pha and th....still around

[r.n.reed]

With all the blue roans in the Shorthorn plus program at what point should the ASA consider testing for the Angus genetic defects,hopefully before they reach the purebred status!

 

[Doc]

I don't have a problem with someone keeping a carrier female and testing the offspring, etc.   I do have a problem with people who promote bulls  who are carriers, maybe even double carriers.   In my opinion, every breed should institute a policy to automatically castrate any carrier bulls no matter what the defect.   Obviously, we can't control what the clubby folks do--and we probably shouldn't--but if you can test for a genetic disorder in a breed and a bull comes up positive,  I think he should be disqualified from having papers as a bull.  JMHO

Lynn, I appreciate your opinion, I just don't agree with it. What's the difference between keeping a THC cow & a THC bull. I think that it should be an individuals' decision. Now, I don't have a problem with any calf by a carrier parent having to be tested before you get papers & the results being marked on the papers.

 

[justintime]

Doc, I respectfully disagree with you. There is a real difference between using a TH carrier bull or keeping some TH carrier females.  A few carrier females can be " managed" so to speak in a herd. A carrier bull will sire on average 50% carrier offspring providing all the females he is used on are TH free. If you use a carrier bull, you better know exactly the status of every female in your herd. If you sell any bulls, you must know exactly the status of the females he is going to be used on. Once a carrier bull leaves your control, you have no control of what he is bred too.

A few years ago, I had a TH defect calf born from a cow I had purchased as a bred female. I was told that she was TH free by pedigree, so when this calf arrived, I started digging back in her pedigree. Improver appeared 9 generations in the background. How many people do you know, can tell you the genetics in their herd back 9 generations or more? This is even much worse if you sell bulls into commercial operations. We sell a lot of bulls into commercial herds, and this year we started selling a few bulls into some bigger commercial operations. We sold bulls to herds of between 500 and 800 cows. All three of these operations said that they are trying Shorthorn bulls and if they like the results they will be buying more. Can you imagine the mess if I were to sell some carrier bulls to any.. or all,.... of these operations? Most of these operations raise part of their replacement heifers, as well as purchase groups of replacement heifers as well. This means that anyone who uses a carrier bull could be producing carrier females that get sold to commercial herds and they would have no clue .

As far as I am concerned, keeping a carrier bull of any defect, and in any breed, is DEAD WRONG! and I wish all breed associations would grow the gonads required to ban the registration of carrier bulls. I also feel this should be done sooner rather than later. I really don't care how good the clubby steers and heifers are from carrier sires... or how much extra hair they have. This is just wrong if you have even a brief fleeting concern for the beef industry as a whole. If everyone did this, everyone would be on the same playing field. I think we would be surprised by the quality of cattle that would appear in short order. I have heard people say the good ones are all carriers. I totally disagree with this statement. TOTALLY! Maybe some are better, but there are lots of great cattle out there that are free of all defects.

I have a few carrier females left in my herd. I kept a couple because they were outstanding producing females and I decided to keep them in the herd until they produced a free daughter to replace them. I am beginning to think I was also wrong in thinking this. Most of the carrier cows I have kept, have been used as recips, but I am also beginning to rethink this one as well. This is fine if all the carrier females hold the embryo implanted, but as in the case i commented on earlier today, occasionally they don't and they get pasture bred to a bull. One of my carrier recips has a tremendous bull calf at side that I found out this morning is a TH carrier. He will now become a steer, and there will be no rethinking this decision. If he had come back TH free he definitely would be put in the spare bedroom and prepared for the fall show season. Now he is a possible steer for some kid.

As you can probably tell, I feel quite strongly on this topic. To me , this is a simple  black and white issue. There are no gray areas. There are lots of other issues in this business that have wide gray areas, but to me, this is not one of them. To me, it may be wrong to totally wipe out all genetic defects in one fell swoop, as it may damage a breed to hard at one moment in time. But it is also just as wrong for a breed association to not have a definite plan of action to eventually remove a defect from the breeds gene pool within a planned period of time.

