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The Grazing Grass Podcast features insights and stories of regenerative farming, specifically emphasizing grass-based livestock management. Our mission is to foster a community where grass farmers can share knowledge and experiences with one another. We delve into their transition to these practices, explore the ins and outs of their operations, and then move into the "Over Grazing" segment, which addresses specific challenges and learning opportunities. The episode rounds off with the "Famous Four" questions, designed to extract valuable wisdom and advice. Join us to gain practical tips and inspiration from the pioneers of regenerative grass farming.
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Welcome to the Grazing
Grass podcast episode 115.
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For today's episode we are going
to discuss livestock coat color.
I find the color of livestock
and genetics to be fascinating so
we're going to discuss that today.
We're going to discuss the basis
of genetics, a little bit about
pigments, and the genes responsible.
Then we'll move on to cattle,
goats, sheep, and hogs.
We will not touch on poultry as
it's a whole different world, and
we won't discuss horse colors as I'm
not familiar with the genetics of it.
It will take us a few episodes.
The main source utilized for today's
episode is the 2021 book, Practical Color
Genetics for Livestock Breeders by Dr.
Sponenberg.
He's done a lot of work with color
genetics as well as breed conservation.
If you look him up, it's very
fascinating, he's done a lot of
work for the Livestock Conservatory.
First off, why color?
Color is important to livestock breeders.
Many established breeds have
a specific color or pattern
that helps to identify them.
For example, Angus are black,
Red Poll are red, and Holsteins
are black and white spotted.
This was one way early breeders
differentiated their breed, or
their cattle, from another's.
However, in the current cattle
industry, they've been breeding
cows that look more similar.
So now we have a lot of breeds that,
there's a black version, or even a red
version, when there didn't used to be.
Limousine used to just be red.
Now we have black Limousin simmental
used to be more of a yellow orange
red spotted cow, and now breeders have
worked towards having a solid black or
solid red, a lot of times a blaze face
on Simmental, to get that coloration
that the cattle industry here wants.
We even have black herefords,
which is crazy in my mind.
Sorry if you breed those.
And there are red Charolais now, obviously
those are just a few examples, but
there's been lots more that people have
bred those colors in, why that can
happen in the breeds we have in the U.
S., a lot of the breed associations have
breed up programs where you can take a
commercial animal, made it to a full blood
or registered purebred and slowly work
that percentage up until it's high enough
to qualify as a purebred on its own.
And in doing so with careful management
of that, you can make some of those genes
such as color genes that's highly visible.
Carry on and get into that purebred
where it didn't used to be.
Now I, I do have, there's an argument
of fullbloods versus purebreds.
A lot of times I think purebreds hold
a lot of promise there, but I know when
I look at limousine, red Limousin, I
do not see any black Limousin and I'm
only, there's a lot of people gonna
disagree with me, but where I live,
I don't see black Limousin with the
muscling that I see on red Limousin
now I'm sure there's isolated cases
where that's not true and I'm sure
there's herds that's that, that's
not true, but I see that a lot.
Now with the cattle industry and the
way they've really placed a premium on
black animals, we don't see that with
the other livestock industries as much.
Granted poultry and hogs.
They're breeding for those white animals
in the commercial setting, But it's not
as widespread as What's happened in the
cattle industry at least in my viewpoint.
It's not When discussing colors, there's
two pigments that come into play.
We have eumelanin, which is
black when it's unmodified, and
pheomelanin, which is a tan.
One thing with the eumelanin,
is that you get an animal that's
very consistently that color.
Now with the pheomelanin, you get a tan,
but it can vary from cream to a very dark
brown, and it can vary on the animal.
So you get some variation there.
And to be honest, instead of saying
big words that this Okie has trouble
with, we're going to call those, we have
the black pigment and the tan pigment.
And we're not going to go into
the mechanism behind that.
However, if you find that fascinating, Dr.
Sponenberg
has a great discussion of it
in his book that I'll leave
a link to in the show notes.
But he gets into it really deep.
For our discussions, I'll refer to
them as black pigment and tan pigment.
Now when we're discussing
genes, we're talking about
genes that occur on chromosomes.
And all animals have chromosomes.
And they occur in pairs.
For example, humans have 23 pairs
of chromosomes or 46 chromosomes.
Cattle and goats each have 30 pair.
or 60 chromosomes.
Sheep have 54 chromosomes while
hogs have 38 chromosomes.
