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 Masculine bulls?

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RobertMac
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Grassfarmer




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PostSubject: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeWed Mar 09, 2011 11:42 pm

So as a counter thread to the feminine bulls I thought I'd post pictures of a couple of bulls of mine. I've read so much of the Gearld Fry theory that you can pick the winners from the road - the masculine bulls breed the best bulls and the most fertile daughters.
What say you to these two exhibits - first two are of the same bull, at 3.5 in summer and at 4yo. The second was a two year old. Which bull breeds the best females?
Masculine bulls? Bear3
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 4:18 am

What was the older bulls look at 2yo? With your rather narrow genetic base, I would guess they expressed similar profiles of masculinity at 2yo. If so, this the maturity pattern I prefer. Wondering if your breed would adapt to a sub tropical environment? (shedding) The structure here appears to be very functional and mobile. Is this the best kept secret in Canada? Mike Lorig
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Mean Spirit




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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 6:29 am

Just like gearld fry's teachings have taught you to see a fertile bull from the road, this forum has taught me to suspect a setup from across the webs many interconnected pipes. So I'll choose the two year old.
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Tom D
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 8:36 am

SOWBOY wrote:
What was the older bulls look at 2yo? With your rather narrow genetic base, I would guess they expressed similar profiles of masculinity at 2yo. If so, this the maturity pattern I prefer. Wondering if your breed would adapt to a sub tropical environment? (shedding) The structure here appears to be very functional and mobile. Is this the best kept secret in Canada? Mike Lorig

Why not leave the luings where they do the best, in the rain, snow, and sleet? If you prefer their maturity pattern, their functional and mobile structure, and their type, then go ahead and bake that cake, but why not use different ingredients?
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 9:06 am

I really like the old bull. What do his daughters look like? This is where the 4-H and FFA leaders and the universities have taken us down the wrong road. Masulinity does breed femininity if we understand what masulinity looks like. I also like that he is talking in both pictures. Bulls that are truly masuline know they are bulls. I like the 2 year old as well. I'd like to see a picture of him around the 15th of June but the thing I like about him is I don't see a hole in him. In fact looking at them all again I would have to wonder if the 2 yr old isn't just a younger picture of the older bull. Good cattle have a pattern regardless of color! The more I type the more I like them.
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 9:42 am

Tom: You are probably right on the Luings. I am wondering what you might suggest as alternative ingredients? Red Angus have been a disappointment in temperment and mammary. Some Horned Herefords have worked, but they are a hard sell with commercial producers due to past problems. Gotta to give the Canadian Luing assoc credit as they list warmer climates not being suitable for the breed. Mike
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 9:54 am

Here is a picture of the first bull at a little over 2, versus the second bull who was a little under 2. It gets them closer in age but still in a little different season so it's not a side by side comparison. I don't know if these pictures show it but these bulls had a very different growth/maturity pattern. Bull 1 was way more maculine all his life in my mind whereas bull two was a late maturer.
Masculine bulls? Bearat2
I'm with Tom D - they are good cattle for a northern climate so why take them somewhere where they are unadapted to?
Jack McNamee "Masculinity does breed femininity if we understand what masculinity looks like." - exactly the point I am debating with this post. On the evidence of this case I misunderstood what masculinity looks like and so does Gearld Fry. These bulls are half brothers off the same sire, both their mothers lasted to over 20. Bull one bred great conformation steers and good looking bulls but his females have been a disaster. The first crop will hit 6 yo this spring and 90% have been culled already, almost all sub-fertile. The number two bull on the other hand sired only one calf crop for me before being sold to a friend because I couldn't wait to move to the "better conformation" model (number 1 bull). Number two bulls females have been exceptional, they will hit 7 this spring and I have maybe culled 5%, certainly under 10% to date. I have bought back all his daughters from my friend and they are excellent too. Number two matured into a fairly plain looking bull to my eye - weak of the hind quarters in comparison but he did have a powerful front end. His steers were never as fancy or heavy muscled cattle but they were acceptable. I think the lesson I learned here is that I was confusing muscularity with masculinity and I think lots of others including Gearld Fry do the same.
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 11:13 am

That is a great point becaues I would have bet just the opposite. There is no substitute for the breeders knowlege of his own cattle.
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 11:56 am

Thats all good. But here's the dilemna-- how do you use that information to pick bulls that will sire fertile females? Sounds like you can do it by doing a progeny test and waiting a decade or so, which seems to be how you've figured it out in this case. Nothing wrong with that, but it sure aint fast, and sure aint cheap.

