# What is the dominate color for angus?



## nchobbyfarm (Apr 10, 2011)

If I bought a red angus bull to breed to my black angus cows, what color would the calves be? Is black the dominate color?


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

I'm not real well versed in genetics so if I'm wrong hopefully somebody will correct.

Black is dominant. But there is a chance your cows carry the recessive red gene even if they are black. If they do, the calves will be red. Most of the time, Angus are homozygous black.

In the Lowline breed, descendants of pure Angus stock, there have been red fullboods born from two black parents. When those recessive red genes get together, you get a red calf.

That's how Red Angus got started, when two black Angus parents who carried red were bred to each other, the calf was red and the Angus assn. wouldn't register it. There were enough of them, that the Red Angus assn was formed. 

If it is really important to you, you can get your cows tested. I think it only takes a tail hair sample.


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## genebo (Sep 12, 2004)

Each Angus has two genes that control it's color. Most have both genes for black. They are black.

Red Angus have two genes for red. Black color is dominant over red color, so if one of the genes is for black and one is for red, the Angus will be black.

If you breed a black Angus that has both black genes to a red Angus, the calves will inherit one color gene from each parent: a black gene from the black parent and a red gene from the red parent. The calf will subsequently be black, with one black and one red gene.

That much is predictable, it always works like that. It's when you breed one of the black/red offspring to another that it begins to get less predictable.

Black/red bred to a black/black will always produce a black calf, but 1/2 of the calves will "carry" a recessive red gene.

Black/red bred to black/red produces about 25% black/black, 50% black/red, and 25% red/red offspring.

Black/red bred to red/red will produce about 50% black/red and 50% red/red calves.

People usually depend upon a black hided Angus being black/black. They also depend upon a red Angus being red/red. The other possibilities are not sought after.


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## nchobbyfarm (Apr 10, 2011)

Thank you!


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## Lady89 (Feb 22, 2014)

Black is the dominate color for angus and red is the recessive the only way to get red is if the mother and father have the resistive red gene. The red bull has that gene that is simple, but what can get harder is that a black cow can be a heterozygous holder of the red gene. To explain better it works like this, we will say that A= dominate and a= recessive

Homozygous AA= black
Homozygous aa= red
Heterozygous Aa= black

So if you mix a Homozygous aa= red Bull with a black cow it would look like this

aa Bull + Aa Cow = Homozygous aa= red or Heterozygous Aa= black
but aa Bull + AA Cow will always be a Heterozygous Aa= black


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