Question for anyone who raises cattle

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Just went to youtube. They have African Cape buffalo hybrids in Brazil. They're crossbreeds of African Cape Buffalo and Indian Water Buffalo. They like to use them as dairy cows. They're called Jafarabadi Buffalo.
 
I was raised milking Holsteins. Once in awhile a old bull would go blood crazy whatever that is. Break fences and make life dangerous. They usually had to be shot. I young one gored me and I had to have stitches. But they have been artificially inseminating since the 50's or so. I don't think that happens any more.
 
I used to drive past a farm that raised American Bison. The overall pasture fence was a bit heavier than what you'd see on a cattle farm but it was still just high tensile wire and treated posts. They had a special pen for the bull though and it had steel posts and was about 8ft high with razor wire at the top. I don't know that bison are really that much meaner that a fence like that is required, but the thick skin and coat of hair means they can do that much more damage before they hurt themselves bad enough to care.

The fact is there isn't much that can contain even a small pony when it quits caring about its own well being. I've had horse trailers, stall walls, and pasture fence torn to pieces by them when they get mad or get spooked and adrenaline takes over. Cattle have thicker bones, and thicker skin. If your fist is a horse, a steer is your fist in a work glove and a bison is your fist in a boxing glove. You can decide to start punching things with any of the 3 but which one makes you give up faster?

We don't really need cattle to be bigger or stronger. Most of them are taken to slaughter long before they are mature and reach their maximum size. There is a target range for their weight, and an acceptable set of cuts of meat that are expected to yield pieces a certain size. The only possible trait a cape buffalo could add to a cow for improvement would possibly be if they grow faster and can reach target weight significantly sooner. They would still be fed a similar diet and it may in fact be harder to get the desired fat content when its all said and done. I only see negative traits being contributed. Meaner, thicker skin, thicker bones, etc. To go back to the fist analogy, its a boxing glove and a bottle of whiskey.

There was a time when we needed to raise cows that were more drought resistant, more hardy in the cold, or better in the heat, but modern agriculture in this country has taken care of most of those problems. We grow better feed, we have better water supply, better veterinary care. The need to breed a better animal is more of a third world problem, and third world ranchers don't need bigger meaner, stronger animals that aren't dependent on them to survive.
 
Cousin raises Buffalo (about 40 head of Bison) and they can devastate a fence in no time. Raised one on a bottle and later became the herd bull. Considered it as their pet until it gored and trampled his wife nearly killing her. In hospital for nearly 6 months and still can't walk well. Good eating....but dangerous to be around.
 
Speaking of bison...

Several years ago, a friend of mine was coming home from a late shift. As he drove, he noticed a large pair of eyes in his headlights. Slowing, thinking it was a cow in the road, he came up to a bull bison... Which promptly charged him. He rammed his dodge d50 in reverse, and proceeded backwards as fast as he could go. He stopped at the nearest farm, and phoned the county sheriff. The next day, a man came from the Missouri line with a one ton truck and gooseneck. He informed us that the bison had been "shunned" from the herd after fighting the herd bull for dominance and losing. He then proceeded to where the unfortunate bull was, called him and shook out some feed on the front of the gooseneck. The bull jumped up on the trailer and began eating. The owner then produced one of the finest 1895 Winchester rifles I've seen to date, and proceeded to dispatch the critter. He then chained it down and headed for his butcher's shop.

I relate this story to make two points:

1. There ain't a fence made can hold one.

2. The subject of my tale came something like 50 miles... In two days! They are quite amazing creatures, but not ones to fool with.

Mac
 
A couple of things, one is I have helped other people work “beefalo” once, by my choice. They are ok in a pasture, you put them in a pin and you better watch out. When a cow charges at you the idea is to just jump up on a fence real quick, again talking about in a catch pin. The beefalo are much faster, I was told “just drop and tuck they’ll push you with their nose and leave you alone”. Lol
No Thank You

a wild cow will hurt you, bad. A beefalo is even worse, a cape beefalo would require insanity.