With benefit of hindsight, and the knowledge that the less "beefy" bull was the eventual winner, can you look at the pictures of those two bulls as twos and point out what you might see in the winner to lead you to hang onto him, and not the other bull? If we are mistaking muscular for masculine, how is the winner bull visibly more masculine than the other one?
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 2:30 pm

Mean Spirit wrote:
Thats all good. But here's the dilemna-- how do you use that information to pick bulls that will sire fertile females? Sounds like you can do it by doing a progeny test and waiting a decade or so, which seems to be how you've figured it out in this case. Nothing wrong with that, but it sure aint fast, and sure aint cheap.

With benefit of hindsight, and the knowledge that the less "beefy" bull was the eventual winner, can you look at the pictures of those two bulls as twos and point out what you might see in the winner to lead you to hang onto him, and not the other bull? If we are mistaking muscular for masculine, how is the winner bull visibly more masculine than the other one?

Exactly. If both bulls were out of cows that made it to 20, they were both obviously fertile enough. So is it possible to develope foresight from hindsight, or is it just a crapshoot?
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 2:40 pm

Would the level of inbreeding, have been any different, in the resulting progeny of the sires? Were they used the same year?.....same management style, feed resources, weather, etc.? It is just sometimes I wonder if their is not more to the story than genetics, though I do prefer to blame the cows, rather than myself for their failures.
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 3:13 pm

Mean Spirit wrote:
Thats all good. But here's the dilemna-- how do you use that information to pick bulls that will sire fertile females? Sounds like you can do it by doing a progeny test and waiting a decade or so, which seems to be how you've figured it out in this case. Nothing wrong with that, but it sure aint fast, and sure aint cheap.

With benefit of hindsight, and the knowledge that the less "beefy" bull was the eventual winner, can you look at the pictures of those two bulls as twos and point out what you might see in the winner to lead you to hang onto him, and not the other bull? If we are mistaking muscular for masculine, how is the winner bull visibly more masculine than the other one?

All good points MS, I by no means have all the answers but I think now at least I'm understanding some of the questions - only took me approaching 30 years Embarassed
First thing I think I've learned is that you can't pick on phenotype and expect predictability. Yet almost the entire industry picks bulls on the strength of one generation phenotype and it doesn't appear to work. The results usually reveal themselves in the outcome I described above - you are right MS it is to slow and too expensive. If that first assumption is correct it leads me to the conclusion that the Shoshone theory of breeding for genotype by concentrating the genetics until there is nothing, or very little, "different" within the gene pool is the way to go.
I can't now look at my two year old bulls and give an accurate prediction of whose daughters will remain in the herd the best but I certainly steer away from the ones showing to much hind quarter muscle if my objective is maternal. This is a lesson I should have learned a long, long time ago as the evidence was clearly there from the time I was a kid first running around behind cows. The best females we have bred over the years without exception came from bulls whose "beef conformation" we were disappointed with.
Your question about how one bull is visibly more masculine than the other is a tough one as everyone sees cattle differently and looking at pictures is far different from looking at a bull every day. My conclusion and it's maybe a false one, or maybe applicable only to the gene pool of cattle I'm working with is that the ones with some crest development and no other considerable muscling until they are two years old or so are the most masculine. The bull I pictured at the top, #3, the one that bred well would highlight that perfectly for me whereas the other had the "false masculine" look from the time he was a calf. (* afterthought * maybe we are using the term masculine wrongly here - maybe we should use the term "maternal" to describe the bull we are looking at hoping to see the right kind of "masculine" signs that indicate he will breed fertile, functional, maternal females more predictably?)
So the paradigm I'm into now is that I have convinced myself that there is perhaps a phenotypical resemblance between some of my bulls that look poorer to conventional wisdom and some of the growing age Shoshone bulls I see pictured. Unfortunately most of my cattle are probably still at the one generation deep phenotype stage so maybe there the resemblance ends. I'm trying to concentrate these genetics in the hope I can mimic some of Larry's results realising full well that with my limited ability and very restricted gene pool the chance of success are something akin to winning the lottery. My aim is clear though - I want to get this breed back to a predictable source of prepotent, northern adapted, maternal cattle that would fit into the Trueline concept.

