# Charolais???



## mrsnav98 (Sep 1, 2011)

DH and I have just been presented the opportunity to purchase some Charolais. The only info we have so far is that they are about 450lbs. DH will try to gather as much info as he can tomorrow; the guy that told us about it didn't have any more info than that.

We know almost nothing about Charolais, other than they are very large and have very difficult first births, with a high calf mortality rate. We have Jerseys. 

My questions and concerns are, well, many. Would they bully our Jerseys? Are they generally ill tempered, or docile? How fast do they gain weight, on pasture, roughly. If we get a heifer and breed her with one of our Jersey bulls, will that make her delivery easier? I would think so. Is their meat tasty? How much pasture space do they need, compared to a Jersey? Are they very hardy?

We appreciate any and all info. Thanks in advance.


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## bruce2288 (Jul 10, 2009)

As with all breeds there a variations within the breed. So this is my experience. I used Charlois bulls for about 10 years and have owned some charlois cows. Yes they are big. I found them pretty calm. A charlois heifer with a Jersey bull should be no problem calving. I must say I had very little calving troubles with my bulls. They gain and grow very well.I would say they would out gain many breeds. They will definately leave a Jersey calf in the dust. As for grazing, A full grown charlois cow will probably weigh close to twice what your Jersey does, so will eat a lot more feed. I would say twice as much but then the greaater milk production of the Jersey that may not be true. Here rule of thumb, if you can graze 30 stock cows, you could graze 50-60 calves on that amount of pasture depending on weight 550-700lbs. Yes they are hardy.
One draw back on pure bred charlois( pink nose) is their pink skin. They are more prone to cancerous growths around the eye. Yes they are very good eating, but because of their large size they marble best after they have reached a larger weight than a jersey. I would probably not consider slaughtering a Charlois under 1200 pounds minimum if I wanted well marbled meat.


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## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

I am not a big fan of the double muscled European breeds. However, Charolais are generally pretty calm. They were developed as cattle for very small farms, so got handled a lot. That tends to weed out the bad temperaments.

They also get sunburn around their eyes, because they were developed in an area where cattle spent time in barns and were never out on the range.


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## ksfarmer (Apr 28, 2007)

I would look closely, walk in amoung them, see how they act to your presence. As others say, charlois can be rather mild tempered, but, not always. Depends on the herd they are coming from. Some of the crazyest, ill tempered, wild cattle I ever owned were charlois. Found out later that was common for cattle from this particular breeder.


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

Are they registered, or how many generations back before there is a registered Charolais? You can look at EPD online with a registration number. Maybe the actual birth weights, too, but each breed assn. does it different. That is part of the value of EPD, you get a calving ease prediction along with a birth weight prediction. For a breed that has potential to be hard calving, this is valuable information.


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## bruce2288 (Jul 10, 2009)

Charlois are Not a double muscled breed. I would not be concerned whether they are registered. In fact if they have of other bloodline it may give them some skin pigment. IMo the main reason to buy registered stock is if you plan on raiseing breeding bulls and that does not even seem to matter to many breed associations with the amount of outcrossing to different breeds whether admitted or not, that has been done in the last 30 years. Other reason would be to brag to your friends how all of your cattle are registered purebreds. I bet I get some guff over this statement.


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## beccachow (Nov 8, 2008)

Hi! I just saw the heading and popped in. These are the cattle that my neighbor has. From all of my experience with them, they have been very mild mannered. I have never seen a problem with calving; every time I look out there, there is another sweet little one. Even the bulls are pretty even tempered. These cows have neighbor dogs that run out there with them in swome doggie version of "fun"; the dogs are duly ignored. I have been out there with them picking up litter and balls and kites; the only time they even paid much attention is when they had the calves. Even then, it was an "I'm watching you, human" interaction and involved no chasing or bad behaviors.

I am not a cow person, but thought maybe you would enjoy a comment from a non-cowsy person. He did have other cows that would stare me down and scare me a bit, lol.


