King Cattle Co. said:
using monopoly as an example. I do think that there are a lot of his calves are really good and he works with a lot of different types of cows. there has been some issues with monopoly and his clones not producing for many years. I wanted some other opinions on whether this could have an affect on the reproduction of the progeny from some of these bulls?
I am not a genetics person but, when they collect the DNA it is the age of the animal. As the animal ages so do the DNA strands and shortens. So when you clone you are starting with old DNA. If it were me and i thought a sire was going to be great one, I would punch there ear when they were a year old not 6yrs old or older.
I would say that if an AI sire quit producing at 5 yrs old and is cloned it only seems to me that the clone's productivity would not be anywhere as long as the original. We never collected our bulls hard, but you also have to remember AI sires dont have a normal life like your herd or clean up bulls. They are pushed hard to produce semen and it surprises me after seeing how hard some are pushed they make it as long as they do.
AS JTM said, some club sires are not actually selected for maternal abilities and reproductive ability.
Just a thought. There are alot smarter folks than myself that know quiet a bit more about the clone deal they may reply.