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aj

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Did anyone figure out if hs nobodies fool is a carrier? I just got my shorthorn herd bull issue. The people selling semen alot of times advertised th free bulls but never mentioned pha status. Are the bull owners ignorant of the the pha deal or are they trying to hide something? I think part of it is that if every ad mentioned the defects that the issue would be loaded with overkill with defect information. But.... I keep waiting for some hotshot bull like ringo or trump or some bull to trumpet to the heavans about being pha and th free. It used to be the lifespan of the average purebred herd was 6 years. I guess at this rate of turnover maybe people don't care if they sell someone a bull who is pha or whatever if the person won't hang around long enough to be mad anyway. The hs nobodies cow pha status bugs the heck out of me. Here sire was paramount reg# 77 if I remember right and he is pha positive.  (dog) (dog) (dog)
 

DL

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SJ - I am a dues paying member of the ASA and I believe I have a right to criticize them - they are suppose to represent all of us - not just the mafia, not just the big wigs

As far as I can tell the ASA does not have a PHA policy or if there is one under the dubious heading of "genetic defect policy" it is pretty much ignored

Jill is correct - TH was swept under the rug by the ASA for more than a decade and there are still people ignoring it. The shorthorn ad boldly claiming "TH FREE" with Stinger or Paramount in the pedigree are no better than the semen promoters - this is a sin of omission in my book - and it borders on slimy - people read TH free and assume - are they not sharp to assume - you bet - but why would an honest breeder who wants his or her customers to be happy NOT DISCLOSE THE WHOLE TRUTH???

It is not the savvy or the educated who generally get screwed by this kind of advertising - but the "little guy" - the kid who spent his fair money on a show heifer who died with a PHA calf

It took a lot of guts and some new blood for the ASA to finally attack TH - that new blood is all gone now. Lets see how they deal with PHA - how big is the rug?

aj - don't know about the cow - it is a very good question - I think you should call the owner ;D ;D ;D To see the "damage" a highly flushed carrier cow can do one only has to look at Pebbles or the 4072 cow (and of course there are others)

Oh boy, a passionate topic - I feel my karma slipping....just like Paul Simon said...slip sliding away...
 

itk

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I think it is bout time for the ASA to revamp the TH policy. It was a great first step but now that the smoke has cleared a more in depth, specific policy is needed. I think that the same policy could be used to cover PHA. I also agree that an animals TH and PHA status should be listed on registration papers. I respect breeders who still want to use positive animals in their herds, as it is their choice, but I also hope that they are responsible and inform their customers about possible genetic defects. We will probally never know the status of many of the old animals but just buy animals that contain their genetics that have been tested. We have a cow that goes back to Improver 57 four times but I don't really care because she TH free. I love the shorthorn breed but if I had a $1,500 straw of Trump semen there is no way I would donate it just to get tested.
 

Doc

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sjcattleco said:
Simple solutions to your ASA problems

1 in 2007 register calves the OLD way... get some apps and fill them out!!!! mail them in and get your reg papers.....

2 TH and PHA policy.... Test or cull suspect animals in your own herd.... If there are suspect animals for sale either private or public auction and they are not tested and gaurenteed DON"T BUY THEM!!!! you do not need to have the ASA have an "official policy" for you to do what it right!!

3 There are never any good times to make major changes.... There are calves being registered year round... Just bear with them...the majority of folks who register 5-6 scream louder than the ones that register 50- 60....

4 Stop conplaining its not the end of the world.... If the ASA is still not running at full speed when the Fall sales start. and you don't have papers on sale cattle.. send in your reg app and then include a copy of it with the animal at the sale... Its the best that you can hope for and we are all in the same boat..

 SJ , Unfortunately it's not as easy as your response leads us to believe.
1) You still have to have someone there to know what to do once the paperwork arrives & right now you don't.

2) Most of us that get on these sites know about TH & PHA , the policies that everyone is worried about is for the "newbies".

