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| One of the calves with the mothers (© auerrind.wordpress.com) |
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| The bull calf (© auerrind.wordpress.com) |
Tuesday 13 June 2017
The first Maremmana x Watussi calves are born!
Finally, two more first-generation calves of the Auerrindprojekt were born on May 26th. It is one bull calf and one cow calf, and both are of the combination Watussi x Maremmana.
It is great that both a bull calf and a cow calf were born. It opens the possibility to produce true F2 offspring of this generation, and we can see what this combination looks like in both sexes. The bull calf at least seems to develop a shallow zebuine hump, but that's not dramatic in my opinion. After all, the looks of an F1 are largely irrelevant because they are solely the product of heterozygosity and should give only little clue about later breeding success. I am still looking forward to see how the colour, size and body shape will turn out. The horns will most likely be pretty large, but also pretty upright. The F2 generation will be even more interesting, it will give us the opportunity to see what is the maximum of dark colour in this combination.
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Do you know why they using Maremmanas? It seems to me they have most what they need from the Sayaguesa,watusi, and chinina.
ReplyDeleteSayguesa will give size and e+ color, horn orientation too. Chianina size and horn orientation, Watusi adds a bit of red, and of course horn size. Not sure what the Maremmana adds except maybe forelocks.
Maremmana and Hungarian Grey are both very cold-resistant and develop a dense and comparably long winter fur. The other breeds in this selection not so much, although they can live outside whole year in Germany. So Maremmana is beneficial for the ecological capacity in Central Europe.
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