Bulls

[Okotoks]

I am thankful everyone has their own goals.  It would be very boring if we all had the same type of cattle.  I think it's great that there are genetics available to mold the type of beast that fits anyone's goals. 

Funny you should mention "good heads."  The first cow I purchased, actually Dad bought her for me and registered her in my name since I was only 9, was Lady Anna 2761109.  That was in 1964 and I believe she was over 10 years old.  I still have her pedigree somewhere.  She had the first purebred Shorthorn calf at Oakview Shorthorns (known for the first several years as Circle F).  It was sired by SV Caesar 25th, a son of Louada Caesar who was sired by Bapton Constructor.  I remember how disappointed I was in that calf because it had a "bad head."  The "bad head" came from the cow.  I later bought a daughter of Louada Aristocrat that had a bull calf at side sired by Scotsdale Arrogant.  They both had "good heads."  Though she had a good head, I don't think that cow ever weaned a calf over 400 pounds.  My first show heifer was from the Thede Ranch, Clara 141st, sired by Meadowview Constructor, another son of Bapton Constructor.  Ted Aegerter, Jeff's Dad, picked up several heifer calves for us at the Meadowview Ranch sale in South Dakota.  I still have the sale ticket, she cost $200.  She had a good head, too, and placed 3rd in a class of about a dozen at the county fair.  She never raised a calf.  I think my eye for cattle has improved over the past 50 years.  At least I hope so!

Lots of good memories in this topic.

I know exactly what Oakview is talking about. In 1965 and 1966 we purchased two cows from Braeside Stock Farms to establish the Frimley herd. We still have descendants of the one in the herd. The other one was a daughter of Bapton Constructor out of an imported Scottish cow also from Bapton. She had a beautiful head, deep body and very easy fleshing but 20 years of breeding to bigger animals and there still was not enough performance. The other one was imported Scottish breeding on the sires side but out of a large Canadian bred cow, a lot of animals in our herd decend from her as there was a lot more performance. I still like looking at the Louada Sale catalogues of the 60's with the beautiful heads and deep fleshy bodies but I know the performance of most was less than adequate. It was in the late 50's and 60's that commercial breeders really started moving away from the breed and when the European breeds arrived it forced Shorthorn breeders to try to get back the performance they had lost.There were still good Shorthorns around but they had not been the show winning popular types and they were sought out. I like a good head on an animal but a good muzzle and jaw for foraging is key and the cattle with that will usually do better. Here is a picture and video of a cow we purchased in the Eionmor Dispersal last year that is 63/64 native, the other 1/64 being Highfield Irish Mist. Mist in my opinion was one of the greatest sires of top producing brood cows in the breed. I think this cows ability to maintain condition and raise a good calf is where the breed needs to focus. She is entering our donor program and we plan on flushing her to her grandsire Eionmor Mr Gus 80C.
http://youtu.be/EDiraaQxEHI

 

[r.n.reed]

We used Cat 20, as Harold Thieman called him, a little bit.  We had purchased and used a son of the 20th, TPS Coronet Catalyst 45 as our 2nd polled bull.  Catalyst 20th had scurs and Harold said he was a 100% dehorner--someone on this board (who is highly qualified) said that is not possible, but that is how Harold told it. 

Harold's favorite herd bull was Coronet Max Leader.  If I had semen on that bull, I'd certainly be using it.  Older genetics may be some of the pieces of the puzzle....

One of the pictures in my mind that I will never forget was seeing a large group of I think it was 90 head of what I was told were Thomas bred cows in 1974 when they were in Ohio.I don't know how close Max Leader was in the pedigree but these cows were impressive and the uniformity was amazing.I have attached a picture of his maternal Grandsire who was intensely linebred to the bull in the second picture who was a grandson of Roselawn Marshall and great grandson of Whitehall Sultan.

 

[r.n.reed]

The Thiemans used a bull that was at least a 1/2 brother to the old bull in my last post bred in the same herd.The first picture is a grandson that is in Max Leaders pedigree.The other 2 bulls are in Max Leaders paternal granddams line the calf is a grandson of the other.That older bull is in there more than once.They are also representitive's of the Marshall x Sultan cross

 

[librarian]

Thanks for all who are contributing to this discussion.  Students of the breed can really only learn from those who will share what they remember or were told by those who have passed on.  I will never forget to look for the "magic cross" from now on.
This is a Shorthorn World from 1921-1922, full of great pictures of Scotch types and some nice Milking Shorthorns as well.
http://books.google.com/books?id=cR45AQAAMAAJ&dq=shorthorn%20world&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=shorthorn%20world&f=false
I became interested in the old short legged thick bodied animals as a pathway back to a grass fattening type of animal.  I believe the older types, under all that fat, still show greater lung capacity and propensity to build muscle than most modern types. My bull certainly moderates size and adds girth to everything I have crossed him on.  But as Oakview says, a little of that old stuff goes a long way--they will start to get too small to be useful in my program. My Shorthorn idea is to take the deep bodied daughters of my bull, who is a first cross (Native beef type A x traditional dual purpose cow family A) and breed them to another first cross bull  (Native beef type B x traditional dual purpose cow family A) , and try to combine the greater efficiency and femininity of the dual purpose cow family with the compact characteristics of the Native beef type-- keeping the cow family genetics fairly narrow. 