3) You are correct there never is a good time, but you sure don't do it right before the deadline for the Jr Nationals. You can always have a little delay because of some small unknown, but there is no excuse for a delay like we have had in any business!!

4) I pay a lot of money each year to the ASA to have the right to complain. I believe that is my RIGHT! I don't run my business on hope , I have a plan before I start making major changes.
 

Show Heifer

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Here is MY "official TH/PHA policy" - unless it states clearing in the ad, I point blank ask if the bull is just a "must use". If the owner is not 100% honest, upfront, and non-confrontional, I DO NOT USE THE BULL.
If the bull is just a "well, maybe I will try him" and his ad says nothing on TH/PHA, I simply pass him over. I WILL NOT USE THE BULL.
Same with cows/calves at a sale....if not stated, I DO NOT BID OR BUY THE ANIMAL.

PERIOD. END OF STORY.  Don't care what anyone else does. But if your not honest with your animals with me or your ads, then your not the type of person I want to spend my hard earned money with.

And THAT is MY "Official TH/PHA" policy.

As far as the ASA goes.....I finally gave up trying to register my heifer, and her calf. 
 

garybob

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aj said:
Did anyone figure out if hs nobodies fool is a carrier? I just got my shorthorn herd bull issue. The people selling semen alot of times advertised th free bulls but never mentioned pha status. Are the bull owners ignorant of the the pha deal or are they trying to hide something? I think part of it is that if every ad mentioned the defects that the issue would be loaded with overkill with defect information. But.... I keep waiting for some hotshot bull like ringo or trump or some bull to trumpet to the heavans about being pha and th free. It used to be the lifespan of the average purebred herd was 6 years. I guess at this rate of turnover maybe people don't care if they sell someone a bull who is pha or whatever if the person won't hang around long enough to be mad anyway. The hs nobodies cow pha status bugs the heck out of me. Here sire was paramount reg# 77 if I remember right and he is pha positive.  (dog) (dog) (dog)
Other than show cattle, what, has she contributed to this breed? She should have been 'burger a long time ago. I refuse to use something that hasn't raised a natural calf . And, a cow must do so, without our loving guidance, annually, or she doesn't stay here. That's my policy.
You can guess what my beliefs are, regarding genetic defect carriers!
 

aj

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She was probably to big for me. I was just thinking that cf's whole herd is based around her and they own the showring deal. I really don't care one way or another but I may be looking for a new bull and want one that is pha free and th free. I am not one to have access to inside info ;) so I have to beg for info.
 

itk

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There are some cows that are at a whole other level then 99% of us cattle breeders can wrap our minds around. There are some cows like Nobody's Fool, 3127, and T90 that I can barely imagine owning. It is not so much that they can't raise their own calf but for financial reasons shouldn't. I will use 3127 as an example. In one flush to Double Vision she produced a 30 and 15 thousand dollar bull and a 25 and 4 something thousand dollar heifer. In one flush she produced almost $75,000 in progeny. If you take that times roughly the nine flushes she would be missing carrying a natural calf it adds up to almost $700,000 in lost income. I don't care what sector of the cattle industry you are in it is all about making money and $700,000 is alot of money to me, natural calf or not.
 

