Pedigree Isn’t Everything

We have a registered Angus herd. But we don’t always register the offspring of the registered animals.

Strict rules apply to animals that can be papered. As noted in the instructions and rules at American Angus Association,

Animals with SCURS, or RED IN COLOR, or with WHITE SKIN above or in front of the navel, or on leg, foot or tail shall not be eligible for registration.

SCURS are horn tissue or partially form horns on animals. Angus are naturally polled, meaning that they do not have horns. Occasionally a small horny growth will grow where horns would normally be. RED IN COLOR means that the hair is growing red not just red from winter coat shed or sunburn. Register-able Angus can actually have white on them, under their belly between their back legs to their navel. A couple of our mother cows do have some white spots on their udders, and calf or two have a bit of white behind their navels. This is all just a part of their genetics and of the nature of the breed itself.

Sometimes nature interrupts our plans for pedigreed animals. Runts and poor eaters are dropped from the registered herd. Same with animals with injuries that would affect their vitality or cause reproduction concerns. We had a calf a couple of years back, when just a day old, a cow stepped on his leg and broke it as he was resting in the tall grass. The leg healed, but it affected his development and growth rate. We neutered him. As a steer, he was grown to produce meat instead of for breeding.

If you read the stories about Samson earlier in the blog, you would remember he was abandoned by his mother and adopted by our farm. He came from registered stock, but as a bottle fed calf, was not growing well enough to be considered register quality. He grew to become a herd sire for six cows and will continue to produce commercial (non-registered) offspring.

Many of our buyers do not desire the registration paperwork to be completed. They have commercial herds that do not require the animals to be papered while they still want the animals to come from registered parents and want to be able to trace the lineage. We do not register these animals either.