Luing Question

Grassfarmer do most of your luing cattle trace back to snowlander influence? I cannot remember you posting a picture of an animal with horns. Has red angus been crossed into the luing breed thru a breed up policy? I have been reading your web page.

patb wrote:

Grassfarmer do most of your luing cattle trace back to snowlander influence? I cannot remember you posting a picture of an animal with horns. Has red angus been crossed into the luing breed thru a breed up policy? I have been reading your web page.

That's because I know how to run a dehorning iron . I've "graded up" a few Luings from a commercial red Angus base but I just use them for what they are now - F1s, F2s - commercial cows. Nobody else did that because back in the day when Luing were being imported into Canada there were very few Red Angus here. I think the two breeds are very complimentary and that F1 cross is maybe the biggest opportunity for our breed. There was snowlander infused as a one off deal into the Luing breed - not really too much of an outcross as the snowlander came from the same origin - it was a 50/50 shorthorn/Highland creation with about 50 years of development under it's belt at the time of the infusion. At time of infusion they bred a Luing bull to snowlander cows and allowed some offspring in as "grade up" 75% Luings upon inspection. The polling came from the snowlanders because the foundation shorthorn bull was homozygous polled and somehow that knocked the horns off with a fair degree of consistency. The Luing calves in Canada today come around 90% polled, although they will only be heterozygous. Most of the purebred males are scurred. There are a very few animals here that are purely Scottish ancestry (no Snowlander) and we do run them separate as an "outcross" division to our main breeding program.
Good job you have been reading my website Pat, reminds me its high time it was overhauled.

Tis the season for reading, expanding my horizons and thinking about new ideas. It is below zero outside before windchill.

Yeah, same here - winter returned yesterday afternoon. Was -30Cs today with windchill and a week of the same forecast. Won't complain as long as we get some decent snow with it.