REGINA – Can golden thread be sewn with silver needles? The Canadian Charolais Association thinks so and some commercial cattle producers agree.
Silver, the terminal cross between Black Angus and white Charolais, caused a lot of discussion at last week’s Canadian Western Agribition. And there was gold, as pens of the calves were auctioned and a special $2,000 award was made for the best pen of the progeny from Angus cows and registered Charolais bulls at the commercial portion of the livestock event.
“They’ve got a bad reputation, but that dates back to another era of cattle production,” said John Wilgenbusch of Halbrite, Sask., president of the Saskatchewan Charolais Association. “Today’s silver calves deliver growth rates and size and provide producers the returns they might not have been getting in an all-black or all-white environment.”
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“We hope that through promotions like this one at Agribition, we’re going to get those numbers up.”
Garner Deobald, a Canadian Charolais Association fieldman, said the reputation of the cross producing “rat tails” is out of date.
“It just doesn’t happen very often, but for some reason the reputation holds on,” he said about silver discrimination.
“Heterosis has a lot to offer. Lots of folks are finding in the rush to go black, they forgot why the British breeds were being crossed with the continentals in the first place. Money.”
The trend to smoke calves, as they are known in the United States, is growing in that country.
Deobald said the challenge has been getting enough of the animals assembled to meet feedlot demand.
“It’s early, but we can get premiums from the feeders for them. The hard part is assembling loads of calves.”
Wilgenbusch hoped that through promotion like the $2,000 silver award at Agribition, the breeding of Angus cows to Charolais bulls will increase in Canada, too.
Jill and Larry Debenham of Kennedy, Sask., believe in the cattle cross and took two pens to Agribition for the commercial show and sale. The young couple took home the $2,000 prize money for their silver heifers and said buyers have shown no reluctance.
Their silver calves, 700 pound heifers and 775 lb. steers, have been bringing $120 per hundredweight and more.
“The only drawback is producing enough of them to meet demand,” said Jill Debenham of their 80 black cows.
“We don’t have enough capacity to handle all of them at home, so half of cows go out into the community pasture with Angus bulls.”
Larry Debenham said discrimination against the silver-coated animals is mainly at the cow-calf producer level, not at the auction ring.
“When we first put the two Charolais bulls in with our black cows, a neighbour phoned to tell us there were white bulls in with our black cows and he’d be glad to come over and help us get them out of there. I think he was kidding, but only a little bit.
“We’ve had one rat tail born so far and he was singled out from the rest of the lot at the auction market. He brought $935, better than the (non silver animals) he was with.”
