Shorthorn Experts; If I breed a Smoke Cow to a Horn, What color(s) can I expect?

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RSC

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Jan 30, 2007
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I have a really soggy Smoke cow that I am looking for breeding suggestions.  She is a Hostage X PB Char.  I have had several Heatwave X PB Char Cow calves this year.  We have had some darn good ones out of this combo but have also had full sibs that were rat-tails.  It's great to get a good one but I don't like the throw-aways that come along with this breeding matchup.

I have noticed several posters on several boards mentioning breeding Smoke Cows to PB Shorthorns.  What are the different color combos that can come from a bull like Sin City on a smoke.  Any color is fine as long as we can limit the chances of a rat-tail.  I know the Simmi breed is known for this but what other breeds can give you trouble?

Thanks for any thoughts,

RSC
 

garybob

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RSC, Just Remember: ANY breed combination with the diluter gene will give you a "rat tail" calf, when bred to anything black. If I were breeding a Shorthorn to a Smokey Cow,I'd  use a Red bull. Red Shorthorn bulls aren't used by clubby breeders, so, there, is your quandary. Always thought Halfblood Char-Angus cows bred to Bulls like Peak View Moet, or Mission, or Red Cloud 7026, would be a real deal. My version of color&hair are, RED & SLICK.

Just my opinion.
 

red

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hey Tony!

We have a red/white Maine purebred bull that we've bred to some Char cross cows. Never had any rat tails from them. I'm sure Genes can give you a break down on rat tails!
We've gotten a lot of different color patterns from him & the combinations. Most have been a peachy cream color. Some have been red/white & a very small % a true cream.
I'll let the Shorthorn breeders suggest bulls. Are you looking for a club calf bull?
How did you get along w/ Hostage? My worst calves ever came from that combination of him. Might have just picked the wrong types of cows but they never amounted to much.

Red
 

itk

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I would guess you would get mostly creams or roans just depending on if the cow had red genes back in her pedigree like a Heatseeker x Char. If you wanted to use red bulls I would suggest Sherwoods Red Vision or Final Solution. The Red Vision calves made a big splash at WHR's this spring and IMO Final Solution might be the most useful bull this breed has seen in awhile.
 

red

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I really like the Red Visions calves I've seen. Have some left in the tank but just never have found the right cow to suit me for him.
What about the Proud Jazz bull?

Red
 

genes

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Ok so you have a whole bunch of different genes at work here, which is going to make a lot of possibilities.  I'll try to explain by breaking things down into the separate genes.  Remember though, rather than the colour you see being inherited as one big chunk, it is like layers, where you start with a base colour (either red or black, or occassionally that weird 'brown'), then each type of modifier adds another layer on top.

Also, remember the basics that each animal has 2 copies of each gene, which can say the same thing (homozygous) or different things (heterozygous).  When an animal is bred, they only pass on one of the genes - which one is 50/50 chances just like a coin toss - and so each animal has one of the two genes from each parent.

1.  Base colour.  (Note I'm going to leave out that "weird brown" because it's not all that common in our beef breeds and would just make life confusing here.  So a cow is going to start off genetically with either a red or black base.  Black is dominant which means either two (homozygous) or one (heterozygous) copy of the black gene will make the cow appear black.  On the other hand, to appear red, they must  have two copies of the red gene (homozygous recessive).  The implications of this is that there is red animals can only pass on red genes, but black animals, if homozygous, can still pass on red genes and have red calves.

In your case, because the cow is smoky, we know she has one copy of the black gene, and the other copy is quite likely red coming from PB charolais (I believe most of them are red based under their white). 

2.  Dilution is what makes Chars white.  It's only partially dominant, so that in a double dose, the animal is diluted all the way to white, while in a single dose, they are only partly diluted, to smoky or tan (smoky for the black based animals, tan for the red based ones).  So your cow has a single copy of the dilution gene, which is obvious both by her visual colour and her PB Char parent.  This means she will pass on the dilution 50% of the time, and 50% of the time not.

3.  The rat tailed defect, as far as I know, requires the cooperation of different genes together.  The animal must be black based, diluted (with either the char or simmental dilution), and also get the actual rat tailed gene.  Something to that effect.  The fact that you had full sibs with and without it illustrates that 50/50 chance element.  Has the cow ever had a rat tailed calf before?  If not, it's possible she just doesn't have the rat tailed gene, but you can't tell for sure until she has one, so still not a bad idea to plan wisely.

4.  The roan gene in shorthorns.  This gene is codominant which means that the heterozygous has a different look than the two homozygotes.  So unlike in the chars, where white comes from a dilution, in shorthorns whites are actually just homozygous for roan.  Solid reds are homozygous for "not roan" and roans have one copy of each gene.    So when you breed a solid colour to a white shorthorn (such as Sin city) you get 100% roans, as they get the roan from the white parent and the non-roan from the solid parent.



So put that all together and geez what a soup.  But I'll try to summarize the possibillities

Smoke cow X White shorthorn =
  Blue Roan
  Smoky roan (not sure if that's an official term, but that's what I'm saying :p)
  Red roan
  Tan roan

Smoke cow X Red Shorthorn =
  Black
  Smoky
  Red
  Tan

Smoke Cow X Roan shorthorn  =
  All 8 given in above 2



About the rat tail....your best bet would be to stick to red based bulls, so that you maintain that 50% chance of a red based calf,  which can't have the defect.
 
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