monkey mouth carriers

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Telos

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One thing that has always impressed me about Cunia was his ability to change a plain cow, especially Dairy breeds and Chianina cattle. His ability to downsize and add thickness will always amaze me. I remember buying and selling a Cunia son out of a Guernsey Cow in the mid 70's as a show steer. He won a competitive county fair.

It is somewhat of a shame that bulls  like Cunia, Dalton and Paramount had genetic defects. I particularly liked the Dalton females. I will always wonder, why more Maine breeders did not choose to select their best half bloods and breed them back to half bloods. The half blood to half blood mating was the only way it seemed to work with the Chi Angus breed. It always seemed to be a race in the early years as to who could keep them solid black and at a higher percentage.

On a positive note; There is a vast array of good clean genetics within the Maine breed. This is perhaps a good time to try and breed a more problem free Maine.
 

Hoof Hearted

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I've had more than my share of Monkey Mouths over the last 20 years of breeding show steers. You are right about 95% of them do cripple up. It also seems that about 80% of the ones I have had have been bull calves. They are usually very hairy and have a real cool look to them as babies. I always say the look like they hit a brick wall face first doing about 50mph. They usually are kind of bug eyed. One other thing I have noticed is on the bull calves their sheath is back a little farther than normal. Here is a partial list of the bulls that have sired monkey mouth calves for me. Full Flush, Witch Dr. , Heat seeker, Reflector, Wonder, Who Made Who, War horse, Mojo, Silver Bullet, Stout, Kodiak(the Cunia son from early 90's) Foreplay, Habanero, Lifeline, Hairy Bear, Hide-n-watch, & Godfather.  My guess it is like TH and the carriers have something that we select for, because so far if the bull can be a carrier it usually is. Early on I sold a few of them when I didn't know what they were and everyone of them did not make it to Fair. Now I don't mess with them, they go to the sale barn at about 300lbs. I hope Dr. Beever finds a test for this one someday. It has been hard to find a true clubby line of cattle that doesn't  carry it. Easyest thing for me is to keep it out of my cow herd. (easier said than done.)
 

sunny

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Shippenville, PA
Also add Mossy Oak, Heat Wave and Who's Your Daddy to the list.  I also have seen monkey mouths from many of the bulls already listed.  It seems there are different degrees of the defect.  Some are so severe that they can't nurse without assistance. Others seem to get by OK, but most don't grow very well. 
My question is if a cow produces a monkey mouth calf, how likely is she to produce another?  I have had probably a dozen of them over the years, but never two from the same cow, or even from the same cow family.  I am assuming from previous posts here that monkey mouth is not a simple recessive gene like TH or PHA.  Is that correct, or still not known for sure? 
Just for discussion - do you other breeders consider producing a monkey mouth calf a reson to cull a cow?  I have culled for that, and would definately cull if the same cow ever produced a second monkey mouth, but for now I just try to use a different bull on her, but I'm seeing that the choices are getting smaller in the club calf bull battery, and now you say there are even some coming from Angus?  How about some bull names?
 

Jill

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The best donor in my herd has produced 2 by Final Answer, both were mild and by the time they were grown you couldn't hardly tell, they grew fine and had no problems,  am I going to cull her, heck no, I haven't ever had a problem with any other bull we have used and she has been flushed to maybe 20 different bulls.  We did have one years ago from a Purple Haze cow and Future and he was so severe that he couldn't nurse and died within 3 days, we were new at the time and hadn't even ever heard of mm.  My question is, who carries the defect, the cow, the bull or do both have to be carriers to get a mm calf?
 

knabe

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jill, i haven't heard of a sex linked association, any heifers out there with it or are they just males?  what's the ratio?
 

knabe

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sires so far

Ace (Black Perfection 22)
chill factor
cowboy cut
cunia
de bull
executive?
final answer
full flush
RHM FUTURE 223118
godfather
habanero
hairy bear
heat seeker
Heat Wave
hide-n-watch
kodiak
lifeline
majors money man?
mojo
mossy oak
powerplant
reflector
silver bullet
sunseeker
stout
throttle
uno
war horse 4 defects?
who made who
whose your daddy
witch doctor
wonder



out of cows sired by
cold front

monkey mouth clean????

