Question for XXCC and Telos

[Joe Boy]

Do you feel that 100227 is the Maine bull behind the PHA genetic defect?  Do you see any others in the Maine breed who might have been dirty but we cannot trace them to an ancient relative of Univers 15?

Michael please send me your e-mail address or telephone number.  I have tried to call you but cannot get through at the old number.

Jack, I always appreciate your comments.

Yours too Michael.

the preacher

 

[DL]

Hey Preacher - been along time since we had a pedigree hunt - it certainly seems like Univers 15 could be the original culprit but we likely will never know - if you need xxcc's email let me know, DL

 

[Telos]

Univers 15 is a common ancestor in both NBB Dalton and Paramount, but that does not necessarily make him the bad guy. They could have other common ancestors that we are not aware of because of insufficient pedigree history. Going back to Both Dalton and Paramount might be the best we can do. According to  pedigree, the only common ancestor (other then the ones we know to be PHAF) in Stinger and a few other PHA carriers is the Sibelle cow. That also does not guaranty her a carrier, but only a suspect.

 

[xxcc]

yeah, i feel pretty certain that it is Univers.  the only way i would feel better about concluding that would be it was shown that Prairie Blizzard and Duke of Heaven were also carriers.  According to many that used them in the 70s, they carried the phenotype of PHAC cattle.

I know where there is both PB and DofH semen, both breeders said, "yeah, we'll send a sample."  but still to no avail, their precious little inventories might not be worth anything if those bulls are shown to be carriers.

 

[Gypsy]

What is the phenotype of PHA carriers?

 

[Telos]

Gypsy, that is a good question. If Univers 15 is the bad guy then I think he was capable of transmitting extra muscle and rib dimension to his progeny. One of his sons Eclate was probably clean and I never saw the phenotype in his offspring like you would see in, let us say, some of the NBB Dalton offspring. I definitely think other ancestors within  some of these PHAC pedigrees contributed to the over all appearance. I think line breeding Univers15 can sometimes help with this phenotype, but other genetics like Bysantin, Buret, Loujou, Nenette, Horton Helena, Cette La contribute to this particular look we are seeing. A smaller frame size seems to come with this look too, in many cases. I think we are seeing a number of offspring which are clean from carrier genetics that still keep this particular look.

Most all Novino ancestors were not that deep or boldly sprung in there rib shape and these PHA pedigrees helps with eliminating that gun barrel type . I do not think Paramount gives you that much rib, but Dalton, Duke of heaven and Prairie Blizzard could. Maybe this is because Paramount was from a direct Novino daughter. Cunia probably plays a role is this look too. Bysantin is often seen in these pedigrees as one of the foundation sires. He really could put the rib shape on them. Never forget some of those good import cows. Icepick was a chunk in a smaller frame package and went back twice to Draft Pick's mother. I just think the extra thickness and muscle shape comes along with carriers, but there is a diverse spectrum of types especially with the ones that are free. There is probably two completely different genes involved and somehow in the carriers diplays themselves with more frequency. You must also remember this is just my observation and by no means scientific. Maybe XXCC or anyone else can repute what I just tried to explain.

 

[justintime]

Are you saying that bulls like Dalton, Prairie Blizzard, and Paramount sired offspring with extra spring or rib and extra muscle? I probably used a few hundred doses of these bulls back in the 70s and I really can't remember these traits from any of these bulls. Of these bulls, I used Dalton the least, as I found his calves gangly with not enough muscling, so I used others. I used Prairie Blizzard and Paramount alot - probably bred 50 cows and heifers to each of these for 3 or 4 years. Both PB and Paramount were easy calving sires and we used them heavily on heifers. We never got many good show calves from either bulls. Our best Maine calves in this era were our Cunia, Dollar 2 and Covino 111 calves. Many of them were drug out to steer shows .
I still get almost sick when I think that after not breeding to Maine bulls for a few years, I gave about 50 straws of Cunia away to a young breeder. He used it all and then sold his cattle and his farm. Wish it was still sitting in my tanks.

 

[Telos]

From what I remember seeing and also looking at pedigrees is that those bulls seemed to especially work good on the Bysantin, Buret, Cunia and Covino III genetics. We do not know if PC Metrics 707 was a carrier but he could really give you the rib shape and added muscle. He is an interesting bull to look at as far as pedigree is concerned. When talking to a few Canadian breeders they tell me of the inconsistencies of both Paramount and Dalton. That is why they were not used more. Consistency for these breeders was a high priority.

