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Valley, NE | The Wagyu cow isn't know for being the best mother, having that calf be the sole income for a family back in the day, the cow would calve and that calf would come in the house, and after generations of doing so, the maternal ability has been bred out them. You'll have a boost of heterosis with them being crossbreds, so it's likely doing to be a mute point. it does seem the wagyu influence makes them most high headed, but like others have said there usually more difference within a breed than against other breeds.
The key to look at here is your marketing for your calves. Most of the wagyu in the US are F1 half bloods and the USDA breed claim requires 46.875% of the animal be the breed that is is marketed or claiming to be. so these 1/4 blood calves would not be able to be marketed as wagyu. You can likely have a grey area and call them "wagyu influenced" or something like that, I'm sure a good lawyer could argue both sides of that! As for the calves, you'll likely see some influence, but not a huge swing to the wagyu influence, with only the 1/4 bloods. If you plan to take them to fats and sell on the grid, you'll likely see some increase in the marbling, but not life changing, especially if you plan to feed them in a commercial/ traditional way. From what we see in our cattle (all black F-1s and some FBs) is somewhere around 20-24 months of age, the wagyu genetics kick in and lay the marbling in, where traditionally cattle feeding most cattle harvest around 18 months of age or so, you wouldn't see that.
we often joke around here that the worse and more rank the cattle look on the wagyu cross side, the better they'll grade and marble, which is true on our data. It's just a hard sell when I'm used to fancy/ pretty Simmental/Angus show cattle. You likely will have some horns to deal with, as the wagyu breed is a horned breed. We've devoted about 20% of bull breeding's to develop polled bulls, but just like the Holstein breed faced 10-15 years ago, initially you have to give up other components and performance to get the polled genetics, but it'll be a start.
looking at your pictures, they look like solid running cows that are in pretty good shape, they seem to have more of a commercial angus look than a wagyu half blood look, so you've probably got some solid mommas. Here is a picture of one of my F-1 wagyus out of a simmental
Edited by wurtzy 10/20/2023 08:08
 (Wagyu calf (full).jpg)
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 Wagyu calf (full).jpg (180KB - 54 downloads)
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Wagyu - Angus cross
