Columbia City, Indiana | Markwright - 4/11/2010 00:48
Best way to fix a Herfy is cross em with an Angus, and the best way to fix an Angus is to cross em with a Herfy, for ALL practical purposes.
I think Mark is onto something here. As I've said, I started with purebred Hereford females and an Angus bull. Now about half of my cow herd is made up of black baldy females from several generations of this cross. I have to say, I LOVE these females. They are gentle, so far calve unassisted on pasture (KNOCK ON WOOD), and produce vigorous calves who get up and go. (I like Herefords, but this is my 5th calving season, and I've had only one female have trouble- a Hereford heifer who prolapsed and died.) Friday afternoon I watched a black baldy deliver her 3rd calf. I timed, her, it was about 25 minutes from the time she laid down to push to the time the calf was sucking. And this calf came a couple of weeks earlier than last year's, which as we all know is a huge plus.
One thing that is kind of strange, so far out of 3 black baldies that have calved, bred to a purebred Angus bull, (calf is 1/4 Hereford 3/4 Angus) 2 of them had calves with white on their faces. One of them has a lot of white on her, her whole face is white and her belly as well. I consider this a bonus, because I love my baldies. Always in the past a black baldy bred to a black bull produced an all black calf. My bull was an ET from a purebred Angus breeder.
My only problem is that if I want to retain my own replacements (I can't see how the economics work for a commercial producer to pay over $1000 for a bred female), and only own one bull at a time, I about need to bring a 3rd breed into my program. But I like black baldys so much, and don't want to bring in a big framey breed like Simmys that might cause calving problems for my smaller framed girls, I'm not sure what to do. Might just have to always keep 25% or so purebred Herefords in the herd so I can have a consistent source of black baldy replacements. |
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