Some "good heads" in my opinion.

 

[librarian]

And I love these cows.  They seem just the right size and have lots of character.  I think this kind of milking shorthorn is the real deal to get back to, just moderate the milk.  Maybe horns are important too.
http://books.google.com/books?id=cR45AQAAMAAJ&dq=shorthorn%20world&pg=RA1-PA26#v=onepage&q=shorthorn%20world&f=false

 

[oakview]

Here's something for you to chew on....I received a phone call last night from a friend that had purchased a bull from us almost 20 years ago.  He asked if I had a straw of semen from the bull I could send in for appropriate testing.  He had been blood typed years ago, but needs all the "new stuff" done.  I agreed to send it in.  The bull is Oakview Medicine Man 3974506.  He is a "purebred" Shorthorn.  His ancestry, recorded as accurately on his pedigree as I could humanly do it, includes full blood Maines Etula and Dollar II, the Chi bull Black Power Play, Australian Milking Shorthorn blood through Ayatollah, "native" Milking Shorthorn blood through Justamere Todd (champion bull in the beef show at the Iowa and Minnesota State Fairs in 1975) and several others, Irish Shorthorn genetics through Lazy D Ultimate Type (full Irish son of the foundation bull Deerpark Leader), Scotch Shorthorn blood through a cow we bought in the mid-60's, and Polled Shorthorn blood from Leader 21st.  This bull was bred with show steer production in mind.  I used the genetics legally available to me to produce what I wanted.  It worked well for that purpose.  We sold a lot of competitive steers from his sire, Oakview Powerplant, and my friend sold quite a few sired by Medicine Man.  I'm including this in a discussion of "native Shorthorn" bulls because, in a way, the creation of Medicine Man was no different that the formation of the "native Shorthorn", or Angus, Hereford, or whatever breed you want to discuss.  As far as I can tell, Adam and Eve did not have Shorthorn cattle.  Shorthorns, and every other breed, were molded by breeders identifying what type of cattle they liked and using the genetics at their disposal to reproduce them.  There was nothing written down, no recipe, they just made them.  Simply put, a group then got together and put some parameters on what they liked and invented a method to record it.  They made their own rules to suit them.  That was no different than what I did, other than I didn't make the rules.  The genetics were at my disposal, legally, so I developed what I wanted.  At least I wrote it down.  I'm not saying this is for everybody, or even me anymore for that matter.  When I was younger, with 70 or 80 cows around, I had a lot of fun "creating" things. 

 

[sue]

Amen Oakview !

 

[Cabanha Santa Isabel - BR]

I'm gonna disagree with you oakview.
I just simply like the fact that the "native" shorthorn originates from the same animals where they were found.
I believe why we have all these genetic defects are from crossing and hybridizing our cattle.
Pretty much all the shorthorns that are big winners at shows were cut out of their mother and 50% of the calves are the same.
Or you have to pull a majority of them. I know a guy who semen tested 10 "native" shorthorn bulls and 10 shorthorns. Not one problem with the native shorthorn.
I also know people did lie and mix match papers. That's why it is important to test.

But over all I believe a pure native shorthorn is a good animal. We also did milk tests for human babies.
The native shorthorn has the smallest fat globules that don't stick together, which is readyfor a babies stomach to digest.
If young infants drink raw milk from other breeds it tears the lining from the intestinal tract and they bleed.
Native shorthorn milk is similar to goats milk.  This is why I have the native cattle and am trying to better them.
I was raised in a family of 14 siblings and we were fed native shorthorn milk from week 1 and never had any problems.
If you can explain this, please DO!

(clapping)

 

[oakview]

I am more than pleased that there are those that appreciate the history of the "native Shorthorn" and want to preserve it.  The founders had their reasons for doing what they did and should be applauded for it.  I was merely pointing out that I, and many others, had a method to our madness in engineering what we wanted from the genetics at our disposal, identical to the Shorthorn founding fathers.  More power to you for using the "native" genetics for your purpose.  It suits what you want to do.  Great.  I'm using a Leader 9th son for calving ease.  He fits what I want and, so far, is doing the job.  As far as genetic defects, you did hear that Clipper King of USA is a TH carrier?  I guess it came from his sire Clipper King of Bapton, a "native Shorthorn."  Nothing's perfect.