Also, if the benefit was enough some insane farmer would do it but another problem is the farmer likely want make much, if any extra money off of them. I know a group of farmers that looked in buying a half wagyu, half angus bull. After much research they decided the processors wouldn’t give them enough extra cash per pound to really justify the expense of the bull, even though the meat would be better and the processor would get more premium grade meat as well, they just weren’t willing (or able for some unknown to me reason) to pass the extra profit down to the actual farmers.

Another couple more problems that seem to jump out are you will either have import issues or inbreading problems, the Cape buffalo population in the US isn’t high (praise the Lord) Remember Bulls don’t last forever, if your keeping some heifers to replace older cows they can’t bread with their daddy, we change bulls every 3-5 years depending, we also share bulls with some other farmers in the area.


Another thing to consider, is the weight. I hate get to graphic but if a bull is to big, in physical size & weight. He can quiet literally break a cow down in breading act, she has to be able to hold them both up for at least a short period of time. I’d think this is a solvable problem with larger breads of cows, but I’m not sure as Cape buffalo size isn’t something I know about.

You mentioned artificial insemination, that would also solve this, and other problems. It’s certainly possible but not many people do it, it really doesn’t save you any money, at least in my experience, and it is also quiet a hassle.. you inseminate with something that has to removed a couple weeks later, then normally you still have a “clean up” bull to get the ones that didn’t take, which nearly doubles calving season. I haven’t been involved with it much, but I have figured out it’s a pain.

Another potential problem is vet care and bills, probably not a lot of vets that have much experience Cape buffalo, and the ones that do, well I doubt they come cheap.


You should know for many people their is a LOT considered when buying a bull. For instance, I Remember seeing my dad turn down a good price on a very nice looking bull once because his calves birth weight was “to high” He had a full time job and wanted smaller calves to cut down with problems in delivery, as he wasn’t able to be there most of the time.

Oh and the fences, let’s face it, they are all for looks. A cow will get out if she wants to, keep their bellies full and they’ll stay in.

I would also point out that we haven’t even talked about the meat, is it any good? Is it tough?


I’ll bring up again, farming is already one of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the US, year after year. I personally don’t understand why people fool with beefalo, the one guy I knew that did it has quite. Cape Buffalo would just be nuts to me, but I want even keep a crazy cow. Just not worth it.
 
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I’d be curious why anyone would want to make that cross.
Likewise ! My first response was WHY ?? We bred some Chianina (forgot the correct spelling), a "wild" breed out of Italy and Brazil originally, crossed them with Charolette (sheesh ! my spelling has gone to the dogs !) They cross stood avg 6' at the shoulder and when one got the inclination to go over or through a corral fence it was first try and gone, great conversion % but hard on humans
 
If a guy just wanted the most dangerous game to throw onto his property for sport, look no further than the Spanish Fighting bull. They’ve been bred for their unique genetic trait of attacking a man on sight. They are fast, intelligent, cunning and deadly. I say release a dozen of those into some thick south Texas brush country grab a double rifle and let the fun begin!

Hmmmmm.......I see a second use for them as well. Release a bunch (and I mean a BUNCH) of them all along the Border Wall down South.

Might see a marked decrease in illegal crossings. Either that or lots of campfires with steaks grilling.
 
Likewise ! My first response was WHY ?? We bred some Chianina (forgot the correct spelling), a "wild" breed out of Italy and Brazil originally, crossed them with Charolette (sheesh ! my spelling has gone to the dogs !) They cross stood avg 6' at the shoulder and when one got the inclination to go over or through a corral fence it was first try and gone, great conversion % but hard on humans
Charolais. Lol. But yes. Breeding for size is great. But you also have to breed for temperament. You can take the animal out of the wild. But it takes generations to get (most of) the wild out of the animal. It’s been over a hundred years and they still haven’t been able to do it with chihuahuas.
 
I personally don’t understand why people fool with beefalo
Novelty for one.
Buffalo meat has a fine grain, which will improve come cuts of meat. But, it's really lean. So, breeding beeves in adds marbling to the fine grain meat, which can give primals some excellent characteristics.
But, that's only for the specialty meat market, much like Emu.
 
