Recent content by Boreal

Yeah I’d say it’s largely undesireable - especially because there’s great cattle without it. I did quite a bit of research on myo a few years ago. Seems to be some upside to a few but a lot of downside to most. That always begged the question for me: why are they there? There has to be some...

I had a Galloway bull with nt821. His daughters certainly carry more muscle shape - especially in the hind quarter. They are a little harder calving, however, and I had some wrecks breeding him to other Galloway that I suspect were positive - before I knew about the mutations. I won’t say I’ll...

I’m not sure either. Great idea though.

I know even less about 85c than I do about the other two - so I really have no idea. I have semen on 80 and 8 so that’s mainly why I was wondering about them. I see on Digitalbeef that 85C had progeny in 2012 - so there must be some semen around. But what the bull’s like? Your guess is a good as...

Thanks for that. Gus certainly seems to have both his fans and detractors. If their pictures are representative, I’m more of an Ultra fan as well.

I am considering using either bull on a dozen or so cows next year. Would you choose one over the other? From the forum, I can get a good bit of info on Gus, but much less on the type of cow Ultra produces. I run a primarily grass based herd that is out on pasture (grazing or bale grazing) year...

Amen It must be catching on, though, there’s new snake oil for sale: https://www.drovers.com/article/neogen-launches-igenityr-feeder-commercial-dna-sorting-tool?fbclid=IwAR2dzCjY-0w30uGeabvJAva24X7trY_63ktkk3QtmcxwlZWkJiggm7LS7fM

Time has nothing to do with it. It’s all numbers. And 99% of the Shorthorn bulls out there aren’t going to get anywhere near the gross numbers, let alone numbers under the same or similar management, to make their EPDs representative. In addition to that, most of the accuracy attributed to EPDs...

Lol. I’m certainly not mad - although, admittedly, that post was a bit of a rant. However, smiling like an idiot, as you suggest, is not real helpful either. The breed associations are pushing EPDs and genetic testing. As you helpfully pointed out above - it’s a complete waste. Garbage in...

Well, my main issue is with the SNP 50K we’re all supposed to be shelling out cash for because it’s like having 25 live calves. Ultrasound is ultrasound and is certainly a more realistic representation of actual carcass data under certain management. The claims of the 50K are a load of BS if...

Makes sense as a marketing ploy. It’s the frame race all over again - just chasing numbers instead of size this time around.

For sure. But if you look at the actual feed out data including the $ return per animal and percent of carcasses 2/3 choice or better, he beats most of the competition. I realize epds are one tool of many, but how useful are they if they’re that wrong? By his epds, you should never use the bull...

Was researching Alta Cedar Lad 13N on SP and came upon this ol’ thread. Can someone riddle me why Lad’s carcass and $F EPDs are some of the worst in the breed, when he was one of the top Shorthorn sires in this real world feedout? I’ll admit, his sample size was small - but I’ll take the data...

I think you hit the nail on the head here, XBAR. There are so many other, more important considerations than 50K that testing for it is likely futile. Environment now tops the list for me.

Harley’s got some great Galloway cattle. His new bull Fireball that was at Denver looks good. I have a couple of Moto granddaughters that I bred to white and roan Shorthorn bulls. Haven’t bred his genetics the other way though.