Babe (MF Babe Ruth 01B)
 

Jill

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I don't think you can make a list of clean without knowing how it is transferred, (1 parent or both). 
 

knabe

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Jill's comment,
I don't think you can make a list of clean without knowing how it is transferred, (1 parent or both). 

jill, understood, only put it there as babe was out of ace (known "carrier") and a cunia bred cow and why i put a question mark, and also to thow up bulls who may be clean to see if anyone had affected calves out of them.
 

sunny

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We have had 5 bulls and 2 heifers.  The bulls seem more severe.  We actually kept one Heatseeker heifer that was a mild case.  We have bred her to Angus bulls with no problems, and surprisingly she raises a good calf (these are feeder calves, won't keep any for breeding stock).  3 calves, all perfectly normal.  I was pleasantly surprised that the cow could raise a calf, breed back, and keep good condition on grass and forage only - no grain for cows, no creep for calves.  I also would like to know more about this defect - do both parents have to be carriers?
 

aj

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Cunia does have novino in his pedigree.....I wonder....... no it probably means nothing......or is there a chance.....????? :-\
 

Telos

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Cunia does not show any Novino in his two or three generation pedigree. Cunia and the Novino lines  may or may not be closely related. The story I've heard about Cunia is that the French breeders did not like Cunia and thought he was a runt.  If I were to bet, I would say Cunia was not closely related to the Novino line of Maine genetics. There were many Maine Anjou bulls imported that went back to Novino. Probably most of the modern black Maine cattle go back to Novino; (Epinal, Covino III,Cosic, Etula, Etulason, Inox, Dada, etc.), but by no means do all of them. Cunia may run a close second with the frequency of which he appears in modern Maine pedigrees.

Another characteristic of Cunia is, some of them would really 'buck' in that front end where the cannon is attached to the knee and toe out severely. I think he was the primary culprit who was responsible for those beautiful traits.

It will always amaze me that often times we make some of these bulls, which are known carriers of undesirable traits, out to be 'Saints' that have come along to cure all of our problems.
 

Show Heifer

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It will always amaze me that often times we make some of these bulls, which are known carriers of undesirable traits, out to be 'Saints' that have come along to cure all of our problems.

Amen to that Telos. It also amazes me how folks still use them to produce breeding stock..... :-\  Hmmmmmm......
 

justintime

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I find this discussion very interesting and informative. Can anyone tell me if monkey mouth is similar or the same as what used to be referred to as parrot mouthed? I remember many Simmental bulls  in the 70s and 80s with what was referred to as being parrot mouthed. Some of these bulls bottom jaw was  so short that they could not eat grass very well. I remember a fullblood Simmental bull that sold for $30,000 in a very prominent sale, that almost died on pasture breeding cows. He simply was starving to death as he stuggled to eat enough on shorter pastures. He was fine when he had a tub of corn in front of him.

Your comments about Cunia brought back many memories. I saw Cunia, probably a few hundred times as he was housed for several years near me. At that time, he was a much overlooked bull as most people who were interested in these European cattle were drawn to the bigger framed bulls. For many years, Cunia was stalled with Dollar II on one side of him and Covino III on the other side of him. Dollar II weighed 3300 lb as a mature bull and Covino III was just over 2800 lb. Cunia was in between these monsters and he weighed 2450 on a very good day. He did look like a runt between these bulls. I remember hearing that when Cunia was selected in France, the French officials were upset and did not want him to be exported to North America, because they felt he was not representative of Maine Anjou cattle in France. He was selected only because they had been searching for a bull to import that may possess some calving ease, that would be safe to use on heifers and smaller framed cows. It took a considerable amount of discussion, most of which was done through the use of translators, before the French finally agreed to test him for export.

