# Lowline Angus



## cajun (Mar 28, 2007)

Hello Everyone,
I am new to the board and needing some questions answered.
How many Lowline Angus can you raise per acre? I have a considerable amount of acreage but how many PER acre can I raise?
I am putting together a plan and am trying to semi retire in about 2 years if all goes well.

Cajun


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## YuccaFlatsRanch (May 3, 2004)

Not to be a smart ass, but you can raise more per acre than most of us can afford. Not knowing how many regular cow/calf pairs per acre you can raise (or is it acres per cow) you can usually raise twice as many as full sized animals. Have you priced Lowlines??

I am in the process of beginning to breed my own lowlines. Semen is inexpensive. I start with a full sized Angus or Brangus. AI to lowline bull.

BTW half lowline heifers sell for about $2500.00, 3/4 lowline heifers for about $4000.00. Full bloods are truely nuts.

Here is a source for semen. http://www.loala.com/semen4sale.html


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## Philip (Sep 26, 2005)

We use Jersey cows AI-ed with Lowline semen. Calves turn out black and small, as intended. Still as blocky as a purebred, for a fraction of the price. No good if you want to set up a stud, but excellent for meet production. The fat is white with excelent marbling.

Stocking would depend on how long you intend to keep the calves. If two years then you will have the cow, her yearling calf plus the new calf. Ours are normally of the property by the time the next is born. It would also depend on your abilty to grow grass unless you feed them a large amount of supplements. We have grass only, with winter suplement feed of silage and hay cut the previous summer, plus a paddock or two of winter forage oats. We carry one cow and calf or so to about 1.5 acres at the best, averaging about 7 stock units to the acre I would think (1 stock unit = the equivalent of 1 ewe and her lamb)


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## 65284 (Sep 17, 2003)

That is really not an answerable question. Where are you located, how good is your soil, how good and what type is your grass, do you intend to fertilize, can you irrigate, will you employ any sort of pasture management practices, rotational grazing,etc. And of course all of this will change with the weather, a drought will mean less grass.

All else being equal I have found that a reasonable rule of thumb is that it's workable to run about 1 1/2 times as many of these smaller cattle as the larger standard breeds.


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## Christiaan (Mar 13, 2004)

Why is it I always see it as lowLIFE? Probably reflects poorly on my upbringing.


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## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

> Why is it I always see it as lowLIFE?


because it's about beefers and not *DAIRY*.

Just joshing around folks.......


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## Jerseygirl (Feb 15, 2007)

We have 4 bred Lowline cows, 1 Lowline bull, and 4 calves evey year and have been raising them for the past 5 years. They take less feed and are less damaging to the pastures. Our cows calve in the pasture with zero assistance. They are very docile........even our bull (but we still don't trust him 100%). They eat about 1/3 less then a full Angus (hay in the winter) and do not require as much pasture, although I can't tell you exactly how much. We have two bred cows for sale now and although they can be very expensive, it depends on who and where you buy them. We are asking $1,200 for each cow (they are registered and 1/2 Lowline/1/2 Angus), after calving(sometime early May) the price will go up because the calves are 3/4 Lowline. Our Bull is a purebred Lowline. They are excellent eating. We raise ours on pasture and for two months we supplement them with corn.


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## Jcran (Jan 4, 2006)

WHAT is LOWLINE? Is it like a lowrider? I am guessing minis.


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## Philip (Sep 26, 2005)

I wouldn't classify Lowline as a mini. It's a small Angus, but not mini as in those nasty designer-animal mini's. I would put it at about 2/3 normal Angus size ?


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## genebo (Sep 12, 2004)

Lowline cattle are actually purebred Angus stock, selected and bred for small size. Their purity is insured by a rigorous registration standard, which only accepts full-blood on the certificate if it comes from two full-blood registered parents, much like the Dexter cattle registry. However, unlike Dexters, you can register impure offspring as long as you can prove the lineage back to a full-blood. So there are many "registered" half, quarter, and even 1/8 bloods being sold. The price is kept very high for the full-bloods.

There aren't very many full-bloods in the USA. The breed originated in Australia.

My neighbors collaborated to get full-bloods. One bought 7 embryos from Australia. The other provided 7 open heifers to be surrogate mothers. All 7 were implanted with the embryos. 3 took. That's about the average success rate of 40%. Only 2 calves were born. One miscarried along the way. Both calves are heifers.

That's how they got started in the Lowline business. Once the heifers reach breeding age, they will be AI'd with semen from Australia and they will begin to build a full-blood Lowline herd.

If they had a bull, they'd be able to collect it and sell semen. They could then get in on the half-blood business, by AI'ing all sorts of cattle with it. Everything that hit the ground would be a half-blood Lowline. It's sort of ridiculous, but there's a fairly high priced market in half-bloods. In other breeds, we call them "crosses", "outcrosses" or "grade cattle".

Grade cattle are: 1 = 1/2 blood, 2 = 3/4 blood, 3 = 7/8 blood, 4 = 15/16 blood, and 5 = purebred, but not full-blood. A grade 5 usually carries an asterisk or a special letter in it's registration number to let you know it's not a full-blood. It and it's offspring will always carry that letter.

One last note: Lowlines are not the original Aberdeen Angus of years ago. Lowlines were bred back down from modern Angus stock, so they carry the traits that modern Angus do. There are still some original Aberdeen Angus being kept, that can trace their heritage back to earlier parents. They're similar to the Angus that your grandfather and his daddy kept. Small and gentle. They, too are purebred Angus, but are classed as a separate breed, like the Lowline Angus.

Genebo
Paradise Farm


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## cajun (Mar 28, 2007)

Genebo
That was the best and most informative information I have seen so far on Lowline Angus.
Thanks


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