Can some plz gimme some brief info on these 3 breeds of cows?

Question

murray gray

square meter

charolais

just brief summaries of each will be helpful. thank you

Answer 1

Sorry to say I have never heard of the "square meter" as a breed of cattle, and I am not very familiar with the Murry Grey either... they are grey and come from Australia. Never seen one here in the US.

Now, the Charolais..... I can look out in our pasture and see 300 head of them!

They are good breeders, and mature a cow will weigh 1200 lbs. They are solid white.... some are a cream to yellow too. They tend to be a little "wild" compared to the Angus so therefore not as easily to handle.

Looking fwd to your other answers as to educate myself on the other breeds you listed!

Answer 2

Murray Grey

Background of the Murray Grey

The Murray Grey originated in southern New South Wales, Australia. The preferred color is silver-gray although there are numerous variations in the shading of gray. In 1905, on the Thologolong property of Peter Sutherland, a particular roan Shorthorn cow, when bred to various Aberdeen Angus bulls, dropped only grey calves, 12 of them by 1917. Because Mrs. Eva Sutherland liked these grey calves, her husband didn't slaughter them although he feared they would reflect poorly on his black Angus herd. When her husband died in 1929, Mrs. Sutherland sold the herd of Greys to her cousin Helen Sutherland who started a systematic breeding with 8 cows and 4 bulls.

In the early 1940's Mervyn Gadd started a second Murray Grey herd as a commercial venture, using a grey bull from the Sutherlands and breeding up from Angus cows. Gadd was convinced that the Greys were better and more efficient weight gainers, but is wasn't until 1957 that a demand for them developed. Butchers paid a premium price for the Greys because of their consistent high cutability and less wastage. Breeder after breeder turned to them and in 1962 fifty breeders banded together to form the Murray Grey Beef Cattle Society of Australia. The name of the breed comes from the color and the site of origin along the Murray River that divides New South Wales and Victoria.

The Murray Greys began to win carcass competitions in the early 1970's and have continued to dominate the steer and carcass classes at the Royal Shows in Australia. Murray Greys are one of the two breeds preferred by the Japanese for importation, due to their easy fleshing and high-quality meat production.

Introduction to the United States

In 1969, three importers, New Breeds Inc.; Murray Grey USA, Lubbock, Texas; and Firetree Production Stock of Shelbyville, Kentucky, brought Murray Grey s***n to the United States. In May 1972, a bull calf and yearling heifer of this breed arrived in the United States. Although several more Murray Greys have been imported into the United States, the total number of importations has been relatively small and the expansion in the breed has been largely through the grading-up process.

Murray Greys - A Sensible Breed for Profitable Beef Production, a booklet by the American Murray Grey Association, indicates that twenty-eight purebred bulls and nine purebred heifers were imported from New Zealand or from Australia by way of New Zealand. In the 1976 Yearbook, published by the American Murray Grey Association, eighty-three bulls in the United States were listed as foundation sires and their s***n was available fordistribution, and twenty females were listed as purebred females.

Traits of the Breed

The calves of the breed are small at birth. The cows are good mothers and milk well, and the calves have good rates of growth. Docility seems to be agenuine asset of the breed both in the herd and in the feedlot. The cattle have relatively small heads and bone and are polled. Their survival and reproductive rate has been very satisfactory under a wide range of climatic and management conditions.

The color of the Murray Grey can be both an asset and a liability. The gray is a very practical color that reflects more heat than dark colors. The skin should be heavily pigmented or dark-colored and this helps keep away certain eye and skin problems, such as cancer eye and sunburned udders. Unfortunately, the inheritance of the color pattern is not well understood from a genetic standpoint. Studying the data available indicates that, in addition to the basic color pattern genes involved, diluting or modifying genes also seem to play a definite role. Multiple gene effects always make it more difficult to get a true breeding condition.

Charolais

And here is the historical finally... Charolais History    No other breed has impacted the North American beef industry so significantly as the introduction of Charolais. Charolais cattle have changed beef production concepts as much or more as the original British breeds did for the grant Longhorn in the American Southwest more than a century ago. In less than 30 years, Charolais changed the nation’s thinking in regard to efficient beef production standards.    In less than 15 years, Charolais demonstrated a definite superiority in growth ability, efficient feedlot gains and in carcass cut-out values.Today Charolais tops all breeds in nearly every category of performance in the records of beef performance testing organizations.

One of the oldest of the several breeds of French cattle, Charolais is considered of Jurassic origin and was developed in the district around Charolles in Central France. The breed became established there and achieved considerable regard as a producer of highly-rated meat in the markets at Lyon and Villefranche in the 16th and 17th centuries. There also is historical evidence that these white cattle were being noticed as early as 878 A.D.

   The cattle were generally confined to that area until after the French Revolution. However, in 1773, Claude Mathieu, a farmer and cattle breeder from the Charolles region, moved to the Nievre province, taking with him his herd of Charolais.    The breed flourished there, so much so that the improved cattle were known more widely as Nivernais cattle for a time than by their original name of Charolais.

BUT THIS COW IS A COW...

  

One of the early influential herds in the region was started in 1840 by the Count Charles de Bouile. His selective breeding led him to set up a herd book in 1864 for the breed at his stable at Villars near the village of Magny-Cours. Breeders in the Charolles vicinity established a herd book in 1882. The two socierties merged in 1919, with the older organization taking the records of the later group into there headquarters at Nevers, the capital of the Nievre province.

   Soon after the First World War, a young Mexican industrialist of French name and ancestry, Jean Pugibet, decided to bring some of the French cattle to his ranch in Mexico. He had seen the Charolais cattle during World War I while serving as a French army volunteer and was impressed by their appearance and productivity.

