What are the disadvantages of a Limousin cow?

What are the disadvantages of a Limousin cow?

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What are the disadvantages of a Limousin cow?

Introduction

  • Limousin cow are popular for their muscular build and efficient meat production. However, there are disadvantages to owning and raising Limousins that can make them a less favorable choice for some farmers. Whether it’s their temperament, calving difficulties, or market challenges, these factors can affect their practicality in certain farming environments. Let’s dive into the potential drawbacks of this breed to give a well-rounded perspective.

The Carcass Breed

Limousin cow are a breed of hige muscled beef cattle originating from the Limousin and Marche regions of France. The breed is known as Limousine in France. Limousins were first exported from France in significant numbers in the 1960s and are now present in about 70 countriees. They are naturally horned and have a distinctive lighter wheat to darker golden-red colouring, although international breeders have now bred polled (do not have horns) and black Limousins.
What are the disadvantages of a Limousin cow?

Initially used mainly as draft animals, interest in Limousins as a source of high quality meat grew about two hundred year ago. The first Limousin herd kaitab was then established in France in 1886 to ensure the breed’s purity and need by only recording and breeding animals that satisfied a strictly enforced breed standard.

Limousin cow have become popular because of their low birth weights (ease of calving), higher than average dressing percentage (ratio of carcase to live weight) and yield (ratio of meat to carcase), high feed conversion efficiency, and their ability to produce lean, tender meat.

 
A significant multi-breed concentrate on revealed that Limousins changed over feed into saleable meat more proficiently and essentially quicker than famous English varieties, and insignificantly quicker than other well known mainland European steers breeds. Alternately, the other steers breeds delivered relatively more minimal expense side-effect and waste, which brought about their live weight development being quicker than Limousins.
 
  • Limousin cow are especially favoured for crossbreeding with cattle such as Angus, Hereford and Shorthorn because of their ability to contribute hybrid vigour, and improve the yield and feed conversion efficiency of these British breeds, which produce higher levels of fat and marbled meat.
Most Limousin cow have a coloration that varies from light wheat to darker golden-red.
 
Other coloration, mainly black, has been developed through cross-breeding and grading up from other breeds of cattle. In addition to altering natural coloration, other traits, such as polled (a genetic lack of horns), have been introduced through cross breeding.

Overview of Limousin cow

Beginning from France, Limousin cow are essentially reared for their lean meat, making them well known in hamburger markets all over the planet. They are solid, medium to huge estimated creatures, frequently rosy brilliant or dark in variety. Regardless of these engaging characteristics, Limousin cows present a few difficulties to ranchers, especially those new to the variety’s particular requirements.

Characteristics

● Medium outlined creature – “widely appealing” normal measured creatures that adjust well to the climate.●  Hybrid vigour – with any breed Limousins produce growthy calves for the feedlot.
●  Efficient carcase – high slaughter %’s; meat yields; meat to bone ratios and low fat.
●  Easy calving – at 32kgs on the veld.
●  Adaptability – thrives from the Bushveld, Highveld, Karoo, Namibia and the Cape.
●  Functionally efficient – great emphasis is placed on well adapted, fertile animals with good beefing qualities.
●  Docility – they are easy to work with.
●  Fertility – hard achieve 92% weaning rates.
●  Longevity – cows daily produce up to 14 calves.
●  Feedlot potential – with excellent feed conversion and average daily gains in excess of 2kgs per day.
● Carcase contests – routinely contend and win with high meat yields of 65%.●  Genetic variation – is wide with new bloodlines from tested bulls in France.
●  Breedplan Performance Recording System – our data base is controlled and great strides have been made with all genetic trends.
●  Interbreed competitions – gold cups are daily won at major shows.

Grazing Behavior

Limousin cow are known to be specific nibblers, which can prompt lopsided field use. Ranchers might find that they need to turn pastures all the more often or supplement brushing with extra feed, particularly in regions where field quality is conflicting

What are the disadvantages of a Limousin cow?

Minimum circumference of scrotum

Mass:
300 – 349 kg = 29 cm
350 – 399 kg = 30 cm
400 – 449 kg = 31 cm
450 – 500 kg = 32 cm
500 – 549 kg = 33 cm
550 – 600 kg = 33 cm
600 and higher = 34 cm

Hide and Coat

Supple, thick skin with good pigmentation. A short, shiny coat is ideal, but long, curly hair also occurs according to the season and environment.