I'm not a cattle expert so let me apologize in advance for my ignorance. I'm aware that people in this industry are constantly striving to improve the genetics of their stock. Sometimes they'll buy sperm from a prized limouzine bull and artificially inseminate their cows. They've even created hybrids of American Bison and domesticated cows (Beefalo). Has anyone ever attempted to create a hybrid of an African Cape Buffalo and a domesticated cow? If so what kind of results did you get?
So in today's beef industry, it's not just size anymore, meat:weight ratios make a difference as well, example: the average angus has finer bones and will yield more meat per lb than the average semintal (sp?), Hereford, or charolais. There's a big outfit bought up a bunch of land around here, their geneticists decided that THE best critter for feed efficiency, beef yields, etc was to take a herefordxangus and cross that with an angusxcharolais. The cape buffalo bone structure would not be popular in today's market, then if we factor in temperament...... One time a local state park had some rogue bison and asked select deer hunters to keep their eyes open and rifles ready. I remember just last year a bunch of bison broke out of a feedlot down to south-eastern nebraska and the month long retrieval effort finally involved hiring a 3rd party to round them up.
All of this will come back to what prices we get at market, as the bison and beefalo ranchers found in the 80s, the specialty fencing, learning a new mentality for livestock handling processes, and an ultimately lower value carcass would be at best a hobby. Then of course as (I think) h&h points out, it's not physically possible, but even if it were, there's not enough enticement for the effort required. As an exotic hunting experience with a price of $10,000 per kill I could be talked into attempting something similar......
 
African Cape Buffalo and domestic cattle are not able to produce offspring. It’s been tried. Water Buffalo and domestic cattle are also not able to cross breed.

https://www.ilri.org/publications/v...brid-embryos-using-cattle-oocytes-and-african

If a guy just wanted the most dangerous game to throw onto his property for sport, look no further than the Spanish Fighting bull. They’ve been bred for their unique genetic trait of attacking a man on sight. They are fast, intelligent, cunning and deadly. I say release a dozen of those into some thick south Texas brush country grab a double rifle and let the fun begin!

At first thought this sounded horrible but the more I think about it the more this sounds like an awesome business plan.
 
As an exotic hunting experience with a price of $10,000 per kill I could be talked into attempting something similar......

You are way low on your trophy fee. There was a guy at one time offering Cape Buffalo hunts on a high fenced place in the Midwest. I can’t remember exactly where it was but he was charging $30k. The problem with doing high fence Cape Buffalo hunts is that their bosses don’t really become fully developed (hard) until they reach about 10 years old. So if you are going to raise them you’ve got a decade plus of care and feeding before they become trophy quality. You also can’t import mature animals because of hoof and mouth restrictions. A hoof and mouth free certified buffalo breeding bull that has trophy genetics from a game ranch in South Africa can sell for upwards of $500,000.00 and a really good one for closer to a million bucks. The perimeter fencing needed to keep a Cape Buffalo in would cost you millions of dollars on any piece of land large enough to keep a buffalo on. Cape Buffalo are absolutely not even slowed down by standard barbed wire fencing. They require a heavy panel heavy post 12 foot game fence.

You can’t go live capture free range wild Buffalo and import them because of the various zootic diseases they carry that are transmissible to domestic cattle. Plus by the time you put together your capture team, transport team, vet health team, pay your export and import fees, and live shipping fees, you’d be better off to just buy a game ranch breeding bull.

I’m guessing the guy selling the “hunts” in the US was probably buying excess zoo stock. The whole deal was Joe Exotic level shady.
 
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I raise Limousin cattle. They throw small calves and have long loins and USED to bring more $$$ at the sale. But now Angus are all the rage and the 'blacks' bring more than than the 'reds'.

As mentioned before, the main advantage is to get an agricultural exemption and lower the heck out of real estate taxes.
 
It's been done. Polled Pelosi. You cant eat them,or milk them. Very flatulent. They're just for show.

Armored Farmer, I am resisting the urge to Google "Polled Pelosi" because the rest of your post is strangely arousing, and I don't want to know the truth right now. Thank you!
 