And when we get an animal, it
gets half its chromosomes from its
father and half from its mother.
So they get one version from their
mother, one version from their father.
While it's half each time, it's a
random assortment for each animal.
That's the reason you can
have full siblings that look
different from each other.
Thus, half the genes are from its
mother and half from its father.
The genes located on a chromosome pair
are usually referred to as the genes
locus, or in the case of multiple
genes, we might say the genes loci.
The locus is basically the address
to where we find that gene.
And since chromosomes occur in pairs,
there's two spots on, for a gene.
on the first version of that pair
and the second version of that pair.
So there's two genes.
And the version of that gene that's
on a locus is called a allele.
And if two alleles are the same,
then we have a homozygous animal.
So for example, if in the locus for
black, and we'll talk about that a
little bit more, if they have the
black allele in both places, then
that animal is homozygous for black.
And if they're different,
we call it heterozygous.
If they have a black allele in one spot
and maybe a red allele in another spot.
For livestock color, there are a few loci
which are important to determine color.
The great thing about color, it's easily
observed, and it's fairly discreet
when you're looking at how one genotype
is displayed versus another genotype.
And I say fairly discreet.
It's not totally, but it's enough
to make color more easily identified
and studied than if we were talking
about the fertility of an animal
or their average daily gain.
And when we're looking at an animal, what
we are seeing is called the phenotype.
A while ago I mentioned the genotype.
The genotype is actually the
genetics behind the color.
So phenotype, is what we're looking at.
Genotype is what's on the genes.
And as you will see later, we can
sometimes predict the genotype from
the phenotype, but we can't always
figure out all of the genotype.
To start, there's two main loci for color.
One is the extension locus and the other
is the agouti the extension locus is the
main one we use in cattle while agouti
locus is predominant one in goats,
and I say one is the predominant one.
Both are important for our common colors.
And we will discuss that more.
Agouti is not as important in cattle.
Extension is not as important in goats.
With the extension locus, Livestock
may have more, but they will
have at least three alleles.
So we have black, wildtype, and red.
Those are the three alleles
for the extension locus.
With the black allele, beading the domino
allele, and I can't And an animal carrying
at least one black allele will be black.
And then for red is the recessive
allele in the extension locus.
And for an animal to be red through
the extension locus, the animal must
carry two copies of the red allele.
Thus, if we have a red animal with a
red phenotype, we can also make the
assumption that animal is homozygous
red genotype, because the only way
to get a red animal, in our example
right now, is through carrying two
red alleles at the extension locus.
However, on the other hand, if we
have a black animal, we can say,
that animal is a black phenotype.
But we can't say exactly
what's in the genotype.
So we know it has at least
one allele that's black.
On the other allele, we don't know.
It could be another black, which
would make it homozygous black.
It could be a wildtype, which would make
it heterozygous black, a wildtype carrier.
Or it could be a red allele, so then we
have a heterozygous black animal that
is often referred to as a red carrier.
And before we get too far on
this, black and red in goats is
a different mechanism, usually.
And we'll talk about that
when we get to goats.
So we've talked about black
allele and red allele.
The third allele is the
wildtype allele, which is often
referred to as brown in cattle.
In goats and sheep it's a bigger
range of colors and patterns.
In cattle we have, I hate to say a
narrow set, but much fewer alleles there.
When an animal is black or red,
whatever's in the agouti locus is hidden,
so it doesn't make any difference.
If we have an animal that says it should
be brinnel, In the Agouti locus, if that
animal says it's black in the extension
locus, or the red in the extension
locus, it doesn't matter because that,
that brinnel will not show through.
And I'm using brinnel as an example,
and I know there'll be some people in my
comments there's some cases where brinnel
shows through, but we won't get into that
right now, we'll talk about that later on.
If we have an animal showing wildtype.
which is brown.
We are seeing what, it shows
what's in the agouti locust.
And in the agouti locust there are
a few alleles for each species.
I want to say cattle have about
6, goats and sheep have almost 30.
So there's a lot happening there.
Before we get to the agouti
locust, back to the extension.
If we have an animal that's wildtype,
that the genotype, or the phenotype.
We have an animal that's
wildtype and phenotype, so
that means they're that brown.
We do not know if the second
allele there is wildtype or red.
We do know it's not black
because if it was a black allele,
the animal would be black.