Colour

All shades from a light straw colour to a dark red-brown. A lighter colouring around the eyes and muzzle, as well as between the legs, is normal.

Black Limousin cow

Since 1996 they have been allowed as a breed, administered by the same society and selected according to the same Standards of Excellency except under the colour clause where white may occur along the lower body line. A mulberry colour may also occur.

Discriminations & disqualifications according to the degree of deviation

●  Any signs of cross-breeding
●  To big or too small
●  Animals without the necessary pigmentation
●  White or black above the lower body line, or, in black animals, white or brown above the lower body
●  Too coarse or too fine a bone structure
●  Poor balance, especially in cows that are heavy in the forequarters and bulls that are light in the hindquarters
●  Wry mouth or nose bone
●  Flat, hanging or roofy rump
●  Wry tail setting or a tail setting that is too deeply implanted
●  Straight-sold(straight hock with little or no curve)
●  Cow-hocked (edges of hocks close together)
●  Sickle-hocked (with the bottom of the back leg turned a lot to the front from the tarsal hock joint)
●  Forelegs knock-kneed or bow-legged
●  Hind legs turned to the inside
● Wooly or Limousin cow
●  Matted curl
●  Too long a head
●  Rambling
●  Pony-like
●  A completely black or blue muzzle, or a white and brown muzzle in black animals
●  Bad temperament: too listless or too wild
●  Bulls with a female or ox-like appearance. Weak eye-brow ridge development and flat neck
●  Female animals with male or ox-like appearance. Little or no udder and teat development, especially in heifers
●  Excessive fat deposits on the brisket, hips and pins
●  Misshapen genitals and a scrotum circumference that is lower than the minimum requirement:
a) One testicle
b) Testicles turned more than 45˚ and turned of epidiymus (side testicle)
c) Hypo-placement (one normal testicle and one smaller one)
d) Absence of side testicles
e) A dangling, prominent sheath, or sheath with a large opening (prolaps)
●  Excessively long or short bottom jaw
●  Devil’s grip
●  Hollow or roach-back
●  Weak pasterns:
a) Dewclaws touch the ground
b) Short stiff and upright pastures
●  Poor muscling especially at bulls
What are the disadvantages of a Limousin cow?
 

Cross Breeding

Crossbreeding increases production efficiency because of hybrid vigour, and allows complementary traits of parents to be combined to produce progeny better suited to different environments or markets.  Crossbreeding through the use of Limousin terminal sires in purebred British breed cow herds allows the complementary traits of higher marbling and fat cover provided by the British breed cows, and required or preferred by some markets, to be combined with the higher yield and feed conversion efficiency of Limousin sires.

Crossbred cows produce up to, and in some cases in excess of, 20% more weaned calf weight as a result of increased reproductive performance and maternal ability. Crossbred Limousin cowlongevity is also increased by up to two years when compared with straightbred cows.

However, the benefits of hybrid vigour in a crossbred cow decline in subsequent generations if progeny are mated to cattle of parentage similar to the cow, and increase if a new breed is introduced.  Although studies acknowledge that the major production benefits of hybrid vigour occur in crossbred cow herds, the main use of Limousins outside of Europe continues to be as terminal sires in purebred British breed cow herds.

Are Limousin cattle aggressive?

 
Progeny of two parents of different breeds are termed F1 hybrids, F1 crosses or first crosses. F1 hybrids generally have an extremely uniform phenotype and benefit from hybrid vigour. These advantages are observed in the breeding of a wide variety of animals and plants, and arise because progeny inherit one of each paired gene from each parent.
 
When both parents are homozygous for different variants of genes (known as alleles), which is likely to be the case when a breed has been developed and selected over several generations, progeny will inherit both gene variants present in the parents. The F1 hybrid progeny will then be heterozygous for each gene variant, which in turn increases the likelihood that the genes will code for an optimal protein or enzyme. This is the genetic basis of hybrid vigour. While many gene variants have effects that are of little consequence to beef production, a few, such as the myostatin variants found in different cattle breeds, have a major effect.

What is the best breed to cross with Limousin cow?

