Can anyone, other than those who raise them, really tell any difference between their meat and the meat of the untermenschen?

Marketing ploy. miles

I don't know that the 100% Angus marketing ploy is exactly truthful.

What I do know is that when we started getting a few too many calves that weren't predominantly black, the cattle buyer would say something about it. If there were too many the next buying trip, he would cut them, and not buy them.

As long as the calves were mostly "black" they got the seal of approval for "Angus Beef"...

It also is reflected in the cattle markets. Year in a year out, black calves will bring more per pound than non black cattle.

If I were going to eat a calf, I'd choose a black heifer calf and feed her to about 1100 1200 pounds and plan it to go to the packer in the spring, because they gain more weight in cooler weather per pound of feed.

What they ate and how they were finished

angus cattle are more warm and cuddly than most any other breed. that by definition makes them more sought after, valuable, and solicited.

it really is that simple.

I bet there are very few breeds that have not been influenced by some other breed.

Angus cattle have more marbling in the meat than other breeds, as a whole. But, the way the animal was 'fed out', the aging of the carcass, the processing, etc. all contribute to the quality of the meat, more than the breed of the animal.

What they eat, how you feed them out, how they are handled during processing and aging makes more difference than what color they were.

From a producer standpoint they generally have good instincts/dispositions and make good cows(mothers..). Fairly easy to handle and can withstand a wide range of 'weather'.

And that is worth a lot.


(they also make damn good beef steaks....)



We have 3 red cows, 3 char cross cows and the rest are all black/black white face.

dont know how well i can tell the difference between angus and another breed besides longhorn(near zero fat) but can tell the difference between one raised on dry prairie versus one raised on richer food stuffs like a feedlot.....having grown up on it i much prefer local beef to what most seem to think is good beef, i'm used to the lower fat content of local beef.....feedlot beef or stuff raised on richer ground than our short grass prairie tastes "greasy" to me, stuff given lots of corn to finish off even more so...

Everywhere you look now you see them advertising Angus beef. People think it is better from this, so they will pay a little more, thinking the beef will be better. A few years back the buyers wanted Charolais and their crosses. Before that it was black white face. Buyers and sellers always have a gimmick. miles

Sam, do you recall what the name of that huge Red Angus ranch in Montana was. They where huge back in the 90s

Yeah, give me grass-fed beef anytime, compared to feed-lot cow meat. I like it better lean. It's got to have SOME fat, but not the way they're finishing them out now.

Viking, I know who you are talking about but can't think of the name.

Some of the bigger ranches merged or are listed under the same sale.



We have a 2.5 year old heifer that might weigh about 900lbs this fall. The -10F calf that lived...


She's been on grass for 2 months and we'll haul that pasture home in a couple more months, so 4-5 months on straight grass.


Thought about butchering her right from the pasture but have heard a few stories that make a guy second guess.

Safe to say she's 100% organic, might have got a little back pour last spring but that's it.

Yup! Hardees......uhhhhhhhhhkay!!

agreed, use another quality beef ( Hereford comes to mind) fed and raised in a similar fashion


and I'd lay some pretty good odds there's not many (if any) folks that could tell for certain which steak is which

as far as the best of both worlds those black, bald faced cow Sammo and Miles mentioned were always my faves.


seemed the best of both worlds, calves not too big, but the cows were leggier than pure Angus, good milk producers for their calves and by and large good mothering instincts.


not much prettier than a field full of them cows grazing to my eyes when I fancied myself a "cattleman" (read dirt poor farm boy with delusions of grandeur)

speaking of which, I've made a far above average living surrounded by good lookin gals in their child bearing years Sammo


and yet there's days I'm jealous as hell of the life you lead.

I know it's got plenty of hard work and worry involved, I haven't completely forgotten how it goes


grass always seems greener on the other side, but I hope in the big pic you're happy with your choice Sammo.


I really wished I'd have stayed on the farm and helped my grandad until he passed. There'd of still been plenty of time for me to live the life I wanted.

Sam can pretty well guarandamntee you, watching you work the ranch probably buys your dad an amount of happiness that's hard to put a price on.

