Breeding on ability of the Shorthorn color pattern

Sitting here, mostly wasting time today in the house instead of outside in the heat-- and I got to wondering---  has there ever been a shorthorn bull breed on only one color?  Figured I'd ask the masses of SP.

Have you ever had a red shorthorn bull produce only red calves, regardless of what color cow he was mated to?  Have you ever had a white bull only produce white calves-- even from 'red' cows?  What about a roan bull- have you ever had a roan bull only produce red calves? white calves? roan calves?

Interesting to think about.  I know that even the strictest red herds- still get roan popup every once in a while- as we all know that sometimes those 'reds' really have a roan hair somewhere.  With the genetics of roan, anything is possible, but has their ever been a bull defy the genetic odds?

Will be interesting to see what the long established shorthorn people of SP have to say?
AJ- you ever get roans from your reds? 
Okie/ Jamie-- how about your pure shorthorns-- ever get anything unusual?
JIT- I know you'll have a story
Coyote? 
anyone?

It would be genetically impossible for a white Shorthorn bull to breed all white progeny unless he was mated exclusively to white cows.

We all know the color probability w shorthorns when mating red, white, and roan so I won't go into that.  However, from my experience I recall 3W Payoff throwing "loud" colors regardless of dam color.  I also remember a lot of red neck roans and some other "wild" colors by dividend when bred to any type of cow (think WO Dividend for wild color).

irishshorthorns said:

It would be genetically impossible for a white Shorthorn bull to breed all white progeny unless he was mated exclusively to white cows.

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obviously.  I have heard rumor of an all white herd of Shorthorns in MO somewhere, I forget the guy's name-- The Colonel maybe?  Chief?  Something like that I think.  Anyways, rumor has it, they only have white cows, and only use white bulls. 

GM said:

We all know the color probability w shorthorns when mating red, white, and roan so I won't go into that.  However, from my experience I recall 3W Payoff throwing "loud" colors regardless of dam color.  I also remember a lot of red neck roans and some other "wild" colors by dividend when bred to any type of cow (think WO Dividend for wild color).

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I have also heard similar things.. I suppose this would also fit into my category of asking. 

I understand the laws of genetics quite well, and the probabilities of each color when mated together, even the fact that the spotting gene is quite unknown to anything about it.  Following the advice of the poster above yours- theoretically, red cows only mated to red bulls-- produce only red offspring-- however, we all know that is not the case.  I couldn't count the number of all red herds who'll have a roan popup once in a while-- Rob Sneed for one.  Most often that roan is from a roan, but not always.  Genetics don't lie, and I've heard JIT say many times that if you truly study that animal hard enough-- you'll find one single roan hair somewhere-- and in all reality-- even though that animal appears to be red--- it's really a roan genetically.  Who's to say that the white-- really isn't just a super light roan?  Jeff Cornell raised a pair of heifers from my old herd bull that one had red ears, and the other had a red eye-- or something to that effect-- both were papered as white though-- even though they were 99% white-- I'm betting genetically-- they're roan. 

My question still stands. 

If you breed a purebred Red Angus to a wild colored shorthorn you get pretty much reds or reds with white hairs. On a wild colored cow x Red Angus offspring.....even if female is red you can get get some god awfull spotty colors if bred to another solid red half blood bull.

I think that there are alot of shorthorns papered as "red" that mybe aren't true Reds.

329 is. Onside red red but has white on his belly. He throws calves with a white star or whites spots on red angus and black angus. I was shocked at first but now it's pretty cool IMO.

That's suppose to say 329 is considered red. Stupid phone

If a predominately red animal is born with ANY white on them at my place, they will be registered R/W/M. 

-XBAR- said:

If a predominately red animal is born with ANY white on them at my place, they will be registered R/W/M. 

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does the beef ass'n have that option/  The dairy ass'n has about 10 options of color-- but I'm not sure the beef does.

outspoken said:

-XBAR- said:

If a predominately red animal is born with ANY white on them at my place, they will be registered R/W/M. 

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does the beef ass'n have that option/  The dairy ass'n has about 10 options of color-- but I'm not sure the beef does.

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Actually the beef registration side has a lot of options now and it is almost confusing which one to pick sometimes...

NHR said:

outspoken said:

-XBAR- said:

If a predominately red animal is born with ANY white on them at my place, they will be registered R/W/M. 

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does the beef ass'n have that option/  The dairy ass'n has about 10 options of color-- but I'm not sure the beef does.

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Actually the beef registration side has a lot of options now and it is almost confusing which one to pick sometimes...

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where do you find this list?

outspoken said:

NHR said:

outspoken said:

-XBAR- said:

If a predominately red animal is born with ANY white on them at my place, they will be registered R/W/M. 

Click to expand...

does the beef ass'n have that option/  The dairy ass'n has about 10 options of color-- but I'm not sure the beef does.

Click to expand...

Actually the beef registration side has a lot of options now and it is almost confusing which one to pick sometimes...

Click to expand...

where do you find this list?

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When you use online registrations the color choice has 15 choices. 5 of them apply to purebreds and the others are for shorthorn plus.