   He arranged for a shipment of two bulls and 10 heifers to Mexico in 1930. Two later shipments in 1931 and 1937 increased the total number to 37 - eight bulls and 29 females. Until the mid-1960s, all the Charolais in Mexico, the United Stated and Canada were descendents of this initial Pugibet herd. Not long after the last shipment, Pugibet died and no further imports were attempted.

In the mid-1940s an outbreak of Hoof and Mouth Disease occurred in Mexico. As result, a treaty between the United States, Canada and Mexico set up a permanent quarantine against cattle coming into any of these countrios from Europe or any country in which Hoof and Mouth Disease was known to exist. This barred any further importation of French Charolais on this continent until 1965 when Canada opened the import doors via rigid quarantine both in France and in Canada.

   The first Charolais to come into the United States from Mexico are believed to be two bulls, Neptune and Ortolan, which were purchased from Pugibet by the King Ranch in Texas and imported in June 1936.

   Later imports of bulls were owned by some of the early "pioneers" in the industry: Harl Thomas, Fred W. Turner, C.M. "Pete" Frost, M.G. Michaelis Sr., and I.G. “Cap” Yates, all of Texas, J.A, “Palley” Lawton of Louisiana, and others.    From that beginning, the breed grew rapidly. Wherever they were shown, the big white cattle commanded instant attention. Cattlemen admired both Charolais bulls and females for their muscling, correctness and size. They were also very impressed with their calves. An ever-expanding demand for the purebred seed stock kept an active market for both bulls and females. Livestock producers across the country were searching for animals that would improve their profit picture.

   In the late 1940s and early 1950s the early breeders established the American Charbray Breeders Association and the American Charolais Breeders Association, both of which limited their pedigrees to a blend of Charolais and Brahman breeding. Producers who were utilizing other beef breed cows to produce Charolais by compounding Charolais blood through successive generations formed the International Charolais Association.

The American and International Associations in 1957 merged into today’s American-International Charolais Association. In 1964, the Pan-American Charolais Association, whose registrations were based on performance rather than blood content, merged into the AICA. And three years later, the American Charbray Breeders Association merged with the AICA, bringing all Charolais-based breeds in the United States under the fold of a single breed registry.

   With the limited availability of pure Charolais during the early years, American breeders established a five-generation “grading-up” program to expand the breed in this country. This program involved the use of purebred Charolais bulls on other breed cowe and their produce for five consecutive generations to produce a 31/32 Charolais animal. Geneticists said this percentage was the equivalent of a purebred, containing only 3 percent of the genetic material from the foundation breed, which was further diluted in future generations.

   Charolais is a naturally horned beef animal. But through the breeding-up program, using other breeds carrying the polled gene, polled Charolais emerged as a viable and important part of the breed. Some of the breed’s strongest herds and leading breeders specialize in the production of high-performing polled Charolais.

New genetic material for Charolais to bolster to bolster tightly-bred pedigrees began arriving in the United States and Canada in the mid-1960s. Canada, with technical assistance from the United States, established a rigid quarantine station located on an island in the St. Lawrence River. This allowed direct imports of purebred Charolais from France.

   Breeding herds also were established on St. Pierre et Miguelon, Nova Scotia, and on the island of Eleuthera, in the Bahamas. Japan, England and Ireland also imported purebred Charolais directly from France. Offspring from these herds were later imported to the United States.

The AICA has a grading-up program that allows cattlemen to breed registered Charolais bulls to any breed of cattle and develop a purebred animal that is eligible for registration in the herd book after five generations (31/32 or more Charolais). Cattle in the grading-up program below 31/32 are recorded. At the start of 1997, there were more than two million head of registered and recorded Charolais in the United States.

Sorry there was no info on square meter cows.

Answer 3

The Murray Grey breed is admittedly not well known in the US. Many people mistake them for Charolais due to the silver color. However, the Murray Grey has a grey or black skin which is so important to protect against cancer eye and sunburned udders. The silver reflects the sun, resulting in an unusual ability to withstand extreme heat. The Murray Grey cow is known for her outstanding maternal characteristics and high production of milk for her calves. The calves are born at a moderate birthweight, lively and active from birth. Murray Grey cattle are quiet, easily handled cattle who adapt to new environments and settle well. Murray Greys handle stress, they settle quickly, and quietly get on with the job of converting feed into quality beef. It's a bonus that they possess the genetics for carcass quality and are natural polls( born hornless).

Murray Greys are considered by many to be the most efficient breed in the world. They produce more quality beef per acre of land and require the least expensive feed, labor, and fencing. In Australia, Murray Greys excel in finishing of grass making them very attractive to the emerging US market for grass-fed beef. The Australian cattle industry was build on pasture and Australian cattle were bred to reproduce, perform and finish in both good and bad times.

Charolais is the leading terminal beef sire noted for its fast growth and excellent conformation. Charolais cattle are creamy white through to wheaten in colour. Bulls are noted for muscling, with excellent loins, good hindquarters and deep second thigh, while females are less heavily muscled and have well developed udders.

sorry never heard of a square meter must be a mix

Answer 4

charolais.>> are white. alot of the time people will use the charolais bull to breed the black white face or red white face  cow. makes a good 3 way vigor.

murray gray.  iam  not real sure on that one. i think its an old english breed

square meter. i have no clue

Answer 5

wikipedia.com cuzzin

Answer 6

The Murray Gray

http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/cattl...

The Square Meter

http://www.abc.net.au/canberra/stories/s...

The Charolais

http://www.charolais.com.au/index.cfm?pa...