There's no such thing as Red Angus. It was created in a lab by humans.
OK! But, all Angus has the red gene! And the red gene is the predominate gene!
A breeder of Red Angus cattle, Eric L.C. Pentecost, explains a possible reason for the introduction of the red colouration into the Aberdeen Angus breed. In the eighteenth century, the black Scottish cattle were too light to provide sufficiently large draught oxen, so larger English longhorns, predominantly red in colour, were brought in and crossed with the black native polled breed. The resultant offspring were all black polled animals, since black is a dominant colour, and red a recessive one. However, all carried the red gene. Subsequent interbreeding produced an average of one red calf in four, in accordance with Mendel's law of heredity.
Early in the development of the Aberdeen Angus, Hugh Watson of Keillor, Scotland arbitrarily decided that black was the proper colour for the breed, and thereby started a fashion. He might well have chosen red instead. Leon J. Cole and Sara V. H. Jones of the University of Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station published a pamphlet in 1920 on "The Occurrence of Red Calves in Black Breeds of Cattle" which contained this pertinent paragraph:
"One more point should be emphasised, namely that the red individuals appearing in such stock (Aberdeen Angus)...are just as truly 'purebred' as their black relatives, and there is no reason why, in all respects save colour, they should not be fully as valuable. The fact that they are discarded while the blacks are retained is simply due to the turn of fortune that black rather than red became established fashion for the Aberdeen Angus breed. Had red been the chosen colour, there would never have been any trouble with the appearance of blacks as off-colour individuals, since red-to-red breeds true."
When the first Aberdeen Angus Herdbook was created in 1862 in Scotland, although black was the predominant colour reds were registered without discrimination. Angus was taken to America and increased in popularity, here in 1917 it was decided that to assure a pure black strain reds and other colours would not be allowed to register. This bias towards the black Angus inspired cattlemen who believed in the qualities of the red to start selecting the best red calves from the black Angus. In 1954 a new herdbook and Association specifically for the reds was started, Red Angus was launched in its own right.
My Grandfather only ever had reds, because red to red breeding only produces the red color.
Black to Black breeding will still net you Red colors in your stock. Nolan Ryan just calls them all Black for reasons of simplicity with his advertising!
And there is no real difference between a Red and Black Angus except the color.