I see there are some responses while I typed this lengthy piece and i'll reply to them separately.
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 3:24 pm

Tom D wrote:
Mean Spirit wrote:
Thats all good. But here's the dilemna-- how do you use that information to pick bulls that will sire fertile females? Sounds like you can do it by doing a progeny test and waiting a decade or so, which seems to be how you've figured it out in this case. Nothing wrong with that, but it sure aint fast, and sure aint cheap.

With benefit of hindsight, and the knowledge that the less "beefy" bull was the eventual winner, can you look at the pictures of those two bulls as twos and point out what you might see in the winner to lead you to hang onto him, and not the other bull? If we are mistaking muscular for masculine, how is the winner bull visibly more masculine than the other one?

Exactly. If both bulls were out of cows that made it to 20, they were both obviously fertile enough. So is it possible to develope foresight from hindsight, or is it just a crapshoot?

The mothers contribution in this case is weird Tom and that really confuses me. True both lasted to 20+ but the mother of the bull that bred well made an otherwise very poor contribution to the herd - her daughters tended to be subfertile, too good to themselves types where the mother of the bull that bred badly left better daughters, certainly more fertile.
Jack made the point that this is where it is important to know your own cattle and that is one handicap I have - I didn't buy these cows until they were teenagers and the anecdotal stories of who was good and bad in the previous generations are coming from someone whose memory for such things is failing. I think I know where the problem lies - the grand sire of both these bulls came from a cow line that I have little or no knowledge of. The cow family didn't contribute much to the breed and perhaps this is why - question is how long does it take us to eliminate this influence.


Bootheel wrote:
Would the level of inbreeding, have been any different, in the resulting progeny of the sires? Were they used the same year?.....same management style, feed resources, weather, etc.? It is just sometimes I wonder if their is not more to the story than genetics, though I do prefer to blame the cows, rather than myself for their failures.

In this case Botheel we can eliminate inbreeding as a cause. Both bulls had a close to 0% IBC and the matings they were used on to produce the daughters ranged from related purebreds, unrelated purebreds to Red Angus cows and the results never varied.
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Mean Spirit




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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 3:26 pm

I think you may be right, sorta. It does seem that the bull you had that did well is similar in type to some of the young Shoshone bulls that we've seen that also did well with daughters.

Try this one-- you gotta eat to develop muscle. Maybe the crest develops if the bull only eats a sufficient amount, but the big forearms and bulging topline and round that we love to look at require substantially more. Maybe the bulls that develop lots of excess muscle are the big eaters. We know that masculine, bawling, walking the fence, digging holes kind of bulls don't tend to be the big eaters. Could it be that simple?

Hell, even if it is that simple, its still pretty tough to figure out.
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 9:51 pm

What if we are trying to interfere too much with nature? What if you placed 16 bulls that were bred alike with 300 cows that were bred alike and let natural selection take place say for ten years. Would not the most fertile bulls breed the most cows and the ones that were structurally not sound weed themselves out. The other thing that has been in my mind lately are we never testing bull's for longevity, if the bulls become too big and can't work they would not produce female's that were too big. If he were too small he could not compete. The big bulls would break down the females that are too frail. The most cunning physically fit would produce the most females, creating vigor. You then could use the offspring that were not needed to support the project as income to live.

What I believe would happen is what always happens in nature the cattle that fit their environment whether artificial or natural would evolve. The Masculine bull would still be there and the most productive cow in that environment. The only selection criteria that should be placed are to wean a calf and stay alive. This may be too expensive but what a value in the end. You would have to replace all dry and missing females with offspring from the population and probably keep the bull number at a minimum of 12 by observation of crippled, infertility, and death. I believe that you would select from the middle of the male population from 40 to 60% as the medium in stature that show’s masculinity.
What I am discribing is what we are going to do and would like feedback. This is probably scattered but in processes.
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 10:58 pm

GF, I would be cautuious about drawing any firm conclusions from a 2 sire sample.

We have semn evaluated our share of bulls since the late eighties and correlated semen quality with phenotype, and from that experience my preference remains bulls that phenotypically express secondary masculine character at an early age. Obviously there are always exceptions, but those exceptions don't negate observed tendencies, trends and probabilities.

No matter how you slice it, as some one mentioned above, when it comes to genetic outcomes with individual sires, it is still a genetic crap shoot.