An animal that's brown can be homozygous
for wildtype, or it can be heterozygous
for wildtype and a red carrier.
You
know, a while ago I mentioned goats and
sheep have tons of different alleles.
Alleles in the agouti, locusts in
cattle have six, hogs only have three.
It's important to remember, at any point,
an animal can only have two alleles that
they carry, because they've got that
one pair of genes or two chromosomes
with that gene loci, or locusts on it.
So no matter what animal, Or no
matter how many alleles there is,
an animal can only have two versions
of that gene on a chromosome.
And when we think about black and red
at the extension locus, the animal is
predominantly a solid colored animal.
But with the gooty, locust,
the animal usually displays
a pattern of black and tan.
And you'll notice that when you
think about in cattle are black
animals, they're usually solid black.
Red animals, and I say solid black,
uniformly black, uniformly red.
We'll get into some white
spotting in a little bit.
Then for animals that are wildtype,
they're what we call brown, and you know
a lot of times they'll be darker on the
front part of them than the back part.
They'll darken as they age.
Males are often a darker
color than females.
And their color can vary from
really light colored to fairly dark.
When a cow is displaying wildtype,
whatever is in agouti shows
through, and that's usually some
kind of black and tan pattern.
It's not as noticeable in cattle
because you do have a little bit
darker on the front and it goes back,
but it's very noticeable in goats.
And when I say black and tan, those
pigments, the final color will depend
if there's some other modifiers present.
Just to summarize up to this
point, we have two main color
genetics for livestock species.
They're the extension
locus and the agouti locus.
The other loci we can consider
as modifiers to the color
determined by extension and agouti.
The types of these modifiers,
there's a few different types.
There's the brown, There's dilutes,
there's albino, and whitespotting.
So we've got four categories of
different types of modifiers.
The brown locust dilutes
black to a brown or dun color.
For cattle, dun and dexter cattle is
usually caused by the brown locust.
When we talk about goats, there's
a few different alleles there.
For the dilutes, they are common in
hogs, common in cattle, but we don't
see them as much in sheep and goats.
Also, not all the loci are
identified for dilutes.
But, inheritance has been
determined for most of them.
In cattle, there's a silver locus,
which is home to a Charolais
allele and a Simmental allele.
Which we will discuss more
when we discuss cattle.
The albino locus is another gene to
modify the color of an animal and
usually modifies it to white with
pink or very light colored eyes.
Most of the time when we're looking
at our livestock species, we don't see
the albino coming into play as much.
Lastly, we have white
spotting, which is a few loci.
It also causes the most confusion
when we're trying to figure
out the genotype of an animal.
White spotting can vary from very
little to almost completely white.
And when an animal is almost completely
white, it is difficult to determine the
base color of the animal due to the base
color that's determined by the actions of
the extension locus and the agouti locus.
And again with white spotting there's
a large number of alleles and also
possibly a large number of loci.
Now how we're looking at it,
usually we are able to group those
alleles into one of three groups.
The first group is we have white
areas that are very cleanly white.
They don't have any of the color
hairs encroaching up on them.
Nothing speckled in the middle.
They're a clean white.
Then secondly, we may have a white
area, but it's got colored hairs
in it to make spots in there or
flecks or speckling inside it.
And then lastly is a continuation
of that, and that's where we get
roan areas rather than a white area.
So roan the different colored
hairs are intermixed throughout.
To wrap up the loci, we have
extension locus, we have the
agouti locus, and they've really
determined color and pattern with
a few modifiers that include brown,
dilutes, albino, and white spotting.
So we're going to take those
And for today, we're going to go
ahead and get started with cattle.
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So first on cattle, let's
discuss the extension locus.
With cattle, we have black,
wildtype, and red alleles, and
they're all fairly common in cattle.
However, there are a few uncommon
alleles, and we'll talk about those later.
And because colors so closely related
to breeds, we're going to talk
about a few breeds and their colors.
Angus is a great example
of the black allele.
Red Poll cattle are a great
example of the red allele.
And let's just talk about
red Poll for just a second.
As you recall, for a red
phenotype, the animal must be
homozygous for that red allele.
So they've got two of those red alleles.
And when you mate a red Poll to
a red Poll, the calf will be red.
There is no other possibility on
color, and I say no other possibility,
there's some other factors that are
not very likely to come into play.
And with the red allele at the extension
locus, you can also get that white switch.
So a lot of times you'll see a red cow
with a white switch, a tail switch.