 

[Telos]

Are you saying that bulls like Dalton, Prairie Blizzard, and Paramount sired offspring with extra spring or rib and extra muscle? I probably used a few hundred doses of these bulls back in the 70s and I really can't remember these traits from any of these bulls. Of these bulls, I used Dalton the least, as I found his calves gangly with not enough muscling, so I used others. I used Prairie Blizzard and Paramount alot - probably bred 50 cows and heifers to each of these for 3 or 4 years. Both PB and Paramount were easy calving sires and we used them heavily on heifers. We never got many good show calves from either bulls. Our best Maine calves in this era were our Cunia, Dollar 2 and Covino 111 calves. Many of them were drug out to steer shows .
I still get almost sick when I think that after not breeding to Maine bulls for a few years, I gave about 50 straws of Cunia away to a young breeder. He used it all and then sold his cattle and his farm. Wish it was still sitting in my tanks.

JIT, If we look HAA Contender's pedigree it seems to give you a road map of how Dalton works with these bulls (Bysantin, Cunia, Covino III and Dollar II) that we have mentioned. HAA Contender has to be one of the Greatess looking Maine bulls to surface. He is also line bred to these fellows. I personally find this find this quite interesting.

 

[DL]

WOW JIT! Now there is a story....you could almost retire if you hadn't sold you supply of Cunia!

I suspect that there is or might be a PHA phenotype but I sure can't put my finger on it other than to say I think the females look androgenous. If we knew the function of the protein that the gene codes for it might be easier to sepculate....I suspect it has something to do with show cattle look, but clearly with the proliferation of PHA calves there must be something that someone is looking for. Like with TH where we selected for the big butted straight legged hairy beast, chances are this was a trait or characteristic we selected for - ah humans, who else could create such a genetic nightmare?

 

[justintime]

DL, the androgenous trait is something I may have witnessed. We eventuallysold all our Maines as the higher percentage our females got, the lower their pregnancy rates were. Half bloods were acceptable, but by the time we got to 7/8 we were seeing over 50% open each fall.Many of these open females were PBlizzard daughters out of Covino and Dollar 2 females or Paramount daughters out of P Blizzard  dams. We never had any defective calves, but maybe we would have if we had a higher conception rate( that is if these bulls are PHA carriers as I am still not sure which of the original MA bulls are suspected to have been carriers) After a couple years of this we sold the Maines and continued on with Shorthorns and Simmentals.

 

[DL]

DL, the androgenous trait is something I may have witnessed. We eventuallysold all our Maines as the higher percentage our females got, the lower their pregnancy rates were. Half bloods were acceptable, but by the time we got to 7/8 we were seeing over 50% open each fall.Many of these open females were PBlizzard daughters out of Covino and Dollar 2 females or Paramount daughters out of P Blizzard  dams. We never had any defective calves, but maybe we would have if we had a higher conception rate( that is if these bulls are PHA carriers as I am still not sure which of the original MA bulls are suspected to have been carriers) After a couple years of this we sold the Maines and continued on with Shorthorns and Simmentals.

JIT - the other possibility is that many or these could have been PHA calves that were aborted - we know this happens - we just don't know how often or how early...isn't it funny, sometimes the cows are trying to tell us something and we may be on a different frequency -

I hadn't realized that you had some of the old fullbloods - small world eh?

 

[Gypsy]

WOW JIT! Now there is a story....you could almost retire if you hadn't sold you supply of Cunia!

I suspect that there is or might be a PHA phenotype but I sure can't put my finger on it other than to say I think the females look androgenous. If we knew the function of the protein that the gene codes for it might be easier to sepculate....I suspect it has something to do with show cattle look, but clearly with the proliferation of PHA calves there must be something that someone is looking for. Like with TH where we selected for the big butted straight legged hairy beast, chances are this was a trait or characteristic we selected for - ah humans, who else could create such a genetic nightmare?

As the proud  :-\ owner of many (ya'll would faint if I said how many) PHAC cows and in the past bulls, I can see the deep body, heavy muscle, small frame phenotype in quite a few of the carriers, but I also have some that are more of the gunbarrel, larger frame type.  But most are the 1st type.  I also have a couple of cows that look androgynous, but I don't think that is because of PHA, most of my carrier females don't look that way.  We just finished preg checking here, and it appears that there might be a fertility issue too, the carriers are culling themselves out at a much faster pace than normal.  Came up open - NO second chance.  They were all bred to PHAF bulls.  I used NO PHAC bulls, so abortion was not the reason.  ???