You are way low on your trophy fee. There was a guy at one time offering Cape Buffalo hunts on a high fenced place in the Midwest. I can’t remember exactly where it was but he was charging $30k. The problem with doing high fence Cape Buffalo hunts is that their bosses don’t really become fully developed (hard) until they reach about 10 years old. So if you are going to raise them you’ve got a decade plus of care and feeding before they become trophy quality. You also can’t import mature animals because of hoof and mouth restrictions. A hoof and mouth free certified buffalo breeding bull that has trophy genetics from a game ranch in South Africa can sell for upwards of $500,000.00 and a really good one for closer to a million bucks. The perimeter fencing needed to keep a Cape Buffalo in would cost you millions of dollars on any piece of land large enough to keep a buffalo on. Cape Buffalo are absolutely not even slowed down by standard barbed wire fencing. They require a heavy panel heavy post 12 foot game fence.

You can’t go live capture free range wild Buffalo and import them because of the various zootic diseases they carry that are transmissible to domestic cattle. Plus by the time you put together your capture team, transport team, vet health team, pay your export and import fees, and live shipping fees, you’d be better off to just buy a game ranch breeding bull.

I’m guessing the guy selling the “hunts” in the US was probably buying excess zoo stock. The whole deal was Joe Exotic level shady.
Oh yes, I'd definitely NOT be offering anything like THAT, I was thinking of a Spanish fighting bull/Brahma cross, should be interesting enough, but you're definitely correct on my price being too low I think ;)
 
Fighting/Rodeo stock are often quite calm afield; they recognize the difference between the ranch and the arena.
Now, you want to be on your toes if you are trying to get them to do something they don't want to do, or something novel and different.
Bring up the stock trailer, and they can get all happy & excited, as they off to go "play."
Keeping them penned can be "interesting" too, as they are encouraged to jump and run and spin around. And seeing 750# of rodeo stock casually jump three foot obstacles can be a touch sobering.
Until you realize we humans have been optimizing beeves to only have enough "bits" to grow steaks all over. They are muscle-creating machines.
 
Fighting/Rodeo stock are often quite calm afield; they recognize the difference between the ranch and the arena.
Now, you want to be on your toes if you are trying to get them to do something they don't want to do, or something novel and different.
Bring up the stock trailer, and they can get all happy & excited, as they off to go "play."
Keeping them penned can be "interesting" too, as they are encouraged to jump and run and spin around. And seeing 750# of rodeo stock casually jump three foot obstacles can be a touch sobering.
Until you realize we humans have been optimizing beeves to only have enough "bits" to grow steaks all over. They are muscle-creating machines.




A rough stock rodeo bull weighs between 1500 and 1800 lbs. I’ve seen two in a row stand flat footed at a 5’ pipe gate and jump clear over it and escape a pen one bull then another. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes.

Rodeo bulls are tremendous athletes now days.
 
I know next to nothing about such things. But my younger brother was an Ag major from 1981-1985. The school where he went was doing some experimenting with raising water buffalo for meat. They were pretty docile and as best as I can remember the meat was pretty tasty. He was able to bring some home plus one local grocery store sold the meat for a while.

Apparently it wasn't cost effective vs cattle. They eventually dropped the program.
 
In several reply's there is mention of, Black Angus. Is that breed the same as Aberdeen Angus breed of cattle?
Its illegal to use Belgium Blue for breeding beef animals in Sweden.
 
In several reply's there is mention of, Black Angus. Is that breed the same as Aberdeen Angus breed of cattle?
Its illegal to use Belgium Blue for breeding beef animals in Sweden.
Black and Aberdeen Angus are similar but they are different breeds. I know next to nothing about Aberdeen Angus, mainly remember them having shorter legs and a taller torso. Others maybe able to tell you more about the differences but I do they are different breeds.

Also around here if its solid black the processors call it black angus, period. People tend to raise black cattle for beef because it brings a little more. It brings more because it’s “angus” and that’s true even its a black Simmental.

When you see “angus” beef in the grocery store all that means is the cow was black.
 
Is that breed the same as Aberdeen Angus breed of cattle?
Short answer, yes.
Brought to the US in mid 1800s (?)
Bred in the US to be all black, red, or white-faced. They are, as above, longer-legged and shorter-haired than their Scottish ancestors.

Black Angus & Red Angus have Marketing Boards that push advertising to convince retail customers that the variants are "better" beef somehow. And, that Marketing has been successful. Not that a person can tell one primal from another.
 
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