Atractive is Overrated?

Here is a picture of an ugly first calf heifer with her calf that is not quite 6 months old. She has a small, tight udder that evidently milks like crazy and is raising a soggy looking bull calf. She is about as attractive as homemade soap. I haven't preg checked her, but assuming that she rebred on time and is able to raise a calf like this every time, is this another phenotype that is functional? Some don't like their cows in too much flesh, some moderate, but this one stays thin all the time. Granted this is only her first calf, and God must have made me bid on her to own her, but it is possible she may be my "Blythe"?

dwight@steadfastbeef.com wrote:

Here is a picture of an ugly first calf heifer with her calf that is not quite 6 months old. She has a small, tight udder that evidently milks like crazy and is raising a soggy looking bull calf. She is about as attractive as homemade soap. I haven't preg checked her, but assuming that she rebred on time and is able to raise a calf like this every time, is this another phenotype that is functional? Some don't like their cows in too much flesh, some moderate, but this one stays thin all the time. Granted this is only her first calf, and God must have made me bid on her to own her, but it is possible she may be my "Blythe"?

another functional phenotype? no, there`s only one best I think; she just zags below that average flatliner status a bit...I fear those that go fat above the line more...

To paraphrase Forrest Gump...functional is as functional does.
I can't totally agree with Mike...yet...because of the impact of hybrid vigor, but would add a qualifier...
There is only one best functional phenotype that is able to replicate herself. I think finding her comes with the absence of heterozygosity...closed herd.

Lasater..."A cow's only purpose is to produce calves, and it is the only yardstick by which she should be evaluated."

The next trick is to see if she can duplicate herself. The inability of a female to do so has really ruined the "happily ever after" on some cow familiy dreams.

The sire of the calf is pictured as my avatar. He may be the reason the calf is growing strong. Some of his calves grow like mad and some are average. It probably confuses the EPD accountants that his calves that grow like mad have been in contemporary groups by themselves. The dam pictured is by Messmer Judge out of a Make My Day cow. What makes breeding cattle intriguing is that there are sooooo many variables that come into play. Then again, I enjoy playing chess against the computer because I'm addicted to the challenge.

I can't even beat my new phone at connect4

EddieM wrote:

The next trick is to see if she can duplicate herself. The inability of a female to do so has really ruined the "happily ever after" on some cow familiy dreams.

If her son is still with us this next breeding season I may mate him back to his dam and see what happens. The resulting offspring will have 3/4 of its genetic influence from the ugly cow. Maybe more regression than desired will appear. One way to find out.

dwight@steadfastbeef.com wrote:

EddieM wrote:

The next trick is to see if she can duplicate herself. The inability of a female to do so has really ruined the "happily ever after" on some cow familiy dreams.

If her son is still with us this next breeding season I may mate him back to his dam and see what happens. The resulting offspring will have 3/4 of its genetic influence from the ugly cow. Maybe more regression than desired will appear. One way to find out.

if regression occurs, it that bad?

RobertMac wrote:

To paraphrase Forrest Gump...functional is as functional does.
I can't totally agree with Mike...yet...because of the impact of hybrid vigor, but would add a qualifier...
There is only one best functional phenotype that is able to replicate herself. I think finding her comes with the absence of heterozygosity...closed herd.

Lasater..."A cow's only purpose is to produce calves, and it is the only yardstick by which she should be evaluated."

when we finally get done mixing all the breeds or kinds together for all our different reasons, the only thing left would be to separate them again for all our different reasons ..LL

dwight@steadfastbeef.com wrote:

EddieM wrote:

The next trick is to see if she can duplicate herself. The inability of a female to do so has really ruined the "happily ever after" on some cow familiy dreams.

If her son is still with us this next breeding season I may mate him back to his dam and see what happens. The resulting offspring will have 3/4 of its genetic influence from the ugly cow. Maybe more regression than desired will appear. One way to find out.

The Inbreed calf pictured on back roads breeders thread is the results of son to dam mating...But the angus calculator says he is 66% dam and 66% sire I was thinking 75% dam also.

Attractive may be over rated but there is an importance to it when it comes to selling I believe. That was the thing about the Olhde cattle , fairly attractive to look at...until you experienced them a bit. The question might be will she always stay ugly?

dwight@steadfastbeef.com wrote:

The sire of the calf is pictured as my avatar. He may be the reason the calf is growing strong. Some of his calves grow like mad and some are average. It probably confuses the EPD accountants that his calves that grow like mad have been in contemporary groups by themselves. The dam pictured is by Messmer Judge out of a Make My Day cow. What makes breeding cattle intriguing is that there are sooooo many variables that come into play. Then again, I enjoy playing chess against the computer because I'm addicted to the challenge.

This is what one of the AI ads (Bullbarn) says about Messmer Judge...

Quote :

Solid Pedigree, EPDs and Eye Appeal Early calves indicate good calving ease and eye appeal Daughters may well be his strong suit

Are they wrong?- or is this cow an outlier?- or did she take after the rest of the dam bloodline? Just a bad combination?

Or could it be from the Make My Day side?..... I know little about Red Angus-- except know that Boot Jack used to raise some pretty nice cows... I've never seen Make My Day- but when searching for a picture, I came up with a son- Pay Day-- that is not overly impressive looking to me:

http://www.universalsemensales.com/detail_redangus.php?redangus_id=11

MKeeney wrote:

RobertMac wrote:

To paraphrase Forrest Gump...functional is as functional does.
I can't totally agree with Mike...yet...because of the impact of hybrid vigor, but would add a qualifier...
There is only one best functional phenotype that is able to replicate herself. I think finding her comes with the absence of heterozygosity...closed herd.