(at least that's how I hope it is)

Leachman?

oh yeah it definitely has fat but not as much....i have a buddy with a few longhorns and for grins one year he did steaks instead of pure burger....yeah that didnt work out so well, way to little fat for a good juicy steak.....

did like having some of the longhorn burger though, was great for things like tacos, meatloaf ect where you didnt want a bunch of grease to pour off, usually bought about 40 pounds of that a year and a full normal beef from someone else on top of what deer and stuff we shot and put in the freezer....to teenage athletes can lay waste to a freezer, youngest used to take a 3 pound package of burger out after practice, thaw it out, make it into three burgers, eat those and then still have supper with the rest of us a few hours later

Remember when the buyers wanted a black with a little ear. They do make good mama cows.



When we had cattle and fed out our own, 2 weeks in the lot and then to the processor. Anymore and there was too much fat.

In general, Angus cattle will tend to have the ability to lay a bit more intramuscular fat than most other common breeds.

The cattle tend to have above average performance so theoretically, they will be ready to harvest at a younger age and have the ability, because of that, to be a bit more tender.

That's what is called 'marbling'. Fat dispersed throughout the muscle.

Angus cows might do good in the grassy pastures in much of the country but there are better cows for the scrubby stuff we call open range in most of Arizona. Angus cows do make a good momma I will give them that. Some of my best steaks have come from Herefords and hereford crosses. Hard to fault that breed too.

For a while, the top money was on Brangus calves- at least for a couple of years there. I think many folks raise what they know they can sell, others what they think is best.

I'd be willing to be that the slogan 100% Angus beef is an Angus cross that might only be 50% true Black Angus.

When my grandpa who has been dead close to 40 years started building his cattle herd, buyers wanted registered Herefords. He was selling registered yearling Hereford bulls in the 1940's for $2000 per head.

Now the rage is for Angus beef and the price reflects it.

Since about the early 70's, the Angus producers have done a better job of advertising - and also genetic improvement (via Expected Progeny Differences) making it easier to select stock that suits your conditions (theoretically and statistically)
That said, angus are not the same critters I grew up around in the early 60's - DUH! Cows regularly go 1200 instead of 900, don't kick near as much, and don't try to root like a hog under a fence when tightly confined.
The new version is a pleasure t work with. Red Angus seem to have many of the same traits, and bring the same money.
My all-time favorites are black-baldy's.
Mark

Things changed forever for the Herefords back in 1889 when they started calling them up at supper time and asking their opinion on politics.

Black-baldy's are hard to beat. My favorite was a charlois-angus cross for the mama bred to a brangus. Calves always brought top dollar at the sale barn.

Great, now I'm gonna have to go to the store and buy some steaks for dinner tomorrow.......

Thanks guys.....

Randy, the traffic sucks....




And beings I don't have any kids we currently have a labor crunch aka falling behind...

Luckily the market is decent.

Char crossing the road.......

this post has me grinnin from ear to ear. good on ya Sammo

I learned a lot on this thread. I always thought Angus beef was meat from a Scottish Highlander.

Charlois, Black Angus and Simmental. Can you pick out the Simmental?

There's a lot of Angus being raised around here; Black and Red, often in the same pasture.

If a Black bull breeds a Red cow, can the offspring come out either way of somewhere in between?

Also, what are those cattle that look like a Charolais that leaned up against a freshly painted black wall?

I understand the Simmental has done more to improve registered stock of all kinds than anything else in history.

My cousin was running a restaurant for a while. He's the kind of guy that knows everything and can't be told anything. We were talking about food costs and I asked if he knew what his ratios were. After I explained ratios he said his were going down because he wasn't going to buy angus beef anymore. He said most people are too stupid to even know what part of the cow the angus is anyways.

Bb

...no, that would be one of these...our stock of choice...15 month heifer pictured.... "Lean" meat is the word with this breed. They are half-goat, eat most anything.

There's one black cow that looks like she's got Simmental in her and the char cross cows look like they could have some as well.

My father in law had a registered angus cow herd.
No I can not tell the difference between herford, angus or other breeds after its grilled.

Randy, round baling hay barley this morning as soon as the dew blows off, get down here and help!




RO, if they aren't all a 3 way cross I would guess the brockle face hiding in the back would have to be the Simmental.







Yes, it could be black(most likely), red or reddish brown.

Good eye, Sam. Plus the three that are with her. They came into the herd together and they stick together.

20-25 years ago semmi's had to be the dumbest, highest maintance critter around.