I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Out of curiosity what was the semen quality on the older bull.

Here are a couple of photos of our senoir herdsire. Frame 4.
Masculine bulls? 61PFrontProfile
Masculine bulls? PIC_0816

And two of his young sons.
Three year old.
Masculine bulls? PIC_5056
Scrotal shot of 3 yr old.
Masculine bulls? PIC_3957

A 2 yr old son, late in the breeding season.
Masculine bulls? PIC_8233

All have % normal counts in the mid to high nineties and very good gross motility as of there last BSE and I expect them to pass that fertility to their daughters.

I am uncertain whether these bulls exhibit the type of masculine character you prefer, but I know from my experience it is the type I prefer. Smile
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 10, 2011 11:33 pm

They are certainly brutishly masculine. Interesting specimens.
Ben
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeFri Mar 11, 2011 12:32 am

Bob H, I can only dream of having the numbers to run multi-sire groups in the way you describe. Unfortunately that is not a reality for me juggling tiny numbers within a tiny breed population.

Dylan, the same population issues mean that every mating, every bull used is critical to the future of the breed here so I have to study the results pretty closely. These were just two sires I happened to have used at one stage in the process. The semen quality was not an issue with either of these bulls - both would be 90-91ish normal with very good motility any time they were tested. I stand by my claim that the best performing, most consistent females we have ever had have been off less beefy bulls. This has been true of Galloway bulls, White Shorthorn bulls, Simmental bulls and now Luing bulls all used on both purebred and crossbred females.
Below is a picture of the last live Luing bull to be imported to Canada in the mid 80's - he went on to sire the best, longest lived females ever known in the breed here.
Masculine bulls? Bonus
Pictured as a rising two year old in the more natural condition they used to sell them in back then.
His daughter that was the foundation of my line breeding program - pictured at 19 when she still had another 4 years of production ahead of her.
Masculine bulls? 223U19nw-1


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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeFri Mar 11, 2011 7:49 am

I find it somewhat interesting how easy it is for me to have conversations about bulls.... when I first started in the beef industry, I enjoyed touring around looking at cattle from all over Canada and the U.S, almost always the herd tour would consist of a quick glazing over of the cows with a few pointed out highlights, but upon finding the herd bull the real conversation and critique of the good and sometimes the bad, of an individual would begin Smile

At bull sales you would find me and most everyone else along with a buzz of conversation, in the bull pens, formulas in mind, trying to pick that superior individual for our purpose study

The frustration that followed my failure at type of selection process was evident in my on farm sort; it wasn’t until I realized I was trying to make cows not bulls that I started to spend more time looking at cows then bulls. After meeting Larry and Mike I care less about bulls and started looking at cow herds more in the context of the populations as a whole, then individual cows.

To me it is like a genetic lottery trying to reduce the sort and I am interested in increasing the odds in my favour for my purpose... what the bulls looks like now or what they will look like in the future is of little concern to me, what is of concern to me is the commonality of the ancestral pen of cows.... the less deviation in the pen or even the same cow numerous times, increases the odds in my favour, to my way of thinking.

I would think that the look of the consequential male counterparts to these purposeful populations of cows, would be a foregone conclusion and as unique as the breeders type.

I will admit to a sense of pride and attachment to these old bulls with their cauliflower ears and massive demeanour, but there is some luck involved to make it to that stage when running mobs of bulls as even the biggest and best will get taken down by a group of young mobsters.... Part of that renewal that Larry talks about and I seen it firsthand diving around in his pastures and coming across retired old bulls, being replaced by the seemingly endless supply of maternal population by-product Smile
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeFri Mar 11, 2011 8:28 am

Grassfarmer wrote:
Bob H, I can only dream of having the numbers to run multi-sire groups in the way you describe. Unfortunately that is not a reality for me juggling tiny numbers within a tiny breed population.

