fool's French Charolais imports rather than full French ;o) Non-white Charolais do not occur in France, in fact if you look at the likes of Rawes herd - the pioneer and biggest herd in Canada they don't have reds either. Again if "red-factor" works for someone great, but these are not purebred cattle. The danger with this merging of all the breeds spearheaded by the likes of Leachman is that it significantly reduces the gene pool available for future breeding. We need to maintain diversity in all aspects of agriculture and that, emrald, is why I would condemn this type of breeding as short termism of the worst kind.

[circlex]

15444
You should go back to the web site in sask. that you pointed out and read under the white cattle. You must not of read the whole document before the post you made or you would not have made the comment about the red factor in the charolais breed.I agree with the other posts about the cross breeding. We are all trying to get the best cattle possible and profitable. We may not all agree on the cattle that each other may raise and thats a good thing or we all would be in more trouble than we already are in. If you raise any grains of any sort do you still raise the same ones that you grew 20 yrs ago? We all look for what we feel is best for our situation and what we figure will make us the most money in the end.
This is the url in case you can't find it again.



http://skyway.usask.ca/~schmutz/colors.html#White

[circlex]

15444
You should go back to the web site in sask. that you pointed out and read under the white cattle. You must not of read the whole document before the post you made or you would not have made the comment about the red factor in the charolais breed.I agree with the other posts about the cross breeding. We are all trying to get the best cattle possible and profitable. We may not all agree on the cattle that each other may raise and thats a good thing or we all would be in more trouble than we already are in. If you raise any grains of any sort do you still raise the same ones that you grew 20 yrs ago? We all look for what we feel is best for our situation and what we figure will make us the most money in the end.
This is the url in case you can't find it again.



http://skyway.usask.ca/~schmutz/colors.html#White

[cswilson]

Welll grassfarmer if you look at pictures of some of the original french imports-T Anchor Aiglon etc they had red hair patches when I worked at Bill Hunt's-an original Charolais breeder in Canada-president of world full french council and Canadian president-we had Full French cattle that were reddish-no red angus in them-so I'll stand by my statement.

[cswilson]

grassfarmer you seem to contradict your self, saying we need diversity and then condemning breeders for taking advantage of diversity to raise what the market is calling for. I congratulate you if your operation is successful but I sincerely doubt that your condemning others will have much effect on the industry.
I don't agree with the direction some breeds have taken but I keep it to myself, unless someone asks for my two cents worth.

[nerves]

Grassfarmer we are charolais breeders and we have bought bulls from the Rawes program and they were buff color or tan we also bought 11 cows from the sutton herd when they had thier dispersal out in sask. When it rains you can see tan spots all over those cows. Now both of these breeders are foundation breeders were did the color come from? You have to breed what sells.

[grassfarmer]

ciclex, I don't see anything that contradicts what 15444 said about red not being a genuine type of Charolais. I love the picture of the "white shorthorn" cow directly below the text you highlighted. Obviously not a shorthorn with a head like that - maybe a charolais cross?
Emrald1, you misunderstand me when I say we need to keep diversity in agriculture. By that I meant we need to keep as many seperate breeds as possible. Using Angus bulls, for example, to change hide colour on most of the other major breeds in N. America isn't diversifying the gene pool it's narrowing it. Look at the dairy world where the Holstein has taken over - they have crossbred them to the Norwegian Red, the Ayrshire and many others to the point these other important breeds have lost their identity. With the widespread use of AI a huge percentage of Holstein cattle in the world go back to ten bulls and their offspring. This is not smart - it may pay some bills today but if circumstances change and we want a dairy cow to produce off grass, or milk seasonally and live on grass the rest of the year in some country in the world where do we go to get the genetics?