RED CALF has a black gene!! Didn't think it was possible, but...

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TJ

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I sold a Lowline bull to someone who had red calf.  Well, he had both the sire  & the calf DNA tested to see if it carried the red gene or the wild gene.  Bovigen did the testing.  Anyway, the sire  came back homozygous black ( ED ED)!!  And even stranger, the red calf came back  E+ ED !! I didn't think it was possible, but the calf is red!   Below is a picture of the cow & the heifer calf with the black gene.  Any comments about this development???
 

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knabe

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EDED = Homozygous Black
EDe = Black Hided Animal, Red Carrier
ee = Red Hided Animal, Double Red Carrier
E+ED = Most Likely Black Hided Animal, Wild Type Carrier
E+e = Most Likely a Red Hided Animal, Wild Type Carrier
E+E+ = Wild Type Carrier, Any Color Possible

It appears that the E+ color scheme is not well understood.  if they were watching, they may have snagged the dna for sequencing.  if not, you could sell it to them probably?
 

TJ

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knabe said:
EDED = Homozygous Black
EDe = Black Hided Animal, Red Carrier
ee = Red Hided Animal, Double Red Carrier
E+ED = Most Likely Black Hided Animal, Wild Type Carrier
E+e = Most Likely a Red Hided Animal, Wild Type Carrier
E+E+ = Wild Type Carrier, Any Color Possible

It appears that the E+ color scheme is not well understood.  if they were watching, they may have snagged the dna for sequencing.  if not, you could sell it to them probably?

I knew that the wild gene (E+) could do some crazy things, but I was always told that a homo black parent, would always produce 100% black calves.  Apparently that is NOT the case. 

Never thought about selling the dna, but I bet they would just use the sample that they have. 

Anyway, I thought this would be an interesting topic.
 

knabe

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i'm betting they have no idea what they have as the samples are pretty much processed automatically.  i would try and see if you could sell some, including the dam, just for fun, as if this is a different mutant, or rare crossover event, that would be interesting.  they would of course want to have a competitive advantage over other companies, including agrogenomics which administers the PHA/TH and other gene screenings as well.  perhaps you could get your name on a paper if you gave the sample to dr. beever.  perhaps barrel racer could interrupt her DNA extractions for a while with a neat little diversion.
 

TJ

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knabe said:
i'm betting they have no idea what they have as the samples are pretty much processed automatically.  i would try and see if you could sell some, including the dam, just for fun, as if this is a different mutant, or rare crossover event, that would be interesting.  they would of course want to have a competitive advantage over other companies, including agrogenomics which administers the PHA/TH and other gene screenings as well.  perhaps you could get your name on a paper if you gave the sample to dr. beever.  perhaps barrel racer could interrupt her DNA extractions for a while with a neat little diversion.

All great ideas & I bet you are correct... they probably didn't know that the calf was red when they tested the sample.  I don't own the cow or the calf, but I know the owner pretty well & I may run it by him. 
 

knabe

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fluffer said:
Is that test 100% accurate?  ???

That is strange?  One for the books!

Fluffer

notice the wording of

E+ED = Most Likely Black Hided Animal, Wild Type Carrier

the test would be accurate for the DNA present, but not necessarily the phenotype.  it's results like this that people were worried about in the beginning with PHA, as evidently a sample was mislabled early on and i think it was Ali who got mischaracterized as a carrier, but he's not.  once again, an opportunity to not only point out that at some point, one could get a calf that was a carrier by a mutation that wasn't screened for with the current test.  the odds on that occuring are extremely remote, but possible.  it's also clear, that the allele's from carriers are different than the always clean lines and there may be value there unassociated with a phenotype that may be from just a single copy.
 

Barrel Racer

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It doesn't take much to distract me from the mass DNA isolations  (lol)
Anyway I did some checking and it's possible for the calf to be born red and change to black.  This happens with some holsteins, they are called "changelings"
I couldn't find any papers on the subject but this came from Genmark:

Heterozygous Black / Wildtype - this animal carries one copy of the dominant black allele and one copy of the wildtype allele. In beef breeds, this animal will most often be black in color but will pass along the wildtype allele to its offspring 50% of the time. The wildtype allele is associated with the Red-Black condition in Holstein cattle but has been poorly characterized in beef cattle. It has been reported that animals carrying the wildtype allele occasionally appear red when born and gradually turn black as they age. Additionally, some animals carrying the wildtype allele have been reported to have a reddish color at the base of the hair and black along the remainder of the hair shaft.

