Why is Char bred so popular?

These on-line sales from down in Texas and southern states, these Char x steers bring the most money. Why? These gray, blonde, yellow calves are hot right now and I don't understand <beer>!

Grey or yellow is the new black.

The lighter colored steers slick shear well.  They just look stouter and smoother slick than blacks, so they win a lot more.  Thus, there are lots of people breeding good Charolais influence club calves, especially in this part of the country.  Enough that there are some good haired ones, too... 

I think they performance documentation of Charolais influenced cattle speaks for itself.

I'm glad they are having their deserved run of stardom. Charolais breeders did a great job over the last several decades selecting practical performance traits and still keeping them visually appealing. They compliment many different breed types.

Mid-tone colored cattle do look better in the slick shows then do the blacks. Some people have different theories why, but I think it might have something to do with how light is reflected on those lighter colors. Black absorbs all the light making them appear not as stout in comparison. Also, black will give you a more contrasting outline against a background, while mid-tones will not be as sharp and tends to blend more against the same values as the surrounding background. Blacks can win in these shows but they better be near perfect, super smooth , stout and clean jointed with the right kind of bone that otherwise long well groomed hair usually enhances.

The Charolais is also excelling in the real world because of their color, there was a lot of black fat  cattle last summer in NE. lost from the heat ,also the people up here in NE. that calve in APRIL and have bulls breeding in July -August notice less breeding power and activity from black bulls during the heat ....In the show cattle Charolais can help with more meat and muscle ,and in our herd we are producing calving ease bulls for commercial heifers and customers are real satisfied ...

(thumbsup)

The big thing that separates the Charolais bred from also rans like the Maine Anjou, Chianina, Blondes and to a lessor extent the Limousin is that Charolais breeders listen to their bull customers and select accordingly.  When the first Full french came over they established the Conception to Consumer program to weed out the cow killers and the cattle that did not work in North American production systems.  Many valuable imported bulls went from a pedestal to your grocers freezer because of the results of this program. Even though the C to C program is gone the tradition of what the commercial cattlemen wants and will pay money for is the biggest driver in the breed.
The breed also was on the ground floor of imported cattle and as a result some of the best cattle men with progressive ideas on testing and promotion gravitated to the breed.  Foloow on imports did not have this people advantage or commitment to over coming problems in the breed. Read the following article on the history of the Charolais in the 1960's particularly the comments by Bill Hartel: http://charolaisbanner.com/newcbsite/charolais-reminiscenses/
Note the charolais breed still shows but it is not driven by the showring like the Maine Anjou is for example.  Show winning cattle are still valuable but they just another facet of the breed.

Freddy and Mark H hit the nail on the head it's all about breed advertising. That's why the black "angus" steers were so sought after for so long, the Charolais are now have their time in the limelight. Next up is the Hereford marked steers we are a cyclical industry. Won't be long till the blacks are back on top.

It wasn't advertising that did it for the Charolais.  It was word of mouth from people that used the cattle.  The  big thing is that the breed created a performance evaluation system that allowed for the selection of easier calving and better growing cattle at the same time.  After that Charolais advertising basically consisted of testimonials on how well they did for someone in putting more $$$ in their pocket on sale day with out big problems.

Lets not go to fast, in our country birth weight is still  the biggest problem, and not that  they have been having problems but they shy away because of past history ....
In our program we have breeders using Charolais bulls on their replacement heifers of various breeds ....Disposition and birth weight were big problems at one time in the breed ....

Freddy said:

Lets not go to fast, in our country birth weight is still  the biggest problem, and not that  they have been having problems but they shy away because of past history ....
In our program we have breeders using Charolais bulls on their replacement heifers of various breeds ....Disposition and birth weight were big problems at one time in the breed ....

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Very true-- there are still MANY people who won't even consider using a Char bull because "their calves are too big."  It's wild to me how anyone subscribes to stereotypes that originated over 50 years ago-- Typical of the ignorance shown by those who subscribe to any stereotype really,,, Just yesterday I saw on FB where someone was suggesting breeding a group of females to Charolais bulls.. but w/ the disclaimer... "only after they've had a calf or two"    Just makes me cringe to see that stereotype being relived as there is absolutely no validity to that type of statement.  There is a long list of Char bulls that are heifer safe-  likewise, there is a long list of Angus bulls that will you'll pull ever calf out of heifers.

It is very difficult to make generalized statements  on whetger any bull will work on heifers.  Much depends on what the heifers are like physicaaly genetically. Also what the management capabilites are critical.  One way we found to get around the hard calving problem is to sell a bull we know is a greatmatch for  a grop of cows and their management.  If he feels disssatified at anytime he can bring the return bull and get his money back.  Doing this we kept the privce of your yearling bulls up and increased the confidence of the buyers.  We only had a few come back and they were resold in a couple of weeks to other buyers.
Something else to consider: many breeders have good markets for red factor bulls that keep the color pattern of the cow. Here is the ideal calving ease dark red charolais bull SRK Canyon 2K: http://www.semex.com/beef/i?lang=en&beef=view&view2=MC339579

Mark H --Not my kind of program ,sounds like your customers are being used for testing program with them taking all the risk ....Charolais has kind of been doing that for years , young people put up with it some , but when they get more experienced paying the bills  and not wanting that extra work they quit ....  We have blood lines that are backed by EPD'S ,proof on different type heifers and many different breeds , but you have customers that cause their own problems by picking heifer bulls and paying more attention to WW- YW then to CE-BW ....  also MANY OF THOSE BUYERS WILL DEFINITELY  will pay more money for a growth bull then any heifer bull they need ...

I like all the comments, all have good points! But these no name bred colored cows that people are selling embryo's out of are making a killing... I guess I should jump on the band wagon and flush a yellow cow to monopoly and sell these things for $600 a piece... <beer>

Freddy said:

Mark H --Not my kind of program ,sounds like your customers are being used for testing program with them taking all the risk ....Charolais has kind of been doing that for years , young people put up with it some , but when they get more experienced paying the bills  and not wanting that extra work they quit .... 

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What are you saying here?  To me it sounds like Mark H offers a risk free trial where he assumes all the risk--  I'd jump at that offer w/ nearly any Shorthorn bull I thought was 'potentially' worthy

aarcher8774 said:

I like all the comments, all have good points! But these no name bred colored cows that people are selling embryo's out of are making a killing... I guess I should jump on the band wagon and flush a yellow cow to monopoly and sell these things for $600 a piece... <beer>

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How much do you think it costs to make those $600 Monopoly embryos?  For what mine cost to make, I don't think I'd be willing to part with them for even $600.....

X-Bar -What I mean is if that customer has calving problems, looses calves ,extra work , that is part of his income that year ....  Reminds me of  a practice used up here in selling these real fat bulls for semen tested bulls to breed cows ,many don't test the second year and some of these bulls are thrown in a pasture of more than one bull so he might not have bred a cow all summer ....Getting to be a smart practice to retest bulls bought at a sale that year ....

Crystal he is talking about just the embryos. Depending on how many your cow flushes depends on what you can ask per embryo and if you don't put them in the embryologists recipes that makes the price go down.

Freddy said:

X-Bar -What I mean is if that customer has calving problems, looses calves ,extra work , that is part of his income that year ....  Reminds me of  a practice used up here in selling these real fat bulls for semen tested bulls to breed cows ,many don't test the second year and some of these bulls are thrown in a pasture of more than one bull so he might not have bred a cow all summer ....Getting to be a smart practice to retest bulls bought at a sale that year ....

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Anyone pushing the envelope with a growthy terminal bull is going to have 'some' calving problems-- How will you ever determine your threshold if you don't push the envelope?