Loss of mixture force happens and aggregate changes enormously in resulting ages assuming F1 cross breeds are between reproduced or backcrossed with creatures hereditarily like the F1 parent. Between reared F1 mixtures will deliver descendants that can be either heterozygous for every quality variation, homozygous for one quality variation, or homozygous for the other quality variation.
 
 Limousin cow At the point when one of the variations to a great extent affects a characteristic, for instance the impact of myostatin variations on strength, bigger phenotypic variety will happen among the descendants. Backcross descendants will have less phenotypic variety and contain creatures that are either heterozygous for every quality variation or homozygous for the variation found in the first F1 backcross parent.
A third type of descendants emerges when F1 cross breeds are reproduced with creatures hereditarily not at all like their folks. In the event that heterozygosity is kept up with or expanded accordingly, half breed energy and other creation benefits happening in the F1 age will be kept up with or expanded. Support of heterozygosity is the way to keeping up with the most significant levels of crossover vigour.v
 
Limousin cow  This requires complex breeding programs and high levels of management. Simplified crossbreeding programs have been developed using hybrid or composite bulls, which was the motivation behind the development of Lim-Flex hybrids.

What is the meanest cattle breed?

The two major Limousin cow hybrids are Brahmousin (a cross between Brahman and Limousin cow) and Lim-Flex (a cross between Angus and Limousin cattle), which were both developed before the significance of the F94L myostatin variant had been quantified. When Limousins homozygous for the F94L myostatin mutation are used in crossbreeding, only one of the mutations will be inherited (that is, progeny will be heterozygous for the mutation), and a high level of phenotypic uniformity and hybrid vigour would be expected in the progeny.
 
However, breeding using heterozygous animals as parents, which could include purebred Limousin cowof low percentage Full French content, and Lim-Flex and Brahmousin hybrids that have not been bred to a uniform (homozygous) standard over several generations, would produce progeny with inconsistent carcase characteristics and production value depending upon whether or not the F94L mutation was inherited.

The use of Lim-Flex and Brahmousin sires over a third breed of cow would benefit most from increased hybrid vigour, which should minimise any reduction in carcase value arising from the loss of the F94L mutation.

According to research into the effects of the F94L mutation, live weights of progeny are unaffected by random inheritance of the mutation.

 
What are the disadvantages of a Limousin cow?

The Limousin cow Gene

Put resources into Limousin hereditary qualities and exploit the extraordinary Limousin Muscling Quality which can get your meat crowd delivering up to:19% more high value cuts
8% more in yield of retail cuts
6 -11% more tenderness
…with no extra feed!

What is the function of the Myostatin gene?

A regularly working myostatin quality hinders muscle development. A transformation of this quality decreases itspowers to switch off the multiplication of muscle fibres which can result in an increase of the size
and number of muscle fibres. There are nine known mutations of the myostatin gene of which six are
“loss of function” mutations meaning they inactivate the myostatin gene causing muscular hypertrophy
(larger muscle fibres) and hyperplasia (more muscle fibres).

The best known mutation is the 11 pair
erasure nt821 which has a high recurrence in the Belgian Blue variety causing the common “twofoldmuscling” effect.  This mutation also occurs in low frequencies in other breeds such as the Angus,
Murray Grey and South Devon breeds.

What is different about the Limousin cow muscling gene?

The mutation known as F94L which has a high frequency in theLimousin cow breed is one of three
missence mutations which does not cause a loss of function of the myostatin gene.  It appears not to
cause an increase in the size of the muscle fibres but does cause an increase in the number of muscle
fibres. It is not associated with high levels of calving difficulty or lowered fertility and longevity

What are the effects of the Limousin muscling gene?

The research conducted by the Adelaide University group led by Dr Wayne Pitchford has clearly
documented the effects of the Limousin cow muscling gene as shown below.

How big is the effect if I use a Limousin bull over cows of another breed?

Conclusion

Limousin cow are without a doubt a significant variety for hamburger creation, their weaknesses ought not be ignored. From their more forceful disposition to calving hardships and market restrictions, potential proprietors should cautiously gauge these variables prior to putting resources into this variety. With the perfect administration, these difficulties can be relieved, yet it’s fundamental to know about them to guarantee the most ideal results.

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