Another cow question.

My friend raises beef cows, he went from Herefords, to highlanders, angus and now Charolais? I don't know why he got into the Charolais, He bought a-year-old bull for $3500. Anyway he took two Highlanders 2 charolais an 1 Angus to the auction today that place was busy a line of trucks and trailers, we waited an hour to unload. What is so special about angus meat? If you raised a Hereford and an angus the same way could you tell the differance in the taste of the meat? Around here people love black, been that way for years, and most angus are nasty. Also what's good about Charolais vs angus? Me I like my Herefords! Lol. I just get a kick out of the fact people are so hung up on angus. Iv had Herford beef in my freezer and it was fine to eat I thought.

Nearly every breed has it's good and bad traits. The Angus people one upped everyone on the marketing end. Typically the English breeds have a better carcass but some of the other breeds may grow faster
I've always had the major breeds but now mostly have Angus. You have to supply what the customer wants in order to make the most. There are other breeds that I like just as well, Herefords are a good breed but had a bad reputation a few years ago for low milk producers. I personally prefer an angus/brangus/hereford cross.

I prefer low birth weight Angus, mine are crossed with Maine-Anjou or Salers. However, feedlots seem to think that black hide will gain weight more efficiently, has nothing to do with meat taste. They don't want any ear around here, either. Best meat is a three year old heifer.

The finished beef is as much how it is fed/finished as the breed, as long as it is a beef breed. I had Hereford for years. They are hardy and a good cow. They also where not a large framed cow or calf 30 years ago either. Other breeds where larger and that is what the market was wanting. The Hereford breeders did not wake up fast enough and the larger breeds replaced them on many farms.

When finishing calves I can get an equal rate of gain from Hereford and Angus calves IF the Hereford calves are the "right" blood line. If it is the old Apple butted Polled Hereford they will finish at 1100-1200 Lbs. and lose me money. I would not even consider a Charolis or Highlander calf to feed for a money making enterprise. The Charolis can be a high strung CRAZY breed. The Highlanders are a novelty breed here in the US.

IF your friend is jumping cows/bull breeds around he will have a hard time establishing much of a track record to see how his breeding program is doing.

I had all registered Horned Hereford cattle 30 years ago. The market made me change. I got tired of losing money because my finished cattle where the "wrong" color. It was just appearance not performance. If I had the graded beef market back then that I do today, I would have kept the registered Herefords. I switched to Angus bulls and the black/white faces calves where worth more money than any that calved red/white calves. So I most of my cows have some Hereford in their blood lines. I actually bought some pure blood Herefords heifers last year to get more of the Hereford back into my Angus cross cattle.

A good Hereford brood cow can raise a calf to half her size in a normal season on pasture that would have an Angus cow skin and bones.

The fact is the Angus breeders have done a much better job of promoting their breed. To many consumers Angus beef is the only high quality beef out there. They will pay more for it just because it is Angus beef.

Angus cattle have certain genetic traits, mainly marbling ability and excellent feed conversion and these traits make producers, feeders and packers money, hence their popularity. All things change, up until the late 60's, early 70's Herefords dominated the industry in Texas and the western range country, so much so that if a pen of cattle was up for sale that were not Hereford the seller would specify that they were not Hereford, they are still the most range adapted of the major breeds in the US. Crossbreeding commercial cattle carries the same advantages as the addition of ''new blood'' in any species, Angus is the best cross on Herefords with Charolais a close second depending on what the intended use of the cattle is, Angus X Hereford produces a premier feedlot animal and that has long been the case, Charolais X Hereford produces top notch Mama cows. Angus females breed earlier and more reliably than many other breeds, getting some of those various traits in your herd improves the total. My oldest Son has mostly Hereford and uses Hereford bulls, he prefers Herefords but also has a practical reason, Hereford X Brahman females are always in high demand and bring a premium prices in our area. I use Charolais bulls on my cow herd and have a lot of Charolais influenced females in my herd but my main business is buying and trading cull and plain cows, a Charolais bull will take the horns and spots off of longhorn cross calves and the leather and ear off of Brahman cross calves way better than black bulls do, also in my area Charolais sired calves are a close second to Angus calves in price.