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## Hawkshaw (Jan 18, 2010)

My friend raises Charolais and I have three. All that I have seen of them they are mostly mild mannered. Mine I can walk up to in the pen or the pasture and pet as well as the others. I will not keep a wild animal as they are too much trouble and bring on bad manners with the rest of the herd. They are big cattle.


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## CIW (Oct 2, 2007)

At one time the Charlois registry had an allowance for 3/4, 7/8, and 15/16 bred cattle. They wanted to improve milk production, attitude, and marbling. I think there were some others atributes also. I don't believe that still continues today.
A long time back there was nothing worse than a charlois range cow with a new calf at her side. Today I don't see that.
There is a good market coming from the use calving ease, angus bulls on charlois heifers. The resulting steers will perform well in the feedlot and the heifers can be sold into a replacement situation for a third outcross. Many times they wil cross them back on angus to achieve the angus beef premium price in the carcass market.
There is a following in North central Wyoming for crossing Charlois bulls onto black, commercial cows. My neighbor sends all his bulls (20 annually) over that way and has been for many years with great success.


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## DJ in WA (Jan 28, 2005)

As stated, there can be wide variations within a breed, even more so than within a breed. But some generalizations can be made.

Two categories of the common beef breeds are the British breeds (angus, hereford, shorthorn,etc) and the continental breeds (charolais, limousin, simmental, etc) from the main continent of Europe.

Generally the British breeds are smaller and less muscular. With less muscle, they need less feed to maintain themselves. So they are considered to be better maternal cows.

The continental breeds are larger and more muscled, so they need more feed. Often they are referred to as terminal breeds, meaning they are used to breed maternal cows to make calves for slaughter only.

So ideally you have a smaller, lower maintenance, less muscled cow, that is bred to a terminal bull, e.g. breed a hereford or angus to a charolais bull. This makes for a calf that is more muscled than its mom, and grows well. Though the growth makes for less marbling as Bruce mentioned.

So Charolais cows are good to make bulls for terminal use, but generally not as good for normal beef production.

Having said all this, some breeders are making the terminal breeds more maternal, and the maternal breeds more terminal, which kind of defeats their original purpose. Maybe someday all the breeds will morph into the same thing. For example, as with many breeds, there are now black charolais.


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## Awnry Abe (Mar 21, 2012)

Our Charolais, over 4 seasons, are easy calving, 0 mortality, easy to handle, and incredibly tasty grass raised and finished. Our jerseys boss them, not the other way around. I think the biggest knock I can think of is the roughly 10% whack at the sale barn for not being black or red. YMMV, of course.


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

I've raised both Charolais and Herefords. It has been a while back, and I am not sure how different strains have changed over time. While there are some good and bad points about both breeds, we had a lot more trouble with Herefords "escaping" than we ever did with Charolais in fields with marginal fences.

We never bred our own heifers and never bought A cow that had not already had a calf or two, simply because we didn't have time to deal with calving issues. We never had to pull a calf from any of our own animals. For that reason, I can't really comment on calving problems.

In my opinion, the Charolais were more "laid back"


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## GaryS61 (Feb 26, 2013)

To finish them they do much better with some grain. They are not well known for just grass finish. My Charolais steers are some of the most mellow of the whole group of steers. They are not my first choice for cows because I like a cow that weighs at or less than 1250 lbs. Charolais are much bigger than that.


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## mrsnav98 (Sep 1, 2011)

Thank you for all the advice and info. Apparently we are getting the "black one. Some kind of angus cross, I think." The neighbor that presented the offer to us is keeping the Charolais cross and we get the other one. He's not certain what breed(s) it is. All he knows is that it's a 600lb steer that "is with calves and seems okay." I suposse we'll find out what his temperment is soon enough.

I'm happy. He should be going into our freezer sometime this winter. And our neighbor offered to teach/help us butcher! So that's some money saved and a lesson on being self-sufficient. I cannot wait to try my hand at butchering my own steer


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