Now why this happens... no idea.... Honestly coat color is one of the hardest things to keep straight, so many genes so many modifiers..it's enough to make you go crazy.  Right now my coat color studies are limited to calculating the probabilites of colt number 2 being a buckskin  ;D
 

dori36

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TJ said:
I sold a Lowline bull to someone who had red calf.  Well, he had both the sire  & the calf DNA tested to see if it carried the red gene or the wild gene.  Bovigen did the testing.  Anyway, the sire  came back homozygous black ( ED ED)!!  And even stranger, the red calf came back  E+ ED !! I didn't think it was possible, but the calf is red!  Below is a picture of the cow & the heifer calf with the black gene.  Any comments about this development???

TJ, I think the first thing I'd do is ask Bovigen to run the test again with new samples from the calf.  It's possible they could have run the wrong sample.  As good as they are, mistakes do happen.  I might also do parentage verification on  her to be sure of the sire.  It won't change the genetic makeup of the calf, but it might shed some light on her color if her new sample comes back ee.
 

TJ

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dori36 said:
TJ said:
I sold a Lowline bull to someone who had red calf.  Well, he had both the sire  & the calf DNA tested to see if it carried the red gene or the wild gene.  Bovigen did the testing.  Anyway, the sire  came back homozygous black ( ED ED)!!  And even stranger, the red calf came back  E+ ED !! I didn't think it was possible, but the calf is red!   Below is a picture of the cow & the heifer calf with the black gene.  Any comments about this development???

TJ, I think the first thing I'd do is ask Bovigen to run the test again with new samples from the calf.  It's possible they could have run the wrong sample.  As good as they are, mistakes do happen.  I might also do parentage verification on  her to be sure of the sire.  It won't change the genetic makeup of the calf, but it might shed some light on her color if her new sample comes back ee.

Dori, I originally thought the same thing, but they ran a parent verification test too... it verified that General Sherman is indeed the sire of this calf & General Sherman tested ED ED (homozygous black).  I was hoping that he would be e ED or even E+ ED, but he was ED ED.     

BTW, several years ago I had someone in Louisiana send me a picture of a red 1/2 blood heifer calf sired by Midshipman.  I just knew that Midshipman was a red carrier.  However, we had a straw of Midshipman semen tested & he came back ED ED.  I just figured that a "clean up" bull jumped into the pasture, but now I am beginning to wonder if it really wasn't a 1/2 Lowline heifer & it was E+ ED, just like this heifer. 

 

TJ

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Barrel Racer said:
It doesn't take much to distract me from the mass DNA isolations  (lol)
Anyway I did some checking and it's possible for the calf to be born red and change to black.  This happens with some holsteins, they are called "changelings"
I couldn't find any papers on the subject but this came from Genmark:

Heterozygous Black / Wildtype - this animal carries one copy of the dominant black allele and one copy of the wildtype allele. In beef breeds, this animal will most often be black in color but will pass along the wildtype allele to its offspring 50% of the time. The wildtype allele is associated with the Red-Black condition in Holstein cattle but has been poorly characterized in beef cattle. It has been reported that animals carrying the wildtype allele occasionally appear red when born and gradually turn black as they age. Additionally, some animals carrying the wildtype allele have been reported to have a reddish color at the base of the hair and black along the remainder of the hair shaft.

Now why this happens... no idea.... Honestly coat color is one of the hardest things to keep straight, so many genes so many modifiers..it's enough to make you go crazy.  Right now my coat color studies are limited to calculating the probabilites of colt number 2 being a buckskin  ;D

I've seen brownish calves turn jet black, but I've never seen a red calf turn black.  It will be interesting to see if this one does change color over time. 
 

red

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We had a real reddish calf go black once. I'll see if I can't find her picture. It seems if they have a black nose they tend to darken up more. A white nose usually stays red.


Barrel Racer- how far off are you? Are you less worried this year or the same?  ;)
Red
 

Barrel Racer

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red said:
Barrel Racer- how far off are you? Are you less worried this year or the same?  ;)
Red

She's due about May 12 or so.  I hope that she doesn't go a month late like she did last year, I'll seriously be lacking some sleep.  Actually I'm much more nervous this time around.  She's foaling at my house this year, so I'm one nervous foal watcher  ;D  She's started to bag up already, I really feel for her because she looks so huge and miserable. 
 

fluffer

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My mares always like to wait to have their babies too.  Drove me NUTS!  I would watch and watch for a good month or better every 2 hours around the clock.  But those ol girls would always "wax" about 1/2 a day before they foaled.  It was like a waste of time to watch them.

