Need comments

[agmantoo]

I am considering the purchase of this animal. He is a registered Murray Grey with black genes and should throw black calves when bred to Angus. I need this feature. He has lived in luxury and has had grain and grass from weaning until he reached maturity. In the past when I purchased bulls with similar upbringing they lost condition when living off grass alone, My little bull that is pictured in a recent post here thrives off the forage on my farm. My concern is that he will not produce black calves even though he is only 1/8 Murray Grey. My bull has the same color as this one but I do not know anything about my Murray Grey's breeding. I just know that the two !/2 MG cows I have are half sisters and that my bulls mother and her sister have always had brown offspring. Your thoughts please. TIA

[BDB]

if he's bred to straight angus cows they should come out black, I've bred highland bulls to angus and they always come out black, I have one angus cross cow and she always throws grey calves, I've had that problem to had show cows that where pampered put them out on pasture did not do to well kinda like a crapshoot, nice lookin bull though

[Up North]

Originally Posted by agmantoo

I am considering the purchase of this animal. ... He has lived in luxury and has had grain and grass from weaning until he reached maturity.

My experience has been that bulls raised in this manner could not get the job done over the long haul when placed into a forage based environment.
I would not buy bull for this reason.

[milkinpigs]

There are too many good angus bulls available to spend your money on this bull......might I ask what direction you are wanting to go with your breeding program?

[B Adams]

Having been in the bull sale business for 21 years and sell around 150 bulls a year I would not purchase the bull. He is going to fall apart unless you continue to feed him. Beautiful bull and flesh sells but he will not hold up on pasture alone. We get new customers every year because they bought one of those fed and pampered bulls and they end up having to pull and feed every few months. Not worth it in my opinion. I would keep looking. I think you could get some off colored calves from him.

B Adams

[agmantoo]

I am raising feeder calves sold into the commercial market. They need to be black as the price advantage to me is more than $30 per head. I have had two Murray Grey mixed with Angus cows for nearly 10 years. These are wonderful animals as they are easy kept, very productive and produce offspring that always bring a premium less the dockage for color. I would like the entire herd to be comprised of such females IF they produced black calves. The availability of Murray Grey breeding stock is almost nonexistent. The availability of any grass feed black breeding stock is rare around here. Should I buy this bull he will have to be transported a tremendous distance and bought with only this picture as a basis of choice. He is the only black factor MG that I have located. If I could manage to use him for a couple of years I would have accomplished an opportunity to get a start in what I want as a herd. My cattle should have produced a few cattle worth retaining during that time. He is not what I want but he seems to be the only thing available other than the young bull I have raised. I guess from my rambling you are concluding that I am desperate and that would be correct.

[B Adams]

Okay after reading your last post I understand what you are trying to do with your breeding program. I do not know if you will get black calves or not but if you buy the bull, you will be taking a chance on color, but weight wise you should come out about the same on price, at least here in texas we get more for black calves but our char's out weigh them.

Will you be going back on replacement heifers with a black bull? We have gray cattle 1/2 char 1/2 ang that are grey that produce a black off spring when bred to black.

How old is this bull? I know you would not buy without a soundness exam. I would not worry about the long haul, just get him up and walking for a few days will help any soreness.

Buy the bull try it if it does not work out after one calving cycle sell and start over. Just remember you may have to pull him and put him on feed for a while but if you get the desired outcome it would be worth it. This will give you a chance to find the black bull you are looking for even if you have to buy a younger bull and wait for him to mature.

Sorry I am rambling but I do understand now what you are trying to do. By the way your pastures are beautiful and what a difference moisture makes.

May you get all the black heifers you want out of the new bull. I would with my luck end up with all steers lol.

