Longevity post...rescued from the ruins

OAK LANE FARM wrote:

This cow stayed until she was 14 and her twin sister lasted until she was 17 . This cow weaned 13 calves mostly weaning around 700 lbs which would be at the very high end of my program. The calf pictured is the 13th calf and he was out of the Pinebank bull.

besides the limited technology of 15 years ago compared to today, I wonder if any of these 15 year old cows were standoutish enough that we bothered to photograph them as yearlings etc...i bet lots of these old cows were the "un noticed" type as weanlings/yearlings/young cows.. I know mine mostly were....

What is there to discuss? The same experts who showed baby beef as youth, judged giants to the head of the class, and are still giving advice on what "we" need to do. I believe every phase and fad were called quality and said to be profitable. What is unsound about those bulls? They are exactly what they were bred to be and are the best of their kind for their time. Do you have any data to disprove the soundness of any of them?

The Elephant ads touting 1050 to 1200 lb finished animals having an advantage in profitability and efficiency over those who had to be fed to 1400 lbs. Now that the range in mature size ranges from the little 1320 lb Gelbvieh to the "BIG" 3 British breeds all exceeding 1400 lbs. The average Angus producer's biggest fear seems to be producing PUDS even though the breed is the second largest at maturity, second highest in milk, third in growth, but still pretty moderate in heifer pregnancy rate- ranking 5th. Angus have the highest slaughter weight when fed to a consistent age- 1363 pounds. They have become the Elephants in the Elephant ads, and are damn proud of it. Progress.?! Or, just more of the same- still playing the game.

yes keystone. We have a case of the pot calling the Kettle black and they have been doing it for years.

Keystone wrote:

What is there to discuss? The same experts who showed baby beef as youth, judged giants to the head of the class, and are still giving advice on what "we" need to do. I believe every phase and fad were called quality and said to be profitable. What is unsound about those bulls? They are exactly what they were bred to be and are the best of their kind for their time. Do you have any data to disprove the soundness of any of them?

The Elephant ads touting 1050 to 1200 lb finished animals having an advantage in profitability and efficiency over those who had to be fed to 1400 lbs. Now that the range in mature size ranges from the little 1320 lb Gelbvieh to the "BIG" 3 British breeds all exceeding 1400 lbs. The average Angus producer's biggest fear seems to be producing PUDS even though the breed is the second largest at maturity, second highest in milk, third in growth, but still pretty moderate in heifer pregnancy rate- ranking 5th. Angus have the highest slaughter weight when fed to a consistent age- 1363 pounds. They have become the Elephants in the Elephant ads, and are damn proud of it. Progress.?! Or, just more of the same- still playing the game.

Isn't this a surprise. Angus Assoc. has spent the last twenty years pushing EPDs. It's been said here time and time again that EPDs are a wonderful tool for measuring growth but nothing really else. After twenty + years of this selection Angus cattle are proving that EPDs work but they are only an indicator of growth. If this continues to hold true, and I believe it will, with what the push for ww and Yw epds are now, these angus cattle will, in ten years be the largest at maturity, the highest in milk, first in growth etc. and the cycle will be complete. Black Angus cattle will become the very cattle they replaced in the 80's. How damn dumb is that? The whole world beats a path to our door because we have a product they want and we change our product into the one thay don't want. Any one remember Herefords?

Jack, somewhere in the vicinity of cow country that used to be almost straight Hereford cattle.

The big difference is, when they decide to discount blacks, it will be a lot harder to turn them another color- other than white. Grandpa's Herefords were turned black and gone with one semen order.

Won't that be an ironic twist of fate. If or when the black hide becomes synonymous with too much as in too much growth, too much milk, too large of mature weights, too heavy of carcass, black cattle will be going through sale rings and the sellers will be representing the cattle as black Gelbieh's or black anything but Black Angus.
The only way to change the black color in one shot that I know of is Charolais. Not the black Charloias of course but the old white variety.
I'm using enough Shoshone bred cattle I'm going to claim mine are Aberdeen Angus since LL has put the Aberdeen back into these cattle. Do you think it will sell?

Jack, somewhere in the vicinity of hopefully a good place to land.

[quote=W.T"]

dennis voss wrote:

W.T. I never thought about the genetic quality of teeth, the heritability factor or breed differences in teeth. I always think about the environmental factors such as, sandy soil, rocks, short grass, molasses etc Thanks, this gives me a whole new thought process on teeth. Dennis Voss, in the vicinity

Dennis I thought it was all environment also until a old timer "not thee OLDTIMER" showed me years ago, many cattle start losing teeth at five and some still have full mouth's at 15 on the same range.[/quote]

W.T,
I hope you don't mind I brought it over here to further the discussion that is raging here. This is the land of peace an opportunity with no mudslinging, of which I am the main mud stirrer on the other place. For those of you who aren't keeping up with this, W.T. has a thesis going on teeth based on genetics. Unless I've been gone for the last 100 years, this is the first I've heard of this. I would like to see a lot of discussion on this because it turns the table over completely. Will be back later. Have to go over and mend some fences at the 4.9 with poor old Dwight.
DV in the land of peace and opportunity.

