crossbred cows vs straightbred cows

Why isn't there a paper that supports straightbred black cows? It seems to me there should be several due to the popularity of this breeding program? Will the next target of HSUS be the inhumane use of black cows in hot, humid climates?

I was sorta hoping this thread might get some traction.

Cross-bred cow's in my opinion are a good tool in meat production one problem is that you need around 1200 hd of cattle to do a consistent job. Another problem is finding purebred lines that are linebred that have the consistant maternal strengths that are better than say Shoshone X. The third thing of the top of my head is it is all terminal. just some thoughts.

In the swine industry, the maternal lines are crossbred as well as some of the terminal lines. Some terminal lines are purebreds, often Durocs.

Purebred sows are not used due to the lower number of pigs/litter compared to the production of crossbred sows. Just one reason.

Bob H wrote:

Cross-bred cow's in my opinion are a good tool in meat production one problem is that you need around 1200 hd of cattle to do a consistent job. Another problem is finding purebred lines that are linebred that have the consistant maternal strengths that are better than say Shoshone X. The third thing of the top of my head is it is all terminal. just some thoughts.

Can you expand on the need for 1200 hd of cattle? I would think a potload of similar sex and type of calves would be possible with less than 1200 hd of cows.

df wrote:

Will the next target of HSUS be the inhumane use of black cows in hot, humid climates?

No problem...we dig plenty of ponds and pass them off as black water buffalo!

Crossbreeding Huh? cant find someone to discuss it Huh? I wonder what all that Tru-line stuff is about again, some one will have to remind me.....seems like it was using purebreds, to create crossbreds, to create more profit oppurtunity. Funny thing about crossbreds, they are hard to make without purebreds though.

Too nice of a day here to lay up in the house and quarrel, ya'll have at it. I will join the party later.

df wrote:

I don't worry about the crossbreeding thread; this site is not about crossbred cows. I don't expect to have a serious discussion about crossbreeding. In fact, you can seldom find a serious discussion on the web about that topic.

That is the single most humbling statement I have read here or at the 4.9, unless Tom D is right and it was a well played strategy or we are stuck on cows vs seedless fruit application .... I often wonder if anything I post is worthwhile, embarrassed by the fact that I actually though I had something to add over 100 times on KC alone, when I should just sit back and learn. But I justify it because I believe in the Tru-Line philosophy

---------------------------------------“A Systematic Approach for Hybrid Beef Production” -------------------------------------------

“Breeding techniques measured by speculative monetary reward rather than by commercial economic contribution are perpetrated lotteries. To improve efficiency, the beef industry must divest itself from flirting with any parasitic elements, spawned from passive unawareness, who may debase the vital role of the profession. Divergent total performance breeding programs have been the initial sincere courtship between the seedstock supplier and the commercial producer. The ultimate marriage between these segments can be stimulated by designed and pre-evaluated linecrossing systems. United in this harmonious effort, the nucleus for harnessing hybrid power will be born. Utilization of hybrid power will provide yet another progressive step by genetically producing more from less.” Larry Leonhardt

The above quote sums it up for me... And about all I talk about these days, it's becoming apparent that I best just sit it out and leave it to the “Professional Teachers”

Why no papers? What is a paper? Bought and paid for, or politically inclined credibility to do what you have already decided you are going to do?

The continental breeds have adopted using Angus as the British (maternal) contribution for their traditionallly more terminal type cattle, and the results speak for themselves. It works. Of coarse, Angus are now really the more terminal cattle.

There are articles to brag about the superiority:

http://www.angus.org/pub/newsroom/releases/11510_CABAngusAdvantage.html

DF;
Here are some of my thoughts;

Example; 500 Black cows; (Breeding 500 cows with aprox 8 black bulls to get the 90 heifers)

90% calf crop = 450 offspring
Breeding 225 hd heifers
225 male

Average replacement of 500 cows at 15% = 75 hd heifer calves
Start with 90 heifers X 85% because of natural outage
(leaving 90 hd of blk male offspring to sell, making a load)

Plus;
Using 12 Herford bulls to = 270 live BB calves of which 140 would be heifers
With natural selection approximately 70% would be serviceable; The balance could go to the sale barn as feeder cattle. (of which 98 hd would be quality replacement BB’s)
The BB steer mates would be two small 42,000 lb loads


30 hd Herford Line bred cows to produce bulls for line.

650 Black Bally F1 cross bred to Charolais @ 90% = 585 calves or
 292 X Hfrs X 600 lbs or 3 ,58000 lb loads
 292 X strs X 600 lbs or 3, 58000 lb loads

This I think would be sustainable with only a small percentage of cattle that don’t fit in truck load lots. The off black bally, black and Herford calves, would have to be marketed at the sale barn.