B Adams

[Otter]

It seems to me as if you want everything this bull has to offer and the only concern is how he's fed? Is that right? If it is, what I would do is get him, feed him how he's used to (I know it's extra work) breed him to everything in your herd and get someone to teach him to mount the artificial cow and get semen off him to sell. You can't be the only one looking for black Murray Greys. After however long it takes you to get all your girls bred and a full tank of straws, sell him to the next person looking for black Murray Greys. Now you have a calf crop off him and you can use those straws on the cows who "clicked" best with the breeding and hope for a good bull calf to feed however you want.

Is there any reason you can't get the same price you paid back for him in 8 months or so as long as he's still in the same condition? If so, then all it's cost you to get the genetics you want in your herd is the time and trouble of "babying" him for those months. You've profited by your calf crop, any straws you sold and any straws you keep. If you train him for AI, could you possibly get more for him?

Just my thoughts on it.

[Up North]

An acorn falls close to the tree.
If a bull requires pampering and grain to reach his full potential, would his daughters and sons be so different?

I pose a difficult question for consideration:
Which is the greater determinant of an operation's annual overall net profit?
1.) Developing cattle that can thrive and produce good heavy calves from grass with a minimum of additional monetary and labor inputs to maximize net profit.
or
2.) Developing cattle that will yield the premium prices in today's market on *a per pound basis*.

I realize, of course, that you wish to do both, LOL.

This dilemma reminds me of "The Great One" NHL Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky. When asked about his unique accomplishments, Gretzky replied "I do not skate to where the puck is, ... I skate to where the puck is going to be."
Quote:
" Gretzky's intelligence and reading of the game were unrivaled. He was adept at dodging checks from opposing players, and he could consistently anticipate where the puck was going to be and execute the right move at the right time. " End Quote.

If the puck in the beef cattle industry is net profit, do we produce for where the puck is, or do we produce for where the puck is going to be?

In every industry there are leaders and there are followers.
Leaders have conviction to pursue the direction they know to be correct.

[wstevenl]

That was the best reply!
I really hate to hear when people are making breeding decisions based on color, especially black, because the color preference could change easily. If your MG genetics are better, show them off with MG colors.
For summer sun, black is not even a good color. I had read that they were breeding the black out of Holsteins in Switzerland and my brother in law saw it with his own eyes a few weeks ago. There were huge, almost all white, dairy cows being rotationally grazed with electric tap on the most beautiful pastures he'd ever seen. He wasn't in Switzerland it see cattle but they were on a shortcut back to the airport and saw them.
Point is, black isn't the best color, only the most popular for now.

[agmantoo]

Question number one is closer to being correct IMO
Which is the greater determinant of an operation's annual overall net profit?
It could be the following however............
Developing cattle that thrive on your farm and creating a product that the buyers want while generating the greatest net profit for the producer.

If the puck in the cattle industry is net profit I really do not care where the industry is other than it exists. I care only where my net profit, not the industries is positioned. Maybe my farm will only produce a mediocre calf but one that the finishers will buy. I have to determine how to put that mediocre calf to the market at a profit. In so doing, the net profit from that mediocre calve will determine whether I remain in business. If I produce the animal that the market will pay a premium for but at a loss to me, I have only subsidized them. They stay in business and I fall out.

[farmergirl]

I would stick with breeding cattle that bloom on your forage program. Who cares if you earn an extra $30/ head on black calves, if it costs you more than that in the extra feed you go through to raise them? Not to mention the labor associated with the supplemental feeding. With the price of oil skyrocketing and the cost of feed being so high now, and hard to predict for the future, why not just feed what you can grow? That is sustainable and ultimately sounds more profitable. Never underestimate the value/ cost of the time required to accomplish something. That right there adds exponentially to your overall input costs.

[pointer_hunter]

I would have to look at which amount I am willing to lose in the end. 30 dollars each for not being black, or the amount of weight not gained because the bull produced calves that didn’t finish out the greatest on grass.

I am constantly dealing with the same thing. Every time I turn around someone is trying to sell me into the “black” cattle. I keep trying to explain I want grass genetics and not color but that doesn’t seem to sink in. I did, however, purchase two black heifer calves but that is because they are Angus/Dexter crosses and I want to try to bring my frame size down a bit.