It's like breeding labs. You have dominant black and recessive yellow. If both parents carry the recessive yellow, you can have both black and yellow pups in the same litter. Other genes control the shading of black or yellow to give chocolate, red, white, etc.
With Angus, you have dominant black and recessive red with other genes giving shading variations within those 2 colors. If both parents carry the recessive red gene, if the cow should twin it's possible to have both black and red calves.

thank God you're round baling Sam


they were just coming into vogue when I left the farm.



when we got our own hay put up, I hired out to a crew to haul hay (mostly for large dairy operations)


.02.5 cents a bale,, yessir 2.5 cents a bale, if we hauled a 1000 bales in I made $25 dollars!


my the things you can talk an ignorant youth into doing!


it got a tad warm in the top of those metal hay barns in the summer when we were stacking it up high


and we hated the farmers that bailed so tight that the bales were closer to 80 lbs. than 60, but we hauled their stuff just the same

I hated, hated, hated, baling hay (and assorted weeds, all with considerable water content/weight) - nostrils filled with dust and chaff, wrists raw from stems poking them, pissed-off bumble bees in the bales looking for revenge (and finding it), mows that were in fact an Easy-Bake oven in some young giantess's play-room. Just the smell when driving by a field of fresh-cut hay is enough to ruin my mood.

We had a simmental bull when I was younger and he liked to roam. He would push through the fence and look for more cows. I had to ride the river and chase him back a dozen times. We finally sold him and bought a bull that was more of a home-body. I can't even remember what the new bull was. Never had to go find him though!

I bucked hundreds of tons of hay when I was a kid. We also hated the 80lb bales. But then they invented the bale wagon and bale weight jumped to as heavy as 120 sometimes. They were made to be stacked by machine but they sure weren't fed by machine. Those things were responsible for lots of back injuries. Now they have the ton bales which save the backs. They're so big that they can only be handled by machine so nobody has to wrestle them.

broomd;
With apologies to the OP and all who've been earnestly pursuing the question at hand....

Here's southern Alberta's finest cowboy music singer with a song about your heifer's brother - among other things.


It used to be that beef with mostly red hides went for more than Hereford or black cows at the auction yard here in town.

The rancher who's branding crew I've helped on for more than two decades now has always used an Angus bull for the heifers as they've got a smaller head and sloping shoulder which results in easier calving on average.

All the best to you and all the cattle raisers here.

Dwayne

Couple out behind the barn.

Our herd is predominantly Angus, with a few crosses mixed in. Also we usually buy Angus and Angus crosses, for the feedlot. They finish out nice for us, grade well and can bring a little premium (certified Angus beef) when we send them.

I remember working for a Canadian farmer loading bales when I was a kid. His daughter Pauline drove the tractor in a red blouse, and when she turned around to see where to stop, it looked like that damned blouse was going to explode. Can't remember the size of the bales, or how much we got paid, or if the barn was hot.

Neat pic Ben, beautiful country for angus.

I had a great Uncle that wanted to save twine so he set the baler up to 75# and expected us kids to wrestle them around. Dad found out about it and told him if he didn't lighten the bales he would not send his kids over to help.

My kids were fortunate, for several years I baled everything with a kicker baler. Later I bought a round baler but still use a kicker baler for a supply of small bales to feed out flakes to horses and to take with us on overnight camping and rides with the horses.

Likewise, I always enjoy checking out everyone's pics.

Nice pic, Ben. Looks alot like the country around here.

Black Angus is the predominate breed here on the farm for some of the reasons you stated, however I am a sucker for a good deal at the sale barn and will purchase other breeds. A recent example was 12 bred Red Angus mama cows owned by an elderly gentlemen farmer came through the sale barn last fall. They did not bid out very high. When they calved, two cows had twins. I made out like a bandit.

Any Red Angus in your area?

I can't think of anyone that has quite a few red Angus off the top of my head. I know one guy who has a whole herd of red limousine, which he says is pretty rare.

We usually buy our animals for the feedlot straight from the farm. We like to buy black, but if they're selling a few random breeds we'll take them if the price is fair. A quality animal that grows well is a the end goal.

There are several red herds here that I know of.

I left the farm in 1973. Dad had some angus and white faced Herefords. He was pretty happy with them and they were good back to him. Unfortunately he passed in 1978 and the cattle were sold. There have been none on the place since then. I envy you guys who are still producing beef. It's a good life even if there are some worries and issues.
kwg