WY, OK | Flatwater - 1/7/2011 09:12
Not sure if I should start a new topic or just continue with this one, but this one got me thinking. I have a fair number of straight red angus cows/heifers. If I were to breed to black baldie bull, what are the odds that I get Black Baldie calves? Or would they all come out either straight red or red baldie.
I guess second part to that would be, would I be better off going with a Hereford bull and make them all red baldie for uniformity?
Never quite got all the what crossed with what will give you what when I was in school. So any information or places to read up would be greatly appreciated.
You'd be far better of crossing with a pure bred Herf., if you used a super baldy that bull has already gained the most from the cross breeding and you'd be getting only half, or less, of the potential. I'd suggest a google search on Hybrid vigor and heterosis for more info. I think the way the market is going there are a few positions you can take, you can be a pure bred breeder supplying the commercial side, you can be the commercial guy that is either making the baldies or buying the baldies for cows and running a Charolais bull on them to get the absolute best hybrid vigor. You can figure 700lb+ waning weights with those Charolais cross calves and then take off 50-100lbs for each one of those steps backwards, baldies back to pure bred etc etc.
We've chosen to produce the baldy females, we did the Charolais cross thing for many years with great success but the drought reduced our numbers and when you aren't making any heifers you can keep expenses got too high. |
crossing black angus cattle
