An overview over the F1 Auerrind cattle

The website of the Auerrind project just posted an overview over the F1 Auerrind crosses so far. It is very nice to see them all in a row, and as recently announced, the first second generation crosses of the project are under way as well. As Claus Kropp correctly writes, it is not that important what the F1 look like but what genetic potential they have. Nevertheless I want to shortly describe the F1 here in this post. 

The Auerrind project has five Sayaguesa x Chianina so far. The cows are noticeably lighter in colour than the bulls. The bulls have slight greyish tone because Chianina has a semi-dominant dilution allele that removes the black pigment, additionally to recessive dilution alleles that remove the red pigment. Therefore, F2 Sayaguesa x Chianina have a chance of 1:4 for having the phenotypically right colour, 1:2 for looking the same as the F1, and 1:4 for being completely diluted concerning this allele. That's not so dramatic for breeding, as colour is the easiest to breed for. I like the body shape of the older F1 bull, it seems to develop quite good. 

In the Sayaguesa x Grey cattle crosses you see that the cow is much lighter in colour than the bull. The colour of the cow is slightly diluted, while the bull is completely black. All in all, the bull looks a bit like an aurochs-coloured Grey cattle bull to me, it is interesting that the Grey cattle influence is that strongly visible in this individual, whereas you see the Sayaguesa influence in the Sayaguesa x Maremmana very clearly. Good breeding partners for both combinations might be Sayaguesa x Chianina, which would have the potential for good size, body shape, horn shape and skull shape, whereas there is a chance that they would have some greyish dilution in the fur colour.

The Maremmana x Watussi look interesting as well. The colour of the cow is very beautiful. Hard to say what would be the ideal breeding combination for these two, perhaps Sayaguesa x Chianina or something 3/4 Sayaguesa. 

There also is another photo of Alvarez, the Sayaguesa x Watussi bull. It seems to grow very impressive horns that also face forward, and its face is rather Sayaguesa-like. The colour is perfect. As I wrote in another post, I think Sayaguesa x Chianina would be the perfect combination for this guy, and such crosses are about to be produced soon. 

It also has a photo of the first Chianina x Watussi individual. It is a cow, and the colour is very reminiscent of that of the Sayaguesa x Chianina cows. It will be very interesting to see how large its body size and horn size will be, since it is a mix of a large but small-horned and a small but large-horned breed. If bred to a Sayaguesa bull, the results could be pretty similar to the Sayaguesa x (Heck x Chianina) individuals from the Taurus cattle, which turned out to be a very successful combination, perhaps with even larger horns. Another option would be Sayaguesa x Chianina (this combination is good in almost each combination as it has a lot of the important traits except for horns size).