Anyone have experience with Angus/Longhorn cattle?

Duker17

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I'm working on trading a horse, we've had lots of offers for other horses (not what I want!) but also 2 offers that I'm trying to decide between. The first was for a couple of dairy goats and the second is for a 4 month old, 300 pound, angus/longhorn heifer. Either way we are not necessarily making an even trade, given that the mare is very well broke and seasoned, but since you can't seem to actually sell a horse for cash we are willing to trade for something more useful. Plus, I've got 4 other horses so I'm still horse-poor ;)

Anyways, anyone have any experience with a longhorn cross? They said she's got horns coming in, so we'd definitely need to fix that. This would be our first calf, but my husband and I have quite a bit of cattle experience. She was raised on a milk cow, so not a bottle calf.

Is there any questions I should be asking that perhaps haven't thought of?
 

WildRoseBeef

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That can't be right. An Angus-Longhorn F1 cross would not be growing horns, because the polled gene is dominant over the horned gene, even if a hetero polled is bred to horned (though there's a 25% chance offspring would be horned). The heifer is either not Angus-Longhorn cross, or she's 3/4 Longhorn and 1/4 Angus, which means that she would have a better chance of growing horns than if she were offspring from pure Angus to pure Longhorn.

Sorry to hijack your post, but it was just something I noticed and had to mention.
 

Duker17

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That was actually something I was thinking too. If polled is P and horned is p, all offspring would be Pp= polled. Right? I actually don't think I am going to do the deal with this guy, something seems off. I'm going to trade the mare for a couple of well-bred pregnant dairy goats and hopefully sell the kids, recouping the original cost of the mare in cash. We are able to obtain bottle calfs (purebred angus or holstein) from our neighbor/friends pretty cheap and know what we are getting.

Thanks!
 

WildRoseBeef

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Duker17 said:
That was actually something I was thinking too. If polled is P and horned is p, all offspring would be Pp= polled. Right? I actually don't think I am going to do the deal with this guy, something seems off. I'm going to trade the mare for a couple of well-bred pregnant dairy goats and hopefully sell the kids, recouping the original cost of the mare in cash. We are able to obtain bottle calfs (purebred angus or holstein) from our neighbor/friends pretty cheap and know what we are getting.

Thanks!
Precisely, when going Angus (PP) x Longhorn (pp). Polled is always going to be dominant no matter if you're referring to a homozygously-polled animal (PP), or a heterozygously polled animal (Pp). I certainly wouldn't go with the offer either, as it seems the owner isn't too aware of genetics or the heifer is mixed with something that is NOT Angus, and is only advertising it just to get some attention from those who get suckered into the Angus part of things. (If you've been looking around in the forums, check out the thread titled Black Herefords in the Breeds & Breeding Board where there's a little discussion about Angus and CAB.)

And your welcome, glad I could help. :)
 
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