I agree, isent the Herford called the efficiency specialist? Lol

LAA I forget that your southern market will some times discount a dark hide calf in the summer months. Here the light color Charolis will not sell well. They need to be a cross with black showing. I have had trouble with some "light" colored calves in hard winters. So I try to have angus and angus Hereford crossed calves in the winter months.

Everything everyone says here is largely true.

However, while I was in school we went to a slaughter facility and saw various breeds of cattle slaughtered. When they were skinned and quartered it was dang near impossible to tell which was which. If all you do is watch cattle being processed, you might be able to tell.

I have people tell me they can tell if the meat comes from a steer, a bull, or a young heifer as well as breed when it is on the plate. I cry foul.

I worked in the wine business and people said the same thing about identifying regions. Unless you drink a ridiculous amount of wine, it is extremely difficult to tell. I could tell wine from my grapes but that is because I taste them as they ripen; the flavor is very familiar. If I drank that much wine to ID near varietals or regions, I would not be able to type this response.

Furthermore, I raise bottle calves. I frequently get dairy crosses that are all black. They bring a premium at the yard and sell as angus or angus cross. At many yards, anything black gets a higher price. It is silly.

We just put a Short Horn cross in the freezer. One of the best carcasses I have ever seen and one of the best eating, bar none. I have seen Simmental and Limousin steers that put Angus carcasses to shame. I thin it all depends.

We had purebred Shorthorns. Local feeder bought a lot of Angus feeders, but also bought our Shorthorn feeder calves. He said that the Shorthorns gained better than the Angus and that he made more money on them. For some reason, he was ecstatic if we had a pure white feeder calf in the bunch; he really stood out in a herd of black feeders. However, the Angus marketing people got the stores and restaurants declaring that they sold Angus beef. Most people can't tell the difference what breed of beef it is and I seriously doubt that it is always Angus beef as advertised.

My nephew has Angus cows that he breeds with Charolais bulls to produce feeder calves that grow faster than pure Angus calves. Most of the calves are pure black.

When I was a kid , I remember Angus cows as being shorter than Herford cows , and cranky cows to work with. I contend that todays Angus cows have a percentage of Holstein in them . Where else did they get those legs and taller frame . Beef cattle do not have a regestery "herd book" like dairy cows. So if you keep a identified breed record on a beef breed for five years it can become purebred. Not so with dairy cows, they can all be traced back to original imported cattle. So I say that the breeds have changed. P.S. a Holstein cow crossed Limo , will almost always give you a black calf. Breed that black calf Angus, and low and behold you have a large frame "Angus " feeder.

Honestly - I think it's marketing.

Who was it - burger king? mcdonalds? Somebody started a "black angus" campaign several years ago.

From that point on, people started to think black angus was some kind of gold-standard for taste. Suddenly everybody demanded it over anything else. Then you started seeing "black angus" pop up on menus eveywhere.

So - if you're in the beef business... you give them what they want - regardless of why they want it.

For the last 3 weeks we have been preg checking different cows. If I am going to get run over by a cow it will be Black!!! Out of 1100 head, high percentage of Charolais, the black cows have been the open or late breds.
Temperament, gainablity and carcass data has as much to do with how they are handled as to genetics, in my opinion.

The Angus association has done a tremendous job of marketing!!! but you pull the hide off, and other then size, I would challenge any of you to pick out the Angus carcass.

I only have a few beef animals, a mix of registered Hereford and Angus. I have an old stanchion barn, and I bring them in for a few hours each night to keep them used to being handled (I know, they're spoiled)
I've found that the Angus are tougher to handle, and when they're in the barn they eat 50% more than the Herefords, and produce 50% more manure.
As far as the meat, I can't tell much of a difference. I think a good part of the Angus popularity is due to good marketing
Pete

The Angus story is classic textbook great marketing. They just left everyone else in their dust. 25 years ago a friend was doing some plumbing work for an Angus breeder. He was in an upper level of this building when the owner and a couple other breeders walked through talking about sale price manipulations, when they didn't know that they could be overheard.