I do not remember Cunia having any issues with monkey mouth himself, but I may have not noticed it either. I do remember several Simmental imports ( also a few Charolais) that had real bad cases of what we called parrot mouth at the time. Thinking back to how Cunia looked, I think he  if he was imported today, he would make someone very rich. He was one of the smoothest muscled bulls I have ever seen. He was ultra clean fronted and had an excellent real quarter. He had excellent thickness in his lower quarter. His shoulder was laid very well and from what I remember, I do not recall him being too straight fronted. I remember him as being one of the soundest bulls on his feet and legs of the import bulls. He had great feet and I remember the workers at the stud saying that he had not had his feet trimmed, while several other bulls required work on their feet at least a couple times a year. I also remember him as having one of the best temperments of the Maine bulls of the time. Most of the Maine bulls were much easier to handle than some of the other European breeds. Some of the Simmental bulls had reputations of being "man killers". I believe Abricot killed 2 ( maybe 3) stud workers, and I remember him having 2 large rings in his nose. When he was collected, he was led to the collection room by a tractor with a logging chain through both rings. You could not have paid me enough money to collect that bull. I used Abricot quite a bit in my Simmentals, and found them to be very good cattle to work with.

Getting back to Cunia... I probably had over 100 direct Cunia calves in the 70s and 80s, and I do not remember having any calves with any mouth issues. This makes me wonder if monkey mouth is like some other defects and only shows up when it is is inherited from both sire and dam. I have nothing to go on but memory here and I do not recall any mouth issues at all.

After I sold my Maine cattle, I had 50- 60 doses of Cunia left in my semen tanks. It sat there for a few years and I finally offered it free of charge to a young neighbour that was starting to breed Maine cattle. He  got himself into some financial trouble and after a few years of struggling on the farm, he sold out and moved away. You have no idea how many times I have wished that semen was still sitting in my tanks. Since that time, I have been very reluctant to dump any semen , which might explain the 7 semen tanks in the barn office, and the over one thousand doses I pay storage on every month.

 

shortyjock89

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Justintime-I think that parrot mouth and monkey mouth are kinda the opposite...parrot mouth is a big ol overbite, and monkey mouth is an underbite.  That's how I understand it anyhow.  And I believe that it IS a recessive gene that is produced only when two carriers are mated.    Awesome history, like always, by the way  (clapping)
 

DL

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shortyjock89 said:
Justintime-I think that parrot mouth and monkey mouth are kinda the opposite...parrot mouth is a big ol overbite, and monkey mouth is an underbite.  That's how I understand it anyhow.  And I believe that it IS a recessive gene that is produced only when two carriers are mated.    Awesome history, like always, by the way  (clapping)

SJ - I always have trouble with over bite and under bite (I guess it is related to what you compare what to?!  ::)

Monkey mouth - bottom jaw out (more than top) - like monkey (of French Bulldog)
Parrot mouth - top jaw out (or bottom jaw in ;) like parrot

JIT - I forget you were a Maine guy during the beginning! Great story - wonder where the Cunia went...
 

shortyjock89

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DL said:
shortyjock89 said:
Justintime-I think that parrot mouth and monkey mouth are kinda the opposite...parrot mouth is a big ol overbite, and monkey mouth is an underbite.   That's how I understand it anyhow.  And I believe that it IS a recessive gene that is produced only when two carriers are mated.    Awesome history, like always, by the way   (clapping)

SJ - I always have trouble with over bite and under bite (I guess it is related to what you compare what to?!  ::)

Monkey mouth - bottom jaw out (more than top) - like monkey (of French Bulldog)
Parrot mouth - top jaw out (or bottom jaw in ;) like parrot

JIT - I forget you were a Maine guy during the beginning! Great story - wonder where the Cunia went...

Right on DL, you said what I meant, only a little better!
 
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