The shorthorn country did a piece on the color deal maybe 15 years ago. Seems like there was like 15 options even including orange if I remember right.

-XBAR- said:

If a predominately red animal is born with ANY white on them at my place, they will be registered R/W/M. 

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not quite... found this.
http://shorthorn.org/Images/registration/expguides/colorreference.pdf

Shorthorn beef side has 5 options, correct... 

I'm actually a Simmental breeder, and I'm also very interested in color genetics...not as much with the roan gene, but obviously with the spot gene in Simmental cattle. Because Simmental have always had an open herd book here in the US, we have color genes from all sorts, including the roan gene. And I, too, and puzzled by how it manifests itself sometimes. I sold a red baldy, purebred Simmental heifer several years ago, and I still work some with the boy who bought her. He has a Black Joker daughter out of that cow in his pasture, and she's solid blue roan. Another red baldy daughter out of that same cow by Red Light produced a funky colored red roan calf out of a solid red purebred Simmie bull called Lchmn Bodybuilder...obviously, neither Red Light nor Bodybuilder are roan carriers. So imagine my surprise when I found THAT calf!

Both the cows--the dams of these roan calves--were solid red baldies with no white on their body. Both had white faces, red pigment around at least one eye, white feet, white belly and a white tail. And both had a small amount of roan on their tail where the red and white came together about half way between the tail head and the switch. There was no other roaning, speckling, mottling or spots anywhere that I remember. Those two old red baldy cows are gone now. There was another blue roan heifer, and I can't remember if she was out of the old red baldy cow or out of the blue roan daughter, but I do know the blue roan cow does produce blue roans about half the time.

Many years ago, a very high quality set of folks who show the local fair curcuit showed a blue roan purebred Sim heifer.  I always swore she must have been bred up from some shorthorn blood-- but they swore she was purebred Sim, and had zero shorthorn blood in her. 

Of course, since they also raise shorthorns, I kinda doubted them-- maybe the wrong straw of semen, or the bull jumped the fence.. but I never called them out.. They'd never done anything wrong to me to doubt them.. but they swore that heifer was purebred.

I had a guy tell me when he sold me a horned bull.....he is horned but he has polled blood in him!

outspoken said:

Many years ago, a very high quality set of folks who show the local fair curcuit showed a blue roan purebred Sim heifer.  I always swore she must have been bred up from some shorthorn blood-- but they swore she was purebred Sim, and had zero shorthorn blood in her. 

Of course, since they also raise shorthorns, I kinda doubted them-- maybe the wrong straw of semen, or the bull jumped the fence.. but I never called them out.. They'd never done anything wrong to me to doubt them.. but they swore that heifer was purebred.

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Well, with an open herd book, all purebred cattle have SOMETHING back in the wood pile, so to speak. The definition of "Purebred" means the animal's ancestry goes back to other stock, and the animal was bred up from cattle from one or more other breeds, even possibly commercial crossbred cattle! And in that case, there may not be anyone who can tell you what breed or breeds make up the history of the family.

A purebred is at least three generations back to a purebred Simmental parent, and though the rules and guidelines have changed a little over the years and are less strict now than they used to be, it's still three generations to purebred. The blue roan heifer I'm talking about goes back four generations to a 3/4 blood red, blaze faced Galant daughter out of a black baldy cow. Her mother's sire I know less about, but according to the papers, was out of a fullblood bull (meaning import bloodlines from Europe...no "breeding up" or other breeds involved) and was several generations of purebreds on the dam's side back to a cow considered to be 3/4 SM 1/4 Angus... All the bulls on the top side were fullbloods. The funny thing about this whole story to me was that this cow's grandmother-out of a solid red blaze faced 3/4 SM cow and a yellow, fullblood SM bull--was a lemon yellow baldy with goggle eyes and two very strangely shaped white spots on one side...they were shaped like bits of biscuit dough left over after your Grandma cut out the biscuits. I always found her markings interesting and strange. Her daughter was a blood red blaze faced heifer with a white belt that came up from her belly all the way across her loin and a red saddle coming back into the belt from the top of her shoulders. Even stranger than her mother... The red baldy was that cow's daughter and was plainly marked...I remember hoping for something more interesting and getting a plain red baldy with one red eye. I still have no idea where the roan came from!

I did buy another solid black cow in Kentucky once who was bred to DS Zinger when I bought her. The calf was born solid black, and by weaning time, I had noticed a few white hairs in the middle of her face. I ended up consigning her to the North American sale in Louisville, and she eventually roaned out all over. I'm pretty sure the guy who bought her thinks she was part Shorthorn, and I didn't BREED that heifer so all I had to go on was that I bought her mother bred to Zinger...I never knew quite what to make of that situation either, but as far as the heifer was made, she definitely looked like a Simmie...not a Shorthorn.

aj said:

I had a guy tell me when he sold me a horned bull.....he is horned but he has polled blood in him!

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Yeah...Well, THAT's an easy one! A horned calf out of two heterozygous polled parents is just as horned as any other horned calf there ever was! People who don't understand color genetics at all will tell you the same thing about red & black Simmies...a red out of two black parents "might have a black calf...she has black blood!"