WEIRD CALF ALERT

The post and pictures posted earlier reminded me that as calving is in full swing somewhere it might be time to remind everybody about the weird calf alert and EARS!

If you have a weird calf please save the EAR for Dr B (put it in the freezer) if it turns out it might be genetic then you can ship it off to him to be part of the DNA data base

Send pictures along with pedigree and the ear to Dr B - if the calf was necropsied send the necropsy report also

A little bit ago I get an email from  a fried about an itty bitty Angus calf (like 20 lbs) sired by a certain bull - turns out this was the 5th report of these itty bitties - now we are collecting calves and samples and even flushing an itty bitty that lived and is cycling - so the gene hunt won't be far behind

weird calf - think save the ear...thanks

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Bump.

Save an ear people and send it in.  Then get that warm and fuzzy feeling that you did the right thing!!!

Wish i would have known about the ear thing last week. Took pictures but didnt know to take an ear.  It was a doozy.

Thanks for the reminder DL, just wish I had thought about harvesting the ear as I have had a couple of "weird" Angus cross calves just recently(all stillborn). I did send them for necropsy, but reports came back inconclusive. Makes me wonder if they were looking for possible genetic defects or not, the calves were all out of the same bull, never had anything like this in the past.

MAY I ASK WHICH ANGUS BULLS HAVE BEEN LINKED TO THIS?? IT IS CALVING SEASON BUT SOON IT WILL BE BREEDING SEASON AND I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE SURE WE ARE USING SAFE BULLS!! 

And they say us space aliens take weird animal parts.    Maybe we were just doing genetic testing. Yea, that's what we were doing, genetic testing. <alien>




Thanks for the reminder DL.

Dixie and KPSC , It has been determined by others on this site that we can not discuss genetic defects or name suspect bulls or tell of personal experience . So if you want information please PM DL or myself and we will do our best to inform you.


SAVE THE EARS MAN!!!        SAVE THE EARS!!!!

I don't think this board has a problem with discussing genetic defects. Sure some are a little touchy about it but when kept in hand I think everyone is respectful and agrees to disagree, There are a couple of posts in the Hall of Fame about genetic defects. As for which sires doesn't the Angus Association(angus.org) have a list of tested carriers?

LinZ

How much of the ear do I need to cut off.  I don't want to hurt their look in the ring next summer.  Also, might ask rsc for a little extra piece of his ear.  Just to double check.. (clapping)lol..

Why the ear?  Why not send blood?  I can see sending the ear on a dead calf but not a live one. 

(clapping) (lol) (clapping)

ok come on people, THINK!  would you really cut the ear off a live calf? They mean affected calves,  dead ones.  Jeepers.

So that's why there are so many short eared calves!

Sorry smtal, they do mean dead ones, huh.  I've seen alot of affected ones in the ring.  They can still win. 

We have a heifer with TINY froze-off ears this year. She's pretty nice, but man can she escape!

simtal said:

ok come on people, THINK!  would you really cut the ear off a live calf? They mean affected calves,  dead ones.  Jeepers.

Click to expand...

If you remove the ear of your show calf several things could happen -
1. you could be arrested for animal cruelty
2. you could be arrested for practicing veterinary medicine without a license if someone thought it was an ear crop
3. you could be the laughing stock of the area for showing a calf that you took the ear from because you thought it had a genetic defect
4. if you tried to show a dead earless calf chances are you would not win a purple ribbon

Let me spell it out ..
Dead calf - take ear (put in baggy label and put in freezer)
Live calf - take blood (yes purple tube top woops, purple top tube)
Dam - take blood
Sire - straw of semen or blood
pedigree - live or dead
picture - live or dead
necropsy - dead only

Amount of ear (dead calf) - at least 1 by 1 inch, by why be stingy - not really much else you can do with it..

Thank you dl. I had no idea til you spelled it. Do you really think my neighbor could be arrested for cutting the end of the ear off of 1000 head every spring ?