 

[dori36]

WOW JIT! Now there is a story....you could almost retire if you hadn't sold you supply of Cunia!

I suspect that there is or might be a PHA phenotype but I sure can't put my finger on it other than to say I think the females look androgenous. If we knew the function of the protein that the gene codes for it might be easier to sepculate....I suspect it has something to do with show cattle look, but clearly with the proliferation of PHA calves there must be something that someone is looking for. Like with TH where we selected for the big butted straight legged hairy beast, chances are this was a trait or characteristic we selected for - ah humans, who else could create such a genetic nightmare?

Much like the HYPP mess in the Quarter Horses and now the ever proliferating HERDA.  Popularity in any specie used for exhibition and subject to the fads of human judging seems to bring out the worst traits through so much use and line/inbreeding.

 

[knabe]

telos,

not sure if i got that right, but the sibelle cow, is potentially both a TH and PHA carrier.  if that is the case, it will be REALLY interesting to see where these two genes are located.  if this was a spontaneous mutation and a rearrangement either through background of sibelle, or an actual mutation, or recombination hiccup, then i seriously can not wait any more for Dr. Beever's paper.  not only would this again, sorry to bore everyone, but that would be REALLY interesting from an evolution standpoint.  if other genes are inbetween these two genes, or that some epigenetic funkyness is going on, this could explain quite a few things with phenotype and explain why there seems to be inconsistency in phenotypes, depending on who has what linkage group and the frequency of crossover etc when mated to different backgrounds ie paramount.  if muscle, skeletal is a cascade event and can be extended during development and or expressed throughtout a period of time, i can see the ground moving in the cattle industry of epigenetic proportions.

 

[Joe Boy]

XXCC,
If you would e-mail me your phone number I want to talk to you.....

Thanks Joe Dale Wilson

[email protected]

 

[Telos]

Sibelle was a Maine Anjou cow who never came over on the boat or airplane. She is the mother of a cow named Dibelle and also a son named Fetiche. She can be traced back in both Stinger and MR DOR WAY 301V's pedigree.

JIT, From my personal experience and talking to some pioneer Maine breeders it was Dollar II that had severe fertility issues. His F1 females weren't too bad, but  used in higher percentage scenario was a complete train wreck. He could throw a very nice looking calf though. If you look on Browarny's web site and look at his video, it might explain why. He had very small testicles.

 

[justintime]

I saw many of the original European sires numerous times as many of them were housed about 70 miles from where I live and we used to see them several times a year.  Dollar II was an impressive bull. I don't ever remember him having small testicles. He could well have had smaller testicles  and I can't remember this, but I certainly do remember how huge he was. He was always the heaviest bull of all breeds at the stud. He weighed over 3200 lbs everytime I saw him . Covino III was usually stalled beside him and he was probably the most impressive Maine bull, at least to me. He was massive and was thicker than Dollar II and probably more masculine . Dollar II was huge and still looed like he would grow some more even though he was 4 or 5 years old. Cunia was also housed here and he was the smallest framed Maine bull of the time. Dalton was alot like Dollar II in frame, and of course, he was painted up more. I was never a real fan of Dalton offspring yet he shows up in the background of some very popular genetics today.  He was used mainly as a calving ease sire, and it was only after he was dead that people started to realize just how good his offspring were. I dug out my old record books and most of our 7/8 females did not have much Dollar II in them and if it was there it was at the 1/2 blood level.

 

[justintime]

Opps.... sorry folks... I forgot to proof my thread again..... I added the lines about Dalton after I had written the rest. It was Cunia who was mainly a calving ease sire , and it was Cunia whose offspring really were not recognized much until he was dead.  I imagine I have a few of you scratching your heads as Dalton was never considered a calving ease sire.

 

[Telos]

Thanks for all the input. Every time we run a thread on Maine pedigrees, bits and pieces of information are added up to help understand if there is a connection in phenotype with PHA based cattle.

I wonder if Cunia, the great downsizer, had a major influence on this particular phenotype?  Does Covino III along with other individuals compliment those Dalton's and Paramounts genetics? Did Stinger work as well on Shorthorns without TH or mainly with the THC to produce a certain type?

I agree with DL, There is probably something with regards to all of this , but it is hard to put your finger on something tangible. What is interesting to me is that these original carriers going back a number of generations still seem to have an influence when this gene is carried into the next generations.