justintime

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There are only a very few donors that are flushed for years without them having a natural calf. I agree that the reason we all raise our cattle is to generate income. If a donor can generate more dollars by flushing her, then I have no problem with that. That does not suggest that they are not capable of raising a natural calf, it simply means that she can generate more dollars via flushing. I have one donor cow that lost 3 quarters to a viral mastitis after losing a set of twins at birth, just over 4 years ago now . In fact, the viral mastitis almost killed her, as she was so weak she could not even get up for weeks. I carried feed and water to her and had decided that if she ever refused to eat or drink, I would have to put her down. I treated her with massive amounts of drugs, so there was no salvage value from her. She eventually was able to stand, and literally looked like a walking skeleton by this time. I turned her out onto grass for the summer and by fall she was looking good again. Since she had always been a very good producer, I decided to try to flush her that fall. Since then I have flushed her every two months, and she has consistently produced  between 8 and 12 grade 1 embryos. She has just passed $60,000 in sales of embryos and flushes, and I still have about 15 embryos stored, and I have 3 live ET heifers from her her at the farm. She had calves in 5 countries in 2007. Last fall, I sold 8 embryos from her in a cattle sale, and they brought $1000 each. That is $8000!!! I did not have to feed, fit, clip or do anything but collect the cheque. Of course, there has been considerable expenses in getting this $60,000 from her, but I am sure I am still far ahead of what she would have produced if I had put her down.
I have several donors that I flush for at least a full 12 months, then I try to rebreed them for a natural calf. Once she calves, she usually goes back into a flush program where they are flushed every second month.
ET has allowed me to fast forward my breeding program. I used to spend about $30,000 a year buying some good replacement females for my herd.I always made sure I had sold more than this amount before I bought them. Since i started ET, the only females I have purchased have been a few donor females, and I have paid for them all with the embryos produced from their first flush.
So, if you ask me what I think about a cow that has not had a natural calf for awhile, I usually think she must be a pretty exceptional female, or she would have been sent to town a long time ago.
I have proven to myself, that you do not have to pay the huge dollars to develop a good ET program. Yes, some of these high dollar cows do generate interest faster maybe, but if you study your lessons, search for good cows that have a proven track record, and look for the bargains, it is possible to put a good group of cows together. My first donor was purchased in a sale in Illinois for $1500 as a bred female. She calved a beautiful heifer that sold to Texas privately out of my yard at $10,000 and this heifer did a fair bit of winning in the US. I decided to flush her and she became our highest grossing female ever, as we sold over 150,000 in progeny and embryos from her in 5 years. Since then, I have been patient and waited for the good cows to appear.
My point is, that in this day and age, we have the technology to speed up the production from our better females. If this means that she gets to go for awhile without a natural calf, to allow her to be flushed, then I see nothing wrong with it. We all raise these cattle to make a living and to improve our farms and our famiilies futures.
 

Doc

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justintime said:
There are only a very few donors that are flushed for years without them having a natural calf. I agree that the reason we all raise our cattle is to generate income. If a donor can generate more dollars by flushing her, then I have no problem with that. That does not suggest that they are not capable of raising a natural calf, it simply means that she can generate more dollars via flushing. I have one donor cow that lost 3 quarters to a viral mastitis after losing a set of twins at birth, just over 4 years ago now . In fact, the viral mastitis almost killed her, as she was so weak she could not even get up for weeks. I carried feed and water to her and had decided that if she ever refused to eat or drink, I would have to put her down. I treated her with massive amounts of drugs, so there was no salvage value from her. She eventually was able to stand, and literally looked like a walking skeleton by this time. I turned her out onto grass for the summer and by fall she was looking good again. Since she had always been a very good producer, I decided to try to flush her that fall. Since then I have flushed her every two months, and she has consistently produced  between 8 and 12 grade 1 embryos. She has just passed $60,000 in sales of embryos and flushes, and I still have about 15 embryos stored, and I have 3 live ET heifers from her her at the farm. She had calves in 5 countries in 2007. Last fall, I sold 8 embryos from her in a cattle sale, and they brought $1000 each. That is $8000!!! I did not have to feed, fit, clip or do anything but collect the cheque. Of course, there has been considerable expenses in getting this $60,000 from her, but I am sure I am still far ahead of what she would have produced if I had put her down.
I have several donors that I flush for at least a full 12 months, then I try to rebreed them for a natural calf. Once she calves, she usually goes back into a flush program where they are flushed every second month.
ET has allowed me to fast forward my breeding program. I used to spend about $30,000 a year buying some good replacement females for my herd.I always made sure I had sold more than this amount before I bought them. Since i started ET, the only females I have purchased have been a few donor females, and I have paid for them all with the embryos produced from their first flush.
So, if you ask me what I think about a cow that has not had a natural calf for awhile, I usually think she must be a pretty exceptional female, or she would have been sent to town a long time ago.
I have proven to myself, that you do not have to pay the huge dollars to develop a good ET program. Yes, some of these high dollar cows do generate interest faster maybe, but if you study your lessons, search for good cows that have a proven track record, and look for the bargains, it is possible to put a good group of cows together. My first donor was purchased in a sale in Illinois for $1500 as a bred female. She calved a beautiful heifer that sold to Texas privately out of my yard at $10,000 and this heifer did a fair bit of winning in the US. I decided to flush her and she became our highest grossing female ever, as we sold over 150,000 in progeny and embryos from her in 5 years. Since then, I have been patient and waited for the good cows to appear.
My point is, that in this day and age, we have the technology to speed up the production from our better females. If this means that she gets to go for awhile without a natural calf, to allow her to be flushed, then I see nothing wrong with it. We all raise these cattle to make a living and to improve our farms and our famiilies futures.