I love that, but there's variations in it.
Some won't have very much white
showing there, but some will.
So red's pretty easy.
We look at the animal, we see
the phenotype, and we're able to
say, here's the genotype for it.
However, with black, when we look at
Angus, and we see a black phenotype,
because black is dominant, we don't know
if that animal is homozygous for black.
And, that's really why we have red Angus.
When Angus was developed as a breed, they
crossed some other breeds to create it.
And the breeders Actually, I want
to say, and if I'm wrong you can
correct this, I think the first herd
book for Angus back in Scotland,
England, allowed red or black animals.
And then it became Angus were black.
And when you mate black animals together,
if you're culling the red out, you can
get rid of a lot of the red alleles
that's in that breed population.
But it's very difficult
to get to a zero percent.
So what would happen?
People would breed a black, heterozygous
black red carrier to another red
carrier, not knowing they were red
carriers, and they'd get a red calf.
And then some people started
keeping those red calves.
Then they were actively
breeding to get some of the red.
Because they come from a
common base or common start.
It's just a matter of
the color they were kept.
Now without DNA testing, it's difficult
to breed out a recessive gene.
You can test breed, take a bull
and mate him to a few females,
see what the offspring is, and
you'd want to mate the females a
recessive gene so that If there's
any recessives, they would show up.
It's time consuming and costly.
So if we bred a bull, a black bull, to
a group of red females, red cows, if
the black, if the bull is homozygous for
black, then all the calves would be black.
However, if that bull is heterozygous
for black and carries that red
gene, there'd be some red calves.
Luckily, Now with DNA testing, you can
just get a DNA sample, pull some hair,
send it off, a couple weeks later you
can know if that bull is homozygous
for black or heterozygous for black.
And for the most part, if you're
breeding black animal to a black
animal, it's not that big a deal.
But if you had a herd of red cows and
you were using a black bull on them and
you want to make sure that calf crop
were all black, you'd want to test that
bull and make sure he's homozygous black.
The other thing we have going for
us are AI bulls usually have enough
offspring that they know if they
carry any of those recessives.
However the DNA testing is really nice.
So we've talked about the red allele,
like for red Poll cattle gives us that
nice solid red color with a white switch.
We've talked about the black allele that
gives us a nice black animal like Angus.
A third common allele is wildtype.
And wildtype we often refer to as brown.
So in cattle, what breed do we
see that shows the wildtype?
There's a few.
One we're going to use for
our example is a Jersey.
So if you think about Jersey cattle,
they can be very light colored,
they can be fairly dark, they
can be a whole range in between.
But it's typically a tan
or a brown coloration.
And often times the bulls
are a darker shade of it.
So when you think of wildtype
coloration, that's a perfect example.
So let's think about some
breedings and what we would get.
If we take a Jersey cow and we
breed her to a homozygous black
bull, we will get all black calves.
However, if we take a Jersey or a
wildtype cow, colored cow and we breed
her to a heterozygous black bull who
is a red carrier then half the calves
we get will be black but the other half
will be wildtype coloration or brown.
On the other hand if we breed a
jersey cow to a red Poll bull all
the calves will be brown because
wildtype coloration or brown is
recessive to black but dominant to red.
One other thing with wildtype coloration
or this brown, a lot of times you'll
see a white ring around the muzzle.
of the cow or bull.
So just look at their muzzle and
they'll have a white ring around it.
When you are looking at a red animal,
they typically don't have that.
Or if you're looking at a very dark bull
and you're wondering, is that black?
Is that just a really
dark brown for wildtype?
Does it have a white ring around its nose?
Black animals do not, red animals do not,
wildtype or brown animals typically do.
Now, one thing I mentioned earlier with
cattle or with any of the livestock
species, if we have wildtype as the
phenotype for the animal, whatever
is in the agouti locus shows through.
So whatever pattern that is.
And there's brindle that's available
there, but there's not there's some shades
of brown, some different things, but it's
not as well understood as goats or sheep.
So typically you can just remember
if you've got a brown animal or an
animal that maybe the tan colors
are reduced to a silver because of a
dilute included in there, the animal
will be darker towards the front.
and lighter towards the back.
There's one way to tell that, but the
actual mechanism in the agouti locus.
They're still figuring it out.
With the exception, as I
mentioned a while ago, of brinnel.
And brinnel will show
through on a wildtype animal.