I would say that if you really want this bull, get him, breed him and look for the best offspring you can from him. Strict culling will get you to the Black MG breed you are looking for.

[Allen W]

CAB thats the dollars behind the black hide. Certified Angus Beef one of the first value added products labels. When the slaughter house inspector passes a black calf as CAB its that carcass is instantly worth more than the one without the designation. If the Hereford people had started their program when the Angus people did The white face could be just as much in demand.

Agmann the Murrey Grey is an interesting breed I hadn't thought much about until your post and I done a little looking. They have quite a few positive characteristics to be a good low input type of cattle.

Its what works for you that counts. Your the one who knows what you want and where your going. What it costs you to get that calf to selling weight determines your profit as much or more then what the calf brings.

[randiliana]

OK, I am not going to argue with anyone over whether or not this bull will do the job on forage for you. We have brought in bulls that were fed as young animals, some work, some do not.

As for the black hide thing, if this bull is grey (and it looks to me that he is) you have a 50%-100% chance of having grey calves off of black cows. Off red cows, they may be black, gray, red or tan.

Looking at him, I am inclined to think he is heterozygous for the dilute gene, that is he has 1 diluter gene. He may or may not be homozygous for the black gene, although, I think that Murray Gray are homo black.

So here is what he probably is
Dd - hetero dilute
EE - Homo black

So, if you are breeding him to homo black cows, you will get

DdEE x ddEE =

DdEE - Gray
DdEE - Gray
ddEE - Black
ddEE - Black

If he were a homo dilute (usually these animals are fairly light colored) all the calves off of homo black cows would be gray.

The dilute gene works on top of the base color. All cattle have a base color of Red, Black or Wild Type (Jersey). Gray, tan, dun, chocolate etc are all dilutions of those base colors.

[Jennifer L.]

Originally Posted by pointer_hunter

I would have to look at which amount I am willing to lose in the end. 30 dollars each for not being black, or the amount of weight not gained because the bull produced calves that didn’t finish out the greatest on grass.

I am constantly dealing with the same thing. Every time I turn around someone is trying to sell me into the “black” cattle. I keep trying to explain I want grass genetics and not color but that doesn’t seem to sink in. I did, however, purchase two black heifer calves but that is because they are Angus/Dexter crosses and I want to try to bring my frame size down a bit.

I would say that if you really want this bull, get him, breed him and look for the best offspring you can from him. Strict culling will get you to the Black MG breed you are looking for.

My neighbor raises Black Angus to sell to a processor near Philly for the "gourmet" meat market. They don't want anything but black because the CUSTOMERS only want black. They've been sold hook, line and sinker on the Black Angus, so that's what they want. We all know the colour doesn't make a dimes worth of difference to the taste of the meat, but those buyers that are wanting to put a half of a steer in the freezer in the metro markets aren't going to pay a premium price for that meat unless it's what they've been sold is the best meat. That processor won't even buy a cow that isn't black. So, yeah, black pays.

[Carol K]

You need a bull with grass fed genetics behind him. Have you thought of contacting Gerald Fry (Bovine Engineering) , I believe he has some grass fed Murray Grey animals.

Carol

[Cadfor]

A comment from a MG breeder of 30 years experience from Down Under.

randiliana has the chances set out well. A nice explanation and a good website - congrats Randi.

The grey bull will throw 50% black 50% grey over black cows. It doesn't matter whether he is 1/8 MG or 100% MG.

We have a MG stud herd in New South Wales, Australia. If we breed grey to grey we get 25% black. We used to avoid grey / grey matings but now that the MG Society registers black animals, we have a few black 100% MG. Some breeders want these black animals to put over their Angus to get the better carcase characteristics of the MG.

We feed ours on grass with hay in winter. We weighed the calves on the weekend - the best are doing over 1.5 kg / day (something over 3 lb per day).

Rod Hoare
Cadfor Murray Greys,
Binda NSW