Johne's and Calving Ease bulls

[showsteercowgirl]

Alright, so first off...We had to put a cow down this fall after we found out she had Johnes. She was not born on our farm, so our vet said it is very likely she had it when we purchased her a few years ago. We were fortunate enough to have two daughters out of her, and they both along with the rest of our herd were tested, which all came back negative. We plan to keep testing for a few years to be sure everyone is negative. The older daughter is doing well and is entering her second breeding season. I have separation problems with the younger heifer, who is going to be 2 years old in June, so we are keeping her. She was a twin to a heifer, but we lost the other one. She has some growth problems, but I think she is coming along. My problem is this: She is out of Dirty Hairy 2 X Hot Commodity daughter, so I'm stuck on something safe to breed her to. I don't believe in shooting over the moon. I want a live calf that's not going to kill the cow when it comes out. Anybody have ideas on a decent calving ease bull for her? Thanks for the input!!!

 

[STAL19]

Maybe just go angus, try northern improvement, grizz, occ legend. Something proven

 

[redsimmsnangus]

FWIW I would keep testing those daughters annually.  If the one heifer isn't two yet she isn't nearly old enough to trust the test, which isn't super reliable either.  You can trust the positives but there will be plenty of false negatives.  That's why Johnes is such a nightmare to get rid of, it takes years of test and cull. I read of a breeder that brought it in using Holstein heifers as recips and it took I believe about 10 years to get clean. Good luck.

 

[Lucky_P]

Agree.  Stay on top of the Johne's testing.  A calf born to a Johne's-infected cow is 10X more likely to be infected than any calf born to a noninfected cow in the same herd.
If those two heifers are still negative at 5-8 years of age, you might be out of the woods.