I don't think your statement that pretty much all of the big winners at shows are cut out of their mothers, etc., is true.  I've used exactly the same genetics for many years and have not experienced what you describe.  I've not had the "big winners", but the genetics are the same, just not the environment.  If you have actual "pretty much all" c- section evidence from the herds that are producing the "big winners", perhaps you can share.  We actually did more C-sections and experienced more calving difficulties with the "block headed" native Scotch Shorthorns we had in the 60's.  Some of those square headed calves were difficult to get out.  The udders on some of those cows weren't the best, either.  Hopefully, the "native Shorthorns" that have survived through the semen that you're using are the ones that were bred out of these issues.  Enjoy what you're doing.  It's great that we have a wide variety of genetics to choose from. 

 

[MDitmars]

First off great posts!

Cattle breeding is interesting... Yes people hold cattle based on their own personal preferences in what they want. Some are shooting for show some are shooting for bigger or smaller. Just because it is native doesn't mean it is pure you have even more chance of error the further you go back when it comes to papers. With the big push for Irish blood the shorthorn breed saw tremendous problems with papers being made up to make an animal shorthorn. Oakview brings up a strong point with Clipper King of the USA having TH and after talking to Roy Lovaas for a while he suggested that TH could go back as far as Calrossie Constellation (no proof to back that hypothesis). With TH it is a hit or miss 50/50 on what comes out as a carrier and what doesn't. With the increase in ability to sell your cattle genetics problems with cattle will become even more prevalent. If native cattle were with genetic problems i suspect we won't find them until 10 years down the road. Take ds for instance 15 years ago we would have wrote a crippled calf of as just being born crippled and sent it to the feed lot asap... You don't keep the crooked legged animals it is common sense. Now we can report and track what is causing that cripple and eliminate it before we have a problem. Look at the forum post for DS here it is great that we as a breed have the ability to bounce ideas off of each other and ask if any one else has seen this problems!

It is simple we as cattlemen as a whole are breeding towards better cattle genetically free and in the direction we most think our cattle should go. We all have our own reasons for breed and other variances in cattle.

That being said I do prefer native because it is a family thing my great grandfather raised milking shorthorns less then a mile from where my brothers and I are now raising cattle. I prefer the utility as well.

My preference for native is simple there are very few *  free shorthorns in the current market and If you don't believe me on that do some research on the famous Rodeo Drive. I mean call around find out where he was bred and what his true bred is. Now i am not saying miss labeling animals is a bad thing that is the preference people wanted big animals for a while and that is what he put on the table and that doesn't work with my goals as a cattleman.

BTW if any one knows where i can find some Clipper king of Bapton Semen i would be extremely interested in that... The majority of it was lost according to Roy Lovaas to being inherited by the daughter and she let the tank go dry. I would be interested in breeding out the Th with clean cattle. He is a very solid looking bull. Roy Lovaas has a picture of him at the bottom of this page here

http://www.rlshorthorns.com/clipper_king_of_usa.htm

 

[HerefordGuy]

I believe why we have all these genetic defects are from crossing and hybridizing our cattle.

Your belief is not grounded in fact. Mutation is a fact of mammalian life.
http://steakgenomics.blogspot.com/2013/08/beef-cow-calf-weekly-truth-every-living.html
Crossbreeding cattle is actually a strategy to avoid the expression of genetic abnormalities or defects.

 

[idalee]

It is well not to place too much faith on a "non-asterisk" pedigree since ASA doesn't always get it right.    I have had "asterisk" pedigrees returned from parents who were both "asterisk free".    I love the reply from Oakview regarding his Oakview Medicine Man.    I would a lot rather use this bull,  where all branches of the pedigree are recorded as accurately as possible,  than a bull like Jake's Proud Jazz whose maternal great grand sire was AHL Kodiak who just as well be a jumper bull from across the fence.    In all this rhetoric about "purebred",  I am reminded of a prominent Milking Shorthorn breeder of a few years back who went to great pains to trumpet the purity of his cattle.  They weren't!    As long as all parentages are accurately recorded,  all registration rules are complied with,  and everyone knows,  then the merit of the cattle decides the breeding decision,  and no one is forced to use a "pig in a poke".  When we operated our Milking Shorthorn dairy,  we learned pretty quick that we had better insert some Holstein genetics or we wouldn't be in the dairy business very long. 

 

[Cabanha Santa Isabel - BR]

I know clipper king was tested for th. I think someone messed papers. Lets face it. Everyone really likes their cattle.
And sticks up for them. That's good. Although I used to show cattle alot that is how I know about c-cection. Too much hip, big legs and big heads.
For the milk I know is proven fact on babies and not done through machine tests. If I can find the article my dad has I will post it.
And as long as the pedigree is true to the native no one can convince me there is a better breed.  I'm not talking about asterisk free cattle. After five generations of asterisk free cattle the ASA takes that off.
All native shorthorns should be genetically free of TH and all other known genetic defects. If not I believe they aren't pure and someone put wrong animal to right pedigree.