Dennis Voss wrote:

[quote=W.T"]

dennis voss wrote:

W.T. I never thought about the genetic quality of teeth, the heritability factor or breed differences in teeth. I always think about the environmental factors such as, sandy soil, rocks, short grass, molasses etc Thanks, this gives me a whole new thought process on teeth. Dennis Voss, in the vicinity

Dennis I thought it was all environment also until a old timer "not thee OLDTIMER" showed me years ago, many cattle start losing teeth at five and some still have full mouth's at 15 on the same range.

W.T,
I hope you don't mind I brought it over here to further the discussion that is raging here. This is the land of peace an opportunity with no mudslinging, of which I am the main mud stirrer on the other place. For those of you who aren't keeping up with this, W.T. has a thesis going on teeth based on genetics. Unless I've been gone for the last 100 years, this is the first I've heard of this. I would like to see a lot of discussion on this because it turns the table over completely. Will be back later. Have to go over and mend some fences at the 4.9 with poor old Dwight.
DV in the land of peace and opportunity.[/quote] The twin sister to the cow I showed several post ago had all her teeth as a 1 year old.

Good, I was hoping we could have a "Teeth by W.T." thread in the same spirit as our "Feet" thread. I just have two random thoughts about teeth. First off, I happened to notice the teeth on a particular two-year old angus bull at a bull sale this spring as he bellowed away. They were all jacked up, going every different way. Had he been a twelve-year old kid, he would have been an orthodontist's worst nightmare. What are the odds that snaggletooth doesn't make it 5 breeding seasons, just because of those teeth? Think it's hereditary? Think his daughters will be snaggletoothed too? Secondly, I've often had problems with the USDA inspector at the slaughterhouse calling my 26-28 month old heifers over 30. I talked to the owner about it and he said, in his experience, that angus and hereford cattle will often mouth up to 6 months older than what they really are, while Chi's for example might appear younger than they are. Do you think that cattle selected for early maturity have a reduced tooth life span? Perhaps British cattle, like British people, just don't have very good teeth?

Is DF going to be the co-sponsor fieldman to come around and do teeth or tooth scores for the latest $OR, for orthadontics? I really don't want another dataset to cipher through. I did see a bull here one time like you discribed Tom, but non of his siblings or progeny expressed any issues. His flush brother is still kicking or screwing at 12.

Are not most of the structural, teeth, and reproductive soundness issues, not pretty much nullified, by using bulls out of old, proven cows?......versus the young and flashy. It would be nice to say with certainty that some young, up and coming stud, studett, was certain to pass on or carry such trait, but the cost for such collection of data would be fairly expensive, I presume.

On teeth these old Luing cows we bought at 14/15 all had their teeth but likely lost them around 17/18 (worn down not dropped out). I've never lived in an environment where cows losing teeth was critical to them maintaining condition so have never really found it much of a problem.

A couple of things I learnt in the UK - young cattle that are severely malnourished get their adult teeth extremely young - we saw a couple of outfits that ran into this problem when the authorities used dentition as a guide to age when BSE first happened. Cattle as young as 14 months were being aged as over 30 months. It didn't appear to be breed specific. On the other extreme we once had a 38 month heifer still on calf teeth.

What we found with the sheep was feeding blocks (any kind of tub or molassed hard block) was that this caused rapid premature loss of teeth - I think it was physically the effects of them trying to chew rather than the sugar content as feeding liquid molasses through ball feeders didn't have the same effect.

Veddy interesting. I've always blamed tooth lose on environment like DV. Short grass, eating sagebrush in the winter etc. We haven't mouthed a cow for a long time. Back when we did most all of our cows would be smooth mouthed by 9 years old. I'd be very interested in what role mineral plays in teeth, good, bad, or indifferent W.T.

Jack McNamee wrote:

Veddy interesting. I've always blamed tooth lose on environment like DV. Short grass, eating sagebrush in the winter etc. We haven't mouthed a cow for a long time. Back when we did most all of our cows would be smooth mouthed by 9 years old. I'd be very interested in what role mineral plays in teeth, good, bad, or indifferent W.T.