 

[DL]

I believe, as I have stated a million times before, the propagation of lethal recessive defects is BAD - bad for the breeder, the breed, the industry, the commercial breeder -

that said I agree with JIT - use of and registration of carrier bulls is a really bad idea - but the gonads are lacking, in some breed associations especially, and so we continue to register carrier bulls - I believe it likely has more to do with money and power than the good of the breed

As far as I can tell the Angus is the only breed association with a policy to limit registration of carrier bulls --- after a certain date ....

 

[Doc]

Hey DL, good to hear from you!!!

Am I planning on using a carrier bull? Not really.
Do I have any carrier females & am I planning on keeping them? Absolutely
The point I am trying to make is , think of the contributions some of these animals have to offer if managed correctly. I know that IMO that Improver & 57th sure brought a lot to the table , besides TH.

 

[aj]

I think the Angus breed will take care of business , if there is a genetic dna test available. There may be some that have to be dragged in yelling and screaming if no test is available for a defect. I realize that the maines and horns are making a living with the junk genetics right now. The club calf deal is kind of a sodom and gomora(sp) now in some people eyes. I don't care nessecarily but the horns and maines are a zoo breed. It is set at the top. It makes sense if you can sell a 2,000 $ calf. But it is what it is. Is there really a need for more than a couple breeds in the commercial industry anyway. May be we need to have Ojama have goverment recommendations of a three breed rotation to be used by by the industry. There has got to be purebred cattle papered wrong with the th genetics in them. It might be 30 years before they are detected. But they will win a heck of a lot of jackpot shows in the meantime. I always wondered what a th brawnvieh would look like....say a half blood. How about a purebred Brangus with an illegal th influence. Could we genetically modify Llama's,buffalo, and goats to have the look somehow. These are the things that keep me up at night.

 

[DL]

Hey DL, good to hear from you!!!

Am I planning on using a carrier bull? Not really.
Do I have any carrier females & am I planning on keeping them? Absolutely
The point I am trying to make is , think of the contributions some of these animals have to offer if managed correctly. I know that IMO that Improver & 57th sure brought a lot to the table , besides TH.

Hey Doc - hope you are stayin' cool...my concern is 2 fold - while honest and ethical people will "manage" there are some who won't and (IMHO) there are lots of good clean cattle so I don't really see a need to use/breed/keep carrier females unless the they are exceptional ...

 

[Doc]

aj, maybe I'm missing something here, but don't you raise one of those "zoo" breeds? I understand that you don't subscribe to the "popular genetics" in the breed, but how can you ridicule a breed so & then walk out your backdoor & look at them every morning? I know that Shorties aren't perfect, but name one breed that is(& be able to back it up).

 

[Doc]

Hey Doc - hope you are stayin' cool...my concern is 2 fold - while honest and ethical people will "manage" there are some who won't and (IMHO) there are lots of good clean cattle so I don't really see a need to use/breed/keep carrier females unless the they are exceptional ...

No hope for keeping cool down here right now(several can testify to that, returning from Murfreesboro & it's only gotten worse).
Maybe you or knabe can answer this. With a regular DNA test like the breeds use can you tell the difference between full brothers or clones?

 

[aj]

I was responding to the breed in general. 90% of the breeds economy is based on show cattle. There is nothing wrong with it. I am almost defect free as I don't keep back carriers. The th calves sell great great. I'm not passing judgement but the truth is the truth. I was making a point that the th cattle have the look and I don't see anyway the club calf industry will get rid of th unless they outlaw it. It is bigger than right or wrong or a breed association or a self rightous breeder or whatever. One imported bull did all this. It is just amazing to me. If Improver hadn't been imported in the 70's or whatever would the th effect shown up from somewhere else like a galloway or whatever. I'm 50 years old. I have 10 maybe 20 years of cattle breeding left in me. I enjoy it and kinda do my little thing in my own little world. The Shorthorn breed is great breed. Look how many cattle go back to it. If Improver wouldn't have been imported would pha genetics taken off harder and faster. I guess the what if stuff is interesting to me. Showing calves is a family event and good hobbie.

 

[BIGTEX]

Shouldn't we have the right to choose what genetics we breed?

 

[PaPigMan]

justintime,

I agree with you 100%.  Unfortunately, we are in the minority.  In my humble opinion, we should be breeding free cattle to rid ourselves of genetic defects.  I was glad to hear that the Maine Association was not registering carriers, only to be disappointed when they reversed their decision.  At least they are required us to test the calves for status before getting papers.