(clapping)

 

[Okotoks]

I know clipper king was tested for th. I think someone messed papers. Lets face it. Everyone really likes their cattle.
And sticks up for them. That's good. Although I used to show cattle alot that is how I know about c-cection. Too much hip, big legs and big heads.
For the milk I know is proven fact on babies and not done through machine tests. If I can find the article my dad has I will post it.
And as long as the pedigree is true to the native no one can convince me there is a better breed.  I'm not talking about asterisk free cattle. After five generations of asterisk free cattle the ASA takes that off.
All native shorthorns should be genetically free of TH and all other known genetic defects. If not I believe they aren't pure and someone put wrong animal to right pedigree.

Are you saying that only mutations that are positive occur in "native shorthorns"? Mutations occur in all populations. The original shorthorns were not polled. The mutation for this occured in some Bates bred shorthorns in the 1800's. So if that mutation can occur in the "pure" stock so can others. If it cannot occur then most of your pure "native shorthorns" are not pure. You really can"t have it both ways!
That said I think it is important that different breeders maintain pure lines and others selct for traits they think are important.

 

[RyanChandler]

And I love these cows.  They seem just the right size and have lots of character.  I think this kind of milking shorthorn is the real deal to get back to, just moderate the milk.  Maybe horns are important too.
http://books.google.com/books?id=cR45AQAAMAAJ&dq=shorthorn%20world&pg=RA1-PA26#v=onepage&q=shorthorn%20world&f=false

The milk is fine.  The problem is how these 2 females you pictured is the way they carry their fat.  It needs to be much more evenly laid.. like beef cattle.  Look close in that picture of the 2 cow's -specifically their tail head.  While the silhouettes suggests they have a nice smooth phenotype, up close you'll notice how poorly they carry their fat.... gobs of pone fat despite not showing much cover elsewhere.  This is a sure sign of a hard doing animal... one better suited in a parlor. 

I find it interesting that there's as much variation within those having a N designation as there is within the other 'sects.'  Many I like-  I much prefer the more angular native cattle.  Some I don't care much for- the 'cow headed' scotch females-- that I'd wage have no milk.

 

[aj]

The premis of this thread iw wrong to start with. Dual purpose shorthorns considered native? Purity of a breed? If there is anything native to North America it would be bison. To me.......if anything.....there might be some cattle in the 1970's that were functional and good cattle. BEFORE they started trying to compete with the exotic envasion of cattle in the USA. Competing in adg and so called "performance". I would think the only things the 50's and 60's cattle could bring to the table would be moderate size and marbling abilty. This in its self is important.

 

[RyanChandler]

I was just talking about these 2 in particular as librarian commented on how much she liked them.

 

[librarian]

I see your point xbar. I think aj and okotoks made good points too.who could be more of an idealist than I am, and I will admit that there is no such thing as purity in purebred cattle. Just fixed types. When I read the old accounts they are rife with all the same accusations and prejudices exchanged today. The most successful old breeders and breed builders worked with line bred bulls on the best cows available for their particular purpose. Those cows were often infused with the functional traits of other breeds, more or less. Native cattle are just closer to the dominant fixed type before the current round of infusions. The practical reason to utilize native genetics,for me, is to bypass those recent introductions that have moved the breed away from moderation and marbling. My interest is not in preservation of purity. My interest is in adaptation for efficient production beef on grass. Doing that with shorthorns is pretty tough unless you go back to the older type. There are a lot of reasons to surmise that type was influenced by other moderate, well marbled, short legged hairy scotch breeds.
They argued forever about whether hubback's mother was part highland. Rationally, how else does an individual suddenly acquire a  big barrel, wide back, deep chest and wavy hair? By random mutation or by grazing in the lane near a highland bull? It might be enough that hubback was pure good.

 

[librarian]

And how did the sale go? Where did the roan bull end up?

 

[RyanChandler]

Xbar. For milking shorthorns they look really good. You want more milk than fat. That's why the Milking shorthorns died out.
Everyone wanted more flesh. Look at the Holstein. They are big bags and bones. As for those two pictures those cows are awesome Dual purpose cows.
When your providing for a family you want milk and meat. More people did that in the old days is why the dual purpose cow was such a good cow.

Those type of cattle have no application in the beef industry today.  They died out for the same reason all the dual purpose breeds died out- they weren't especially good at anything.  Specialized breeds came in and changed the industry... for the better.    For the homesteader,, A true dual purpose cow would be still be a relevant choice.