The reason for starting at 1200 was to not end up with too many off cattle that cannot be marketed as load lots, this model is in my opinion is sustainable. This can be done on a smaller scale but you would have to stay creative on marketing the piece’s and input from other producers for genetic material thus putting you at risk with other people’s goals.

The scenario that we have used for the last ten years has been quite allot simpler but just uses 2 breeds, Shoshone X and Charolais. It was proposed by Larry to us from the onset we breed our replacement heifer’s to Shoshone X and breed for about one half one heat cycle to Shoshone X, then replace with Charolais for remaining time. This worked well until the last few years and our daughter came back to the ranch to partner with us.

We have made a commitment to expand our operation and in doing so we have looked at cheapening up labor and energy costs. At the same time we have investigated several different marketing strategies but these are a different conversation. Look forward to more dialogue

Kind of tying into Hilly and Bob H's posts about Trueline and it's adoption by commercial cattlemen I have a question. I had a customer come to me last year, 200 cow herd in the wilds of Northern Manitoba that has a herd of almost straightbred Limo cows although they started out as Angus or AngusxLimo and kept getting bred back Limo. They finally hit the wall on fertility (presumably the limo influence) and were looking for something to correct that problem and get the herd back on track. I think in a Trueline concept kind of way looking to add Luings to their program was a good idea although I'm aware we don't have anywhere near the predictability built into our purebreds yet that I'd like. The addition to their herd of fertile, maternal, better haired cattle for that tough northern climate will work well I think. The problem I see is where to go next and how to convince the breeder of that. I would expect the F1 crosses he gets will be an improvement on the current herd which leaves a favorable impression of the new breed. The temptation will be to breed these F1s back Luing which I doubt will be an improvement on the F1s, can't breed the F1s back Limo either and expect improvement. Breeding the F1s Charolais would give great calves to sell and really show the potential of the system but how to maintain the replacement side? What is a workable arrangement in this type of situation as unfortunately an awful lot of people will never be in the position to run 600 or 1200 cow herds. Is this a weakness of the Trueline concept or have the solutions all been thought of and aired previously?

GrassFarmer;
What the folks are experiencing is what we found out 20 years ago that crossbreeding that goes on of any form, within a breed or by crossing breeds i.e. Angus, beefmaster, Hereford, or any other so called breed will result in about 12.5 % of the females from any of these schemes become productive 10 year old cows which is completely unsustainable. The only thing that we found to stop this was to breed to linebred for maternal and low input costs. The percentage on the F1 cross’s improved the females. We continued forward breeding a large enough percentage of our original females and F1, 2, 3; etc to these linebred male's to replace what was falling out. In the beginning we were replacing about 25% yearly and now I think 12 years later we are down to replacing about 18% on our way to 10%, from opens, olds, death loss etc. what is really interesting is that we have seen very little fall out of the linebred cattle that are more generational and we visit that if we in theory can raise the productive age on our cows to say 16 years that we will receive about 10% more product to sell per year. Larry Leonhardt told me awhile back that he thought that he needed to have two lives’ to live. We will not get that but because of what that man has done for my family thru determination, my daughter will have a tremendously easier time understanding the good as well as limitations of cattle as we now use them to raise a protein product to feed hungry people off of land that is not suitable for crops. Saying this, “Thank you God and Larry. “ Jessie our daughter will be able to live part of that second life for you.

So back to your question I would recommend to anyone that wants to have a sustainable cow herd to use linebred bull’s that are highly predictable in all maternal balanced traits, raised with low cost input’s in mind. The first generation will be really fruitful because of hi-bred vigor with the next 3 or 4 generations losing some high bred vigor for pounds especially in females but increasing in predictability in being great factories to convert sunshine and water. One of the toughest things to do will be to stay the course to end up with a factory that you can cross any male on to produce what you want as an end product to eat. (This is where we feel we are 12 years later)

I need to write one more thing on this subject I believe that the value of a linebred functional, commercial, Cow herd in the future will be one of the most sustainable things to end up with a great eating experince that consumer's will support with their shopping dollars.

Looks like ol' Teach pulled one over on us, maybe, or just crawfished back in a hole, laid up with the latest summation of numerical analysis. Some good points brought up above. I think ol' Teach brought up hogs in the discussion, problem I see with them is they can have a right smart more youngins in year than cows. Looks to me like we cant really use them for maternal comparison. For the most part I like the simplicity of the straight bred cow, bred to the straight bred paternal line, unless you have more cows than your wife can take of, or buying crossbred heifers, bred to a third straight bred bull.

I guess a composite bull could work on crossed cows, but looks to me like their would be more variation, maybe, probably no more than a Esso, by EXT, by 6807, by 036 though......man that would be funny if it weren't true.