Amen!!!
 

aj

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And thus the evidence is presented. You have a segment of the shorthorn breed that is commited to raising the great one.Its all about the showring. There is nothing wrong about that. But you have one bunch of people who's selection is based on structural correctness, show ring appeal, on and on and little pressure for udder,fleshing ability,birth weight, and other things. Then the commercial sector needs natural selection pressure for fertility, udders, common sense stuff, survival of the fittest and on and on. It's not just the shorthorn breed but some registered cattle people don't know the commercial beef industry exist's and thus the commercial side doesn't know the showring people exist's. The show ring will accept the pha deal and the the commercial segment won't.
 

justintime

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AJ, I hope you are not referring to me of not knowing that the commercial sector exists. I could not survive without my commercial buyers. What the commercial man wants is my number 1 concern. Almost all my bulls, including my ET bulls are sold to commercial producers. I agree that there are some breeders that only breed for the show ring, and there are these types of breeders in ALL breeds. There are purebred breeders who only breed for the commercial breeders in ALL breeds. There are some purebred breeders who try to breed for the commercial breeder and hope they can produce some cattle that will work in the show ring.It has been this way since there were purebred breeders, commercial producers and cattle shows.

In my attic I have breed magazines that go back into the 1930's. If you spend some time looking back in those magazines, it was the same way back then as it is now. I think there were more purebred breeders who only produced for the show ring then  back than there is now. There were crazy prices being paid even in the late 30s and 40s for show cattle as there is today. When one considers inflation of the dollar, many of the prices paid, back 40 and 50 years ago, were much higher than those paid today. It is called supply and demand, and it is what makes the free world go round and round. I doubt it very much if there is anyone on this board, who would not try to get  a premium, if they produced some calves that someone thought would work in the showring.

I for one, don't see  show ring and commercial cattle being simply a black and white issue. Yes, there are some show ring winners that would never produce, or possibly even exist if they had to produce in real world conditions. So what is new about that? Probably have been this way since cattle shows were invented.
When you look at commercial bull sales in any breed, most of the bulls on offer have sires or grand sires that were major show winners. If you could look at the pedigrees of almost all commercial cattle, you would see numerous animals that had successful careers in the show ring. There is a connection between the show ring and the commercial industry.

I hear this all the time from commercial cattlemen, that say that the cattle shows have no relationship to their industry. These same guys, usually go to bull sales and end up buying bulls to use that are sired by some great show sire, or sons of some great show bull. Seems to me that there must be a connection somewhere.

As for selling bulls, I personally prefer selling bulls to commercial producers. I find that commercial cattlemen usually are much easier to deal with and many are more willing to pay extra for extra quality. There are a few breeders in any breed that can exist without having to rely on a good commercial clientele. All the rest need to have commercial acceptance for their cattle. If they don't have that, they probably need a good job to supplement their purebred cattle habits.
 

garybob

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Guys!!!!