BigTex,

Yes you absolutely have the right to breed cattle any way you like.  I also think you have the responsibility to tell the buyer(s) the status of the calves.  I pray for the day when we will have genetic defect free cattle.

 

[Doc]

I was responding to the breed in general. 90% of the breeds economy is based on show cattle. There is nothing wrong with it. I am almost defect free as I don't keep back carriers. The th calves sell great great. I'm not passing judgement but the truth is the truth. I was making a point that the th cattle have the look and I don't see anyway the club calf industry will get rid of th unless they outlaw it. It is bigger than right or wrong or a breed association or a self rightous breeder or whatever. One imported bull did all this. It is just amazing to me. If Improver hadn't been imported in the 70's or whatever would the th effect shown up from somewhere else like a galloway or whatever. I'm 50 years old. I have 10 maybe 20 years of cattle breeding left in me. I enjoy it and kinda do my little thing in my own little world. The Shorthorn breed is great breed. Look how many cattle go back to it. If Improver wouldn't have been imported would pha genetics taken off harder and faster. I guess the what if stuff is interesting to me. Showing calves is a family event and good hobbie.

I understood what you were saying. But maybe 90% are raising the right kind & 10% are the  "zoo" breed portion. Once again , who is to say who is right or who is wrong as long you are either making money or enjoying what you are doing. I know that I don't enjoy raising the all solid red herd of cattle. Seeing the red , white & roan calves calves playing. But there is a lot of people out there they say they have to be solid red & polled , to make the way into the commercial market, that's fine if that's what you want.
I don't think that you will ever totally eliminate th, there is too many people that will register the clean calves by something else. I also think that 57th was used as much as Improver if not more. He moderated the frame more & gave them that showring look more that we are used to seeing today. Improver cattle had a little more frame & a more maternal look. I still don't know if I would give up what they contributed to the breed in exchange for never having heard of TH. JHMO

 

[BIGTEX]

BigTex,

Yes you absolutely have the right to breed cattle any way you like.  I also think you have the responsibility to tell the buyer(s) the status of the calves.  I pray for the day when we will have genetic defect free cattle.

I think there are more important things to pray about.

 

[knabe]

With a regular DNA test like the breeds use can you tell the difference between full brothers or clones?

many full sibs can be told apart by the PHA or TH test.  they can also be told apart by just about any genetic test for anything as they won't sort perfectly, take the red gene or any of the carcass tests.  clones will, in general, with few exceptions, be indistinguishable.  you would need to do a few other tests to tell the clones apart theorhetically.  since i've never done that but have sequenced mitochondria before in plants, it might be doable.

i had twins, had them tested.  could easily tell them apart through bovigens panel by tenderness markers alone.

 

[PaPigMan]

BigTex,

Yes you absolutely have the right to breed cattle any way you like.  I also think you have the responsibility to tell the buyer(s) the status of the calves.  I pray for the day when we will have genetic defect free cattle.

I think there are more important things to pray about.

Most are capable for praying for more than one thing.

 

[Show Heifer]

You should have the right to use the genetics you choose, as long as you are ethical and honest about it. Since that has been proven untrue many times over, then NO, if people can't handle the responsibility, they shouldn't have it.

(Please note, "you" is a generic "you", not YOU YOU)

I will be praying for honest people in the cattle business..... I guess if I am going to pray and dream, might as well go big.

As far as registery calves under clean pedigrees when they in fact are not. Well, I guess that is why I have always pushed for parently verified registrations. If they have registration papers, then that should equal that animal being tested for all known defects, and is parentally verified.  Now THAT might be worth something.

 

[knabe]

As far as registery calves under clean pedigrees when they in fact are not. Well, I guess that is why I have always pushed for parently verified registrations. If they have registration papers, then that should equal that animal being tested for all known defects, and is parentally verified.  Now THAT might be worth something.

not necessarily true.  people and breeds have tried and so far, it hasn't allowed a premium to pay for the expenses to do it as user base increases.

 

[aj]

Would the polled condition be considered a lethal defect if wolves are reintroduced. How about the shortnosed bear?

 

[aj]

Good point doc.