And before we continue with
the extension, so let's talk
about brinnel for just a second.
Brinnel is when you get those
dark stripes on an animal.
And it's used often times when you
do a F1 cross of Hereford to Brahman
brahmans are typically wildtype.
Now I say typically, there's been
a lot of breeding to get some of
those red or black, get those solid
colors in there, but traditionally
they've been a wildtype color.
That silver coloration with the black
on the front and goes and fades lighter
as you go back on the animal, that is
a wildtype coloration with the dilute.
So that animal, wildtype,
is dominant to red.
So if we made them to a Hereford, cow.
That Hereford is red
at the extension locus.
So then we get a calf that's wildtype.
Interestingly enough, most Herefords
carry a brinnel at the agouti locus.
They carry the brinnel alleles
at the agouti locus and it's not
displayed in a solid red animal.
So then we get this offspring
that's wildtype, brown, and it
shows what's in the agouti locus.
And it says brinnel because
brinnel is dominant to the others.
So then we have this wildtype animal
that's also a brinnel and that
gives us those tiger stripe F1's.
Very interesting how they can
use those, how they can use it.
It was discovered, they make
that crossing, those genetics
underlying there really trademark
almost those offspring animals.
Continuing on with extension, there's
a couple of, there's another allele
in the extension locus we haven't
talked about, and then there's
another gene that affects it.
First, we have an allele called
black red, or Telstar red.
And for the black red allele,
it came about, it's available in
hostings Telstar was one of the
major bulls that had this coloration.
And what happens, the calf is born?
red, and then it turns black at a
fairly young age of three to six months.
And when it's born, you can't tell the
red allele from the black red allele.
The phenotype looks the same.
Likewise, when the animals turn black,
you can't tell the phenotype whether or
not it's due to the black red allele.
or the black aloo.
Now I say that in the animals I've
looked at I have not been able to tell.
Now I have heard people say they can
tell like on the red animal there'll
be some black hairs on it or on the
black animal there'll be some red hairs.
My experience is limited.
I have had some in the past
and I was unable to tell.
Now that's been a while and I haven't
looked at any recently so maybe you can.
I'm not sure.
But do know black red is a allele in the
extension locus that's not usually worried
about in beef cattle, but it does occur
in Holsteins now on the black red or tail
star allele, it is recessive to black,
but it's dominant to wildtype and red.
So if we think about the,
if we think about the dominance of
those different alleles, we have black,
black red, wildtype, and then red.
Now there is a second gene of
importance when we're talking
about the extension locus.
However, it's not an allele
at the extension locus.
It is located at another spot,
and it is called dominant red.
And it overrides anything
in the extension allele.
Dominant red gene occurred in Holsteins
and when it's present, it doesn't
matter what is in the extension
locus, because the animal will be red.
It'll be a dark red, but it'll be red.
Now let's say we have a dominant red
bull, and we made it to a black and white
Holstein that calf is going to be red
and white, because the red is dominant.
to black, wildtype, black red, anything
in the extension locus because it hides
whatever is in the extension locus.
Very interesting.
I do not know of that gene being
outside of Holsteins at this point.
I think it was discovered
in the late 80s, early 90s.
There's very few bulls out there
that have it but it is out there.
And my understanding with this is
it looks the same as recessive red.
It's just a dark red.
So I think that's really fascinating.
And for today, we're going to wrap
up our episode, having covered just
a little bit about the basics of
genetics, the black and tan pigments,
and the gene loci that are important
to coloration in our livestock species.
Then we were able to talk
about the extension locus.
in cattle as well as the
agouti locus in cattle.
Next week we will continue on.
We'll talk about the dilutes that
really two breeds that jump out
to us, Simmental and Charolais.
There's other breeds that have it
and those colorations that come in.
And then we'll talk about white
spotting and that'll get maybe a
little confusing among the white
spotting, but it's very interesting.
And we'll wrap up that and then
we'll get to the other species.
Also, let me know what you
think about this episode.
A little bit different than normal.
If you have knowledge that I don't
have, I don't know everything.
In fact, I know very little.
But if you have some information
contrary to what I've said
today, hey, please let me know.
I'd appreciate it.
Also, if you have another source for
this type of information, beyond.
Dr.
Sponenberg's book as well as some
other commonly available things.
I'd love to know it because I think
color genetics are fascinating.
Cal: Thank you for listening, and if you
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