I will have to disagree with you. I feel that if she has been kept up and fed, only calves every two or three years, and, her progeny don't do any thing else, besides get shown or produce more show cattle, then, "she" isn't the dam of my next herd sire. I don't want to assume she could have performed like any other ol' cow, had she been given the same challenge, I want to know--PERIOD.
I want the dam of my next sire to "do it all", every year,for at least 6 calves(starting@24mos. old) with nothing but a round bale of poor-quality hay & a Lepto shot!! I don't farm grain on these Ozarks hillsides, nor do I need something descended from spoiled and pampered, high-maintenance biddies!!!It's so hard to find this type. It's easy to find a show winner.

Yes, I feed grain, and, yes, I try to winter 'em on good BermudaGrass Hay. BUT, Ladies and Gents, I don't overfeed on the grain part. Remember the ol' Morrison's Blue Bible? Grain and by-products should supplement the nutritional level of the hay, and I test my hay every year.

Heck yes, I have standards for phenotype, too.

 

justintime

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Garybob,
I know what you are saying and I agree with most of it. I agree that cows need to be troublefree and able to fit to the environment in which they are put. I haven't grown grain on my farm for 7 years now and only grew a little before that. I also need cows that winter on forages, and that can do it with little supplementation of grain. If I have to supplement due to severe weather, or poor hay quality, they get just enough screening pellets to get them through to grass time. Grain prices have soared in the past couple of years, so it really hurts now when that feed truck rolls into the yard. I am not sure if even the fuel truck hurts any more.
I do not agree that a good herd bull needs to have been raised on his own dam. Not in this day and age. To me, that just eliminates too many good bulls from your selection process. Of course, I pay extra attention to udder quailty , and all the other economical traits that you should be looking at.Maybe you have to know more about the genetics you are selecting now than you used to need. Some of the very best brood cows I have ever seen have been females that had great show careers. Some of the worst I have seen have also had great show careers.You simply cannot put them all in the same basket, just as you cannot eliminate any female as the dam of your herd bull simply because she was a donor female.

I will also say, that I do feel that there are far too many females being flushed today, that have not proven themselves to be in the top 5-10 % of a breed, or even a herd.I see lots of guys trying to sell embryos from cows  that had zero track record and in my opinion are just ordinary cows. That serves no purpose in improving the genetics of any breed and only leads to some breeders getting burnt. It is also important to remember that not all ET calves will be great ones. ET can teach someone some very valuable lessons .... at a very expensive cost. Never overlook your selection principles simply because an animal is an ET calf
backed by some very good parents.
ET is a new tool available to today's cattle industry. I is not something for the weak of heart, as it can get very expensive and one has to plan very carefully. It can be very frustrating, and at times is very disappointing. When you do get good results it can also be extremely gratifying, and profitable.
 

red

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What I don't understand is when someone flushes a heifer. I less understand when someone buys embryos from that flush.
Does anyone flush heifers & if so why?

Red
 

aj

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I don't have figures backing me up but I respectfully challange the assertion that say in the angus breed that bulls selling to commercial people go back to show cattle. If you look at the abs book very few of their sires go back to show winners. It's all epd's , common sense, carcass data, bwt's on thousands of progency and etc.. .There is no way the shorthorn cattle bred for the showring can have bwt's lower than 105# average. You can't compete in the showring unless you have a 100 some plus bwt calf and a grain bucket in front of them. I'm not sure you can compete without pha cattle. You always hear of the latest semen bull having a 70 # bw but he always throws 120# calves. There are antedotal instances of cattle like american muscle and gismo having lower bwt's.  and the great thing is alot of shorthorn cows will lay down and have a 115# calf unassisted but I really don't think things like stayability and showring cattle fit together at all. I will agree that the baby beef cattle of the 50's and 60's were also a joke but some showring people got the ball rolling and look what happened. There are different cattle needed for different enviroments and I think for different price levels of corn and diversity is nessesary. But I respectfully challange the assertion that popular bull pedigree's selling at commercial cattle people bull sales go back to showring cattle. :-*
 

