Carlie Piercy
4212 Union School Road
Clinton, N.C. 28328
910-990-9517
9th grade
What Red Angus Adds to a Crossbreeding Program
What Red Angus Adds to a Crossbreeding Program
Red Angus cattle excel for temperament, maternal qualities, attributes, and carcass
characteristics. Red Angus and their crosses are highly sought after by commercial producers as
a foundation in their cow herd.
Red Angus cattle are considered by breeders to have a very docile temperament and are
easy cattle to work. Research has found that cattle with good temperament allows for improved
levels of productivity to include higher average daily weight gains and improved overall meat
quality. Whereas poor temperament reduces profitability because of increased production cost to
include maintaining cattle handling facilities, lower average daily weight gains, and increase risk
of injury to cattle and handlers.
Red Angus cattle are known for their maternal qualities and strong maternal instincts.
Red Angus cattle are highly fertile and reach puberty at a young age allowing them to calve
when less than two years of age. This crossed with latter maturing cattle proves profitable.
Red Angus calves are relatively small, improving calving ease and longevity within the herd.
They are known to have fewer calving problems and therefore shorter intervals between calving.
For the cattle breeder, this means more live calves on the ground which is essential to profits.
They have excellent milk production allowing calves to make up for low birth weight with quick
growth.
Red Angus has been proven worldwide to fit into many successful crossbreeding and
composite breeding programs. With the homozygous red color of the Red Angus breed, red
coated calves are always produced when crossed with other red breeds allowing commercial
breeders of other red breeds to maintain consistency of color in their crossbreeding program.
This gives an advantage when selling through sale yards with evenness in the line of sale cattle.
Their red coat is well designed to cope with drought and heat stress by reflecting the sunlight
better than darker breeds and makes the Red Angus a better option for tropical based systems.
This makes red one of the most numerous colors of cattle breeds worldwide. Red Angus
compliment many other breeds such as the Hereford to produce a highly desirable Red Baldy
female. Similarly Red Angus hybrids such as the Balancer (Red Angus x Gelbvieh), LimFlex
(Red Angus x Limousin) and SimAngus (Red Angus x Simmental) are examples of profitable
cattle at market.
Red Angus is known for high quality beef production worldwide. They have a great
appetite, and consistently produce carcasses with easy fleshing and high quality, tender and
marbled beef. The intra-muscular marbling improves eating quality of the meat.
Red Angus cattle continue to provide increased profits to producers planned breeding
programs through improved temperament, high fertility, calving ease, and rapid weight gain.
Website References
History of the Red Angus
<http://www.gregorysredangus.com.au/History.html> n.p., n.d.
Red Angus Cattle
<http://www.cattle.com/articles/title/Red+Angus+Cattle.aspx> n.p., n.d.