Steer Planet - Show Steers and Club Calves Forum

There are carriers that do not have Gafa Mochican in their published pedigree. I don't know if semen even exists on him to have it tested. The Lady cow happens to be in at least one of carriers that do not go back to Mochican.

You'd have to ask Okotoks about Super Flag. I have a really nice and heavy muscled bred heifer sired by Super Flag that I need to test, but it's because there's a known carrier on the bottom side of her pedigree. The Lady cow happens to appear in the pedigree behind this particular known carrier as well.

I assume there are multiple sources as several full blood maine bulls were used honestly as well as dishonestly. If the Maine breeders or their Association would reveal their knowledge it would be easier to sort out the pedigrees where they were used honestly. It'd still be a puzzle though as we're talking about bulls that were used in the late 60s and early 70s and they weren't always put on the registration papers.

Either way, if you guys would start testing parentage on some of these old rumored bulls with whatever is left over in the tip of a staw after using one we could all watch the ASA play musical chairs with our epds as single step goes nuts trying to sort it out.

According to a number of people who would know-G-9 was thought to be a Cunia son or grandson.Which would be great with me.

Until you found out cunia is a monkey mouth and spastic pareisis carrier.

I have requested the myostatin test for Mandalong Super Flag... if he�s a carrier I will have crow for dinner

Gotta love the witch hunts that go on here whose premise is often in stark contrast to what we know about genetics: E226X didn�t have to come from Maines. Close bred herds are more likely to give arise to mutations - hence, more purebred animals are more likely to develop them. Could it have come from an outcross? Sure. Was it more likely to have been in Shorthorns all along? Absolutely. It probably arose in Durham cattle.

This reminds me of the speculation about Th and how it came from Galloway - which has now been proven to be another SP fantasy as they�re different mutations. Haven�t seen many retractions of the wild allegations on here, however - likely because the evidence doesn�t fit the narrative that Shorthorns were somehow unadultered until all of this outside breeding was snuck in. Hogwash.

Interesting thread.  There has been a lot of discussion about where it came from.  That's fine.  But I keep thinking about the future.  Where do we go from here?  I get the impression that some people are deathly afraid of the myostatin gene (maybe I am wrong but that is what I think).  Here are my thoughts.
Who cares where it came from.  How are you going manage your herd in the future?  I am not afraid of it at all.  In fact, we have decided to use some carriers in our commercial herd as are some other commercial breeders.
We calve out around 350 shorthorn sired calves each year (purebred and commercial).  We have never had a single calving issue due to myostatin.  We get 1-2 calves per year that are double muscled and we have A LOT of cows in our herd have Saskvalley Ramrod 155R at least once in their pedigree.
Here is my math (notice that I think in terms of a commercial cattle rancher).  IF you get 1% of your calves that exhibit double muscling and that calf sells for $500.00 less than the rest of the other calves, then the other 99% need to make up that $500.00.  That is about $5.00 per calf, or 1 cent per pound on 500 pound calves.  If the other 99% of the calves exhibit more muscling by using a bull with more muscling, then I believe that 1 cent per pound premium is achievable.
On a side note, I don't believe that you can tell a carrier by just looking at them.  We tested all of our sale bulls last year and the most heavily muscled bulls were not all carriers.

Isn't it true that sometimes freaks of nature just happen?  40 years ago we had two calves born in the same year with no tail.  Nothing there.  If felt like the tail bone was bent back along the spine under the skin.  The calves did fine, just looked odd.  They were absolutely, totally unrelated unless you wanted to go back to the beginning of time. 

Mutation, the historical cattle industry official excuse for adulteration.