justintime

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I get as many AI catalogues and most anyone does and I seem to see lots of sires from all breeds including Angus that are either show winners themselves, or are sons of show winners. ABS does have some that come from some of the large Angus operations, but even they are more show oriented than they admit. If you have ever spent time in the Angus barn in Denver, they are all there and they are definitely doing some big business. Where I live, I have some of the biggest black and red Angus breeders in this country close to us. One of these outfits has at least 5 walking herdsires that were purchased at over $40,000 each, and they were almost always purchased in a sale at a major show. I cannot think of many of the top Angus, Charolais or Simmental commercial bulls that are sold here that don't go back to show winners. Of course they also have good numbers.
As you probably realize, I raise Shorthorns and have also raised many other pure breeds of cattle. I partially agree with some of your comments about Shorthorns, but I do not think you can make a blanket statement like you have about a breed. I agree that too many Shorthorns have birth weights that scare some people, but I have proven in my own herd that it is possible to produce Shorthorns with moderate birth weights and minimal calving issues. As I wrote in a previous post, we should be spending more time talking about calving ease than just birth weights.

Last night, my wife and I drove down to some friends for supper. They have a very successful Black Angus herd and have conducted a very successful bull sale on their farm for the past several years. Two years ago, they purchased a few Shorthorn cows from me, as they wanted to start a small satellite herd. They are now dispersing their Angus cows this fall. I have been really preplexed why they would be dispersing a set of cows that has given them 75 to 80 bulls each year that average over $3200 each year. In 2006, they sold 78 bulls at an average of $3883, with a top of over $15,000. There are several reasons for their dispersal, but one of them is the fact that they are getting far too many big birth weights in their Angus from sires that have reported BWs of under 85 lb. Many of thes calves are in fact from some of the ABS bulls you have mentioned. So my point is that no breed is immune to some of these issues.

As for your point about possibly not being able to compete without pha carriers, that is simply not true. Yes there are some being shown but not all good cattle are carriers of the PHA defect. A very big name Angus breeder in these parts, recently told me that there are 3 defects presently in the Angus breed. He said that one of these was being found in a very prominent bloodline in North America, and he said that if it was possible that this bloodline was found to be the source of this defect it could be a major blow to this breed. I have heard some rumours about some of this for about 2 years, yet I have not seen anything in print about it. When this man asked me about TH in Shorthorns, I asked if there was any truth to the stories I had been hearing and he was very open in saying that he was very concerned about some of the Angus defects. There are other defects in many other breeds and it is nothing new. I just wish the Shorthorn breed would have handled this issue a little differently. I do feel that the TH issue can be dealt with in a reasonbable time frame. I am not as clear on the PHA issue as there is very little in Canadian Shorthorns, as we never allowed Maine cattle into our herd book like the US did.
 

DL

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Actually I was going to ask if anyone had read Nick's latest and last column in the Shorthorn Country - "Customer Bill of RIghts"
JIT - nice ad
shortdawg - nice article

ah but now to the Angus - I too have heard what you have heard JIT esp with regard to Fawn Calf Syndrome - there are breeding trials going on as we speak in Oz - and as you say the AAA has been silent. Of course the ASA was silent for years with TH so maybe it is a genetically programed association response - I had heard that the decision to "hide" TH for 15 plus years was based on the fact that finding a genetic defect in shorthorns when they were just gaining acceptance in a black hided world would be the end of the breed - I don't know if that is the reason it was hidden or if it was true - but it is always interesting what associations do when adversity rears its ugly head. I can't quite figure out what the AAA is doing about the dwarf test either  - and all of this is about as far from Nick leaving as could be, oh well
 
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