Lasater..."A cow's only purpose is to produce calves, and it is the only yardstick by which she should be evaluated."

when we finally get done mixing all the breeds or kinds together for all our different reasons, the only thing left would be to separate them again for all our different reasons ..LL

That was my favorite line.

Quote :

if regression occurs, it that bad?

If he is a slower developing, average or somewhat below average weaner, later- to- be masculine, virile bull, then no. If he looks like a wet goat and weans at 300 pounds then ... my same old question on sorting! Do you go ahead and breed on faith?

In nature, the dominate male is first in line to breed. He is constantly challenged by the next generation until he is pushed aside by the next stronger dominate male. By dominate male, I don't mean to imply simply the biggest.
Why should we use a bull that nature would never allow to be a breeders?

RobertMac wrote:

In nature, the dominate male is first in line to breed. He is constantly challenged by the next generation until he is pushed aside by the next stronger dominate male. By dominate male, I don't mean to imply simply the biggest.
Why should we use a bull that nature would never allow to be a breeders?

I believe that when the dominant male (in nature) is dominant because he is a genetic outlier, he will be more than likely heterozygous for the outlying trait/s that make him such. If so, than this is how nature preserves the heterozygous, and its theoretical ability to adapt, barring mutation. If we want to increase the homozygosity within a popluation then maybe it is like swimming upstream if we allow the outliers to become parents.

Nature breeds for heterozygosity. Closebreeders breed for homozygosity. Anyway that is my take on it and I could be wrong.

RobertMac wrote:

In nature, the dominate male is first in line to breed. He is constantly challenged by the next generation until he is pushed aside by the next stronger dominate male. By dominate male, I don't mean to imply simply the biggest.
Why should we use a bull that nature would never allow to be a breeders?

because nature is about specie survival ; not econmic survival

RobertMac wrote:

In nature, the dominate male is first in line to breed. He is constantly challenged by the next generation until he is pushed aside by the next stronger dominate male. By dominate male, I don't mean to imply simply the biggest.
Why should we use a bull that nature would never allow to be a breeders?

I am not a big fan of working against nature but in this case I feel it is a worthy goal only because we plan on restoring and if done systematically I believe we will make a better than average return on investment which in turn equals success if you make a living in the commodity world.

And as I have mentioned to you before Robert, I envy the control you and others here have in your business models, more pasture to plate type of an idea. And I hope to move that direction with a portion of my business, and hire out the marketing....

But won’t the majority still live in the commodity world due to supply and demand?

Dwight wrote:

the dominant male (in nature) is dominant because he is a genetic outlier

This is what I'm not sure about....
The dominant male will/should breed the majority of the females in his range, therefore the majority of progeny should be his. If he remains dominant long enough, he will breed his daughters. Also, beings he sired the majority of progeny, the next dominant male will/should be one of his sons and will be breeding his half sibs. If this is true, then the original dominant male would have been breeding his half sibs.
Now if a male from Kansas comes down to Mississippi and become the dominant male, then he would be a genetic outlier. I could be wrong.

Mike wrote:
because nature is about specie survival ; not econmic survival

The farther I get away form specie survival, the farther I get from economic survival. Some of the traits that are highly important for specie survival are called convenience traits and for the life of me I don't know why. With labor costs so high, if you can find any help at all, these cows have to do more and more on their own and the survival traits have become the most important traits for me. I don't advocate turning them all back out in the hills and letting nature take it's course but weaning a live calf off of a live cow is economic survival for me.

RobertMac wrote:

Dwight wrote:

the dominant male (in nature) is dominant because he is a genetic outlier

This is what I'm not sure about....
The dominant male will/should breed the majority of the females in his range, therefore the majority of progeny should be his. If he remains dominant long enough, he will breed his daughters. Also, beings he sired the majority of progeny, the next dominant male will/should be one of his sons and will be breeding his half sibs. If this is true, then the original dominant male would have been breeding his half sibs.
Now if a male from Kansas comes down to Mississippi and become the dominant male, then he would be a genetic outlier. I could be wrong.

So then would the population of Mississippi eventually look like the Kansan after a while?

dwight@steadfastbeef.com wrote:

RobertMac wrote:

Dwight wrote:

the dominant male (in nature) is dominant because he is a genetic outlier

This is what I'm not sure about....
The dominant male will/should breed the majority of the females in his range, therefore the majority of progeny should be his. If he remains dominant long enough, he will breed his daughters. Also, beings he sired the majority of progeny, the next dominant male will/should be one of his sons and will be breeding his half sibs. If this is true, then the original dominant male would have been breeding his half sibs.
Now if a male from Kansas comes down to Mississippi and become the dominant male, then he would be a genetic outlier. I could be wrong.

So then would the population of Mississippi eventually look like the Kansan after a while?

Depends on the definition of "a while"...I believe nature would define it as, at least, several hundred years! Eventually, the Kansan genetics will 'look' like the Mississippians...environment.

Genotype goes through environment to produce phenotype...per Dr. Bonsma.

Look up some pictures of key deer and put them next to pictures of Canadian whitetails...how different are the phenotypes? In real life, the Canadian deer are many times larger than the key deer...is that difference heterozygosity or environment?

Does that mean that there have been more outliers that have been the dominant males in the Canadian deer populations, relative to the number of dominant male outliers in more southern deer populations?

I am not familiar with breeding methods of current game management herds. Do game ranches in Texas buy big Canadian bucks to increase the size of their deer in Texas?

Quote :

Does that mean that there have been more outliers that have been the dominant males in the Canadian deer populations, relative to the number of dominant male outliers in more southern deer populations?

I am not familiar with breeding methods of current game management herds. Do game ranches in Texas buy big Canadian bucks to increase the size of their deer in Texas?

You need to see the study where the Line 1 Herefords hereds were swapped from FL to Mt and from MT to FL. The answer has something to do with latitude, longitude and environment, and not genetics.