Good luck with her, and let us knwo how it turns out!

Fluffer
 

Barrel Racer

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fluffer said:
My mares always like to wait to have their babies too.  Drove me NUTS!  I would watch and watch for a good month or better every 2 hours around the clock.  But those ol girls would always "wax" about 1/2 a day before they foaled.  It was like a waste of time to watch them.

Good luck with her, and let us knwo how it turns out!

Fluffer

I couldn't believe how long she baked the colt last year, she went 376 days.  She was a maiden so I had a friend foal her out for me since he was much more experienced than I was.  I had to dig out the vet bills to see the date she was bred a few times at the end because I don't think he believed the date she was bred.  He kept telling me that they didn't read the mare and foal manual lol!  I keep thinking that this being the 2nd time around it'll be easier, but I don't think I'm much more relaxed lol!  My bet is that I'll be up for weeks on end and then on day she'll hold out until I leave for work and then pop the little bugger out. 
Hopefully in a few weeks I'll have some baby pics!
 

fluffer

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(lol)

sounds about right.  If she didn't have trouble last time, she will most likley be fine this time.

I had a Standardbred mare one time that I foaled out for a group of "businessmen".  She had been in NY at a stud farm and had only averaged having a live foal every other birth.  Even though there were cameras in all the stalls and 2 vets on call 24/7.  This mare was a "challenge".  I don't know for sure how she ended up at my place, but she did.  The fist foal was no biggie.  The 2nd however was a bit more of an ordeal.  It was a friday and she was already about a month over.  I could just tell something was off so I called my vet out.  She looked at her and said that the colt was comming and that I would proably have a baby in a few hours, but if not, giver her a shot of oxy at about 2am.  Then the vet left.  About 4 hours later the vet called me and asked if I had a baby yet, I said no.  She told me she had talked to her hubby who was an equine vet at OSU and he told her not to come home until the baby was up and nursing.  So she came back out.  She reached in and the colt had moved back from the cervix and was no longer in "birth position".  She reached in and got ahold of the colt and began pulling him out.  We got his head and neck out and his tongue was hanging out and it was blue.  3 of us pulled as hard as we could and couldnt' get the colt to budge.  We ended up with the calf jack.  Mind you this is a potential $20,000 colt were pulling.  The mare was a great pacer and the sire was too.  We get the mammoth out of her and he lived.  She retained the plecenta and had to be treated for that and then got colic a few days later and had to be treated for that as well.  The colt had to have a transfusion.  But all lived and all fine.  The colt later named Takana went on to be pretty good race hores.  The owners sold him as a 2yo so I didn't get to follow his racing career much.  They also sold the mare- thank goodness!

Not to worry you, I am sure your mare will foal just fine.  Most do.  We knew this mare was TROUBLE from the start.

Good luck

Fluffer
 

frostback

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TJ said:
I sold a Lowline bull to someone who had red calf.  Well, he had both the sire  & the calf DNA tested to see if it carried the red gene or the wild gene.  Bovigen did the testing.  Anyway, the sire  came back homozygous black ( ED ED)!!  And even stranger, the red calf came back  E+ ED !! I didn't think it was possible, but the calf is red!   Below is a picture of the cow & the heifer calf with the black gene.  Any comments about this development???
What is the breed of the cow? I am guessing Salers. They were thought to have a recessive black gene but in France black was bad luck and the black calves were killed.
 

garybob

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frostback said:
TJ said:
I sold a Lowline bull to someone who had red calf.  Well, he had both the sire  & the calf DNA tested to see if it carried the red gene or the wild gene.  Bovigen did the testing.  Anyway, the sire  came back homozygous black ( ED ED)!!  And even stranger, the red calf came back  E+ ED !! I didn't think it was possible, but the calf is red!   Below is a picture of the cow & the heifer calf with the black gene.  Any comments about this development???
What is the breed of the cow? I am guessing Salers. They were thought to have a recessive black gene but in France black was bad luck and the black calves were killed.
Thank You, Frostback.  I always wondered how a "red" breed, like Salers, could've had Black FullBLoods imported from Europe.

GB
 

TJ

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It's not my cow, but I was told it is a crossbred & I'm pretty sure no Saler.  I think I was told Limi, Santa Gert & some Jersey. 
 
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