They may not have beef herd books in Canada but they do in the US. To start a new breed in the US such as Brangus, Braford, Charbray or Santa Gertrudis the foundation cattle have to be registered in their respective breeds herd book, this was true when the breeds were developed and it is still true today.

All I know is I started buying Hereford bulls a couple years ago to start putting some "calm" back in my herd.

Seemed like the more angus they got, the more skittish they got.

Probably wind up rotating bull breeds every couple years, hereford and angus

Fred

I'm not in to registered cattle but I do use registered Angus bulls. The wildest calves I get are the ones out of Hereford cows bred to Angus. The straight black calves seem to herd up and if you can get one moving in the right direction,they'll all go. Throw one in with a white face on it and it'll bolt from the herd every time.

I can't rule out Holstein for sure, but the larger frame sizes in the Angus breed has come mostly from out-crossing with larger framed continental breeds (Simmental, Maine-Anjou) in order to increase weening weights and feedlot performance. This was also done with Herefords over the last century or so, that's why the average size of an Angus or Hereford mama cow is so much larger than it was 60 years ago. IMHO it has contributed to the deterioration of mothering ability, fertility, and efficiency in brood cows of 2 great beef breeds.

"A good Hereford brood cow can raise a calf to half her size in a normal season on pasture that would have an Angus cow skin and bones."
And THAT is where the cattle industry has left the cow-calf producer in an darn tough situation to make a consistent profit (although the last few years have been pretty good). The point I am getting at is "modern" breeding has left us with cow genetics (in all breeds) that more often than not need more than simple pasture grass, hay, and mineral to ween a decent calf and breed back on time year after year. In other words, her maintenance requirements often outstrip the benefit of (potentially, maybe) weening a larger calf.

Way back in the early 1950's in my High School Vo-ag classes we often used to say the ideal beef animal would be a Durham in the feed lot because they gain more on lower protein cheap feeds. a Hereford in the Show Ring because they invaribly show better in winning more top prizes and an Angus on the block because they always grade higher at the slaughter house. That was before Charolais, Limosins, Brahamas and belted breeds were known in America I guess. We never had anything but Holstein steers we raised from our bull calves with poor blood lines in our dairy herd.

In my area it was black Chianina breed with the SHORT Angus cattle that grew the breed. Look at the slope of the nose on most modern Angus and they have a steeper nose angle like the Chianina do. Also the height/frame size sky rocketed in less than 10 years on them. I do not think there is much Holstein in the mix as it does not take much Holstein genes to effect the rates of gain negatively.

There is a program for feeding out Holsteins that is called "kept fed" From birth to slaughter they always have feed in front of them. They will be "ready at about 1240 lbs. at 1 year old. They will yield Choice Y2 or better, ribeyes will be within ounces of each other going down the line. If you want to "gentle" your herd try adding Brangus. Easy calving and resistant to foot rot and pink eye.

Wow, that's weird, my experience is about the opposite.

I buy registered bulls also, just so I know what I'm getting, must be a difference in the disposition of the bulls we're buying.

Just goes to show I shouldn't generalize about breeds.

Fred

I buy calm Angus bulls (only have Angus because of the sales premium, right or wrong) and my whole herd is quite calm and quiet. I Ivomec them walking through the pasture.

(quoted from post at 17:25:49 12/09/15) "A good Hereford brood cow can raise a calf to half her size in a normal season on pasture that would have an Angus cow skin and bones."
And THAT is where the cattle industry has left the cow-calf producer in an darn tough situation to make a consistent profit (although the last few years have been pretty good). The point I am getting at is "modern" breeding has left us with cow genetics (in all breeds) that more often than not need more than simple pasture grass, hay, and mineral to ween a decent calf and breed back on time year after year. In other words, her maintenance requirements often outstrip the benefit of (potentially, maybe) weening a larger calf.

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It's not just cow breeds. I see the same thing in livestock across the boards. I never understood the concept behind creating and animal that will not get out and hustle for it's grub and that needs concentrates or exotic minerals to make decent growth. You even see it in sheep now. We're cutting our own throat once again.