Dylan, the same population issues mean that every mating, every bull used is critical to the future of the breed here so I have to study the results pretty closely. These were just two sires I happened to have used at one stage in the process. The semen quality was not an issue with either of these bulls - both would be 90-91ish normal with very good motility any time they were tested. I stand by my claim that the best performing, most consistent females we have ever had have been off less beefy bulls. This has been true of Galloway bulls, White Shorthorn bulls, Simmental bulls and now Luing bulls all used on both purebred and crossbred females.
Below is a picture of the last live Luing bull to be imported to Canada in the mid 80's - he went on to sire the best, longest lived females ever known in the breed here.
Masculine bulls? Bonus
Pictured as a rising two year old in the more natural condition they used to sell them in back then.
His daughter that was the foundation of my line breeding program - pictured at 19 when she still had another 4 years of production ahead of her.
Masculine bulls? 223U19nw-1



GF, no doubt extreme muscling seems to be correlated with reduced fertility as in some of the double muscled bulls. The bulls that you posted pics of initially do not appear to be that heavily muscled. You have the background and expeience with bulls from a number of breeds that were apparently to heavily muscled visa a vis the fertility of there female offspring and so you know best what degree of muscling you are comfortable with in your bull selection.

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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeFri Mar 11, 2011 9:51 am

Fair comments Hilly, as I said in my reply above "First thing I think I've learned is that you can't pick on phenotype and expect predictability." I'm working on concentrating the blood of the best females by breeding their daughters to their sons to "fix" a genotype and achieve that predictability. I no longer really care what the bulls look like either as long as they serve my purpose of reproducing that old cow's type pictured above. The bulls I pictured here initially were from my "pre-Shoshone enlightenment" days and the only reason I'm discussing them is that their progeny results down the line are having an impact on me attaining my goal.
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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeFri Mar 11, 2011 9:54 am

[img]ht[url=https://servimg.com/view/16273146/4]Masculine bulls? Feb14_13tp://i67.servimg.com/u/f67/16/27/31/46/feb14_13.jpg[/img][/url]

rito 707 x shoshone vantage jb23
this bull traces to 707 over 50 times (I quit counting) and Shoshone Vantage JB 23 eight times...

I have had good results crossing these two lines....


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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeFri Mar 11, 2011 10:01 am

Masculine bulls? Feb14_14

This is a two yr old out of a shoshone vantage jb23 daughter


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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeFri Mar 11, 2011 10:52 am

Goodness does have a type, One thing that I think is that we as humans need to do is understand that there is no 100% way to predicte what will happen all we can do is reduce the % of outlayers thru close breeding populations. They still have a commercial sale barn to use up the outlayer's if we do not have too many dollars tied up in the factory ( 10,000 dollar bulls)
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Hilly




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PostSubject: Re: Masculine bulls?   Masculine bulls? I_icon_minitimeFri Mar 11, 2011 11:37 am

Grassfarmer wrote:
Fair comments Hilly, as I said in my reply above "First thing I think I've learned is that you can't pick on phenotype and expect predictability." I'm working on concentrating the blood of the best females by breeding their daughters to their sons to "fix" a genotype and achieve that predictability. I no longer really care what the bulls look like either as long as they serve my purpose of reproducing that old cow's type pictured above. The bulls I pictured here initially were from my "pre-Shoshone enlightenment" days and the only reason I'm discussing them is that their progeny results down the line are having an impact on me attaining my goal.

GF, I have enjoyed your shared experiences greatly and I am in agreement with the points I feel you are making, but there is no question that you have a challenge gaining depth of picture type pedigree with your limited gene pool without regression... but I am not so sure that is a bad thing as you will find out in a hurry how lucky you are Wink

One of the points I was making was more directed at the fact that we all will have differing types and comfort levels in regards to regression and most have our own idea what we want our bulls to look like. I know from past conversations that you are open minded as to what the bulls may look like that will produce your cow with more frequency.

Probably the most common PM’s I get are along the lines of the fact I am making the simple complicated and that there are bulls out there that are bulls-bulls and still produce great or good cows.... I don’t doubt that for a minute and have firsthand experience that this is true, I have a herd of cows that I am happy with for the most part and make a good living with and they were bred using this type of bulls. Breed a good bull to a good cow... it is “just that easy” Smile

I simply see that we can take this thing to a whole other level with the Tru-Line concept by isolating gene pools and using systematic crossing of these pools..... I know, I know it is called crossbreeding and it has been done before... Again no argument here, I would just like to turn up the resolution a bit on what grandpa was doing.

I could be completely wasting my time, but it is my time and I am not selling breeding stock so I hope that mitigates the damage to others
.
I do not think that regressed bulls will look, breed or sell the same as the traditional bulls, but again I don’t sell bulls, I’m just a farmer Suspect
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Masculine bulls?
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