Years ago we had some poor doing cows and A old cow hand took one look and said they were broken mouth's, i did not believe him as by their age brand they were 5-7 yr old's. We were in the process of vaccinating, so we mouthed all the cows, That day and found several interesting things there were 5yr old's that were broken mouthed and 15 year old's that were full mouthed. We always culled cows by what kind of calf that they raised and not just by age, and over the years we have found that cows that retain their teeth longer were related, and the one's that lost teeth early were also related, some by Bull's and some by cow's. Some of you may think this is pure BS but you'll have that. This is just what i have observed in time. Their is no science to any of this just my personal records. IMO old cows are not accidents there is a genetic basis to It i just don't know as to what degree. My cattle are a work in progress, as are most peoples unless you just use the select a bull From a bull Stud then you can't miss.

W.T wrote:

Jack McNamee wrote:

Veddy interesting. I've always blamed tooth lose on environment like DV. Short grass, eating sagebrush in the winter etc. We haven't mouthed a cow for a long time. Back when we did most all of our cows would be smooth mouthed by 9 years old. I'd be very interested in what role mineral plays in teeth, good, bad, or indifferent W.T.

Years ago we had some poor doing cows and A old cow hand took one look and said they were broken mouth's, i did not believe him as by their age brand they were 5-7 yr old's. We were in the process of vaccinating, so we mouthed all the cows, That day and found several interesting things there were 5yr old's that were broken mouthed and 15 year old's that were full mouthed. We always culled cows by what kind of calf that they raised and not just by age, and over the years we have found that cows that retain their teeth longer were related, and the one's that lost teeth early were also related, some by Bull's and some by cow's. Some of you may think this is pure BS but you'll have that. This is just what i have observed in time. Their is no science to any of this just my personal records. IMO old cows are not accidents there is a genetic basis to It i just don't know as to what degree. My cattle are a work in progress, as are most peoples unless you just use the select a bull From a bull Stud then you can't miss.

I don't want to declare this revolutionary but it is definately jaw-dropping stuff for me to digest. We quit mouthing cows and grade them on condition. Once in a while at the chute I take a look and some of my old cows would be completely out of teeth, just gummers. I never made any commitment to mouth cows over the years. I've made a special effort to keep my old cows as long as I possibly can which in some cases is all the way to the end of their life without hauling them to market. Not good business but longevity is a big deal to me. The fact that this could be interconnected with daughters and sons and genetically based along with the environmental factors just plain opens up a big new door for me on studying longevity. I, like you W.T, have seen hundreds of articles on academic swill studies ranging from heifer retention, buy'em, raise 'em, on and on and on, but very little on teeth and in my experience I have never read an article on the genetic relationship to teeth/jaws/longevity. Makes some of these old cows that Jack & I are flushing kind of interesting. I guess I'll email all my cows that I'll be doing a lot more fishing around in their mouths. This won't go over real well with them, but I'm going to be studying this. I like your savvy W.T.
Dennis Voss, chewing on it

I`m doubting teeth being much a factor in shortening longevity in this wet grass country...poor teeth would cause skinny, poorly fleshed cows...right? I think something else gets them first here; of course, that something else could be me; selling them before they get as old as they might could...

I saw some cows the owner swore were 5 year olds sell this winter and some were already called BM by a vet. They came off of rough rocky country south of I70 here in CO. I also know a guy that lived close to the NE border that had several sprinklers of irrigated grass. He made good money when cows were a lot cheaper by buying broken mouth bred cows out of the Ogallala and North Platte sale barns and running them on soft grass. Boughten thin at cull cow prices he sometimes got a number of years out of them dumping them if the cow market got good enough.

Does selecting for longevity boil down to selecting structurally sound heifers out of old cows?

Just keep selecting heifers that are structurally correct and out of old productive cows and longevity will take care of it's self. It's a simple game.

Angus 62 wrote:

I saw some cows the owner swore were 5 year olds sell this winter and some were already called BM by a vet. They came off of rough rocky country south of I70 here in CO. I also know a guy that lived close to the NE border that had several sprinklers of irrigated grass. He made good money when cows were a lot cheaper by buying broken mouth bred cows out of the Ogallala and North Platte sale barns and running them on soft grass. Boughten thin at cull cow prices he sometimes got a number of years out of them dumping them if the cow market got good enough.

A smooth mouth cow will sure fair better than a broken mouth cow. More sagebrush.

I'm going to see about getting braces for my bull before I offer him to ABS to cure their problems.

Quote :

Does selecting for longevity boil down to selecting structurally sound heifers out of old cows?

df, can you or anyone name a maternal breed of cows, either current or historic, that exhibited longivity? How about a terminal breed? How about other species?

EddieM wrote:

I'm going to see about getting braces for my bull before I offer him to ABS to cure their problems.

Quote :

Does selecting for longevity boil down to selecting structurally sound heifers out of old cows?

df, can you or anyone name a maternal breed of cows, either current or historic, that exhibited longivity? How about a terminal breed? How about other species?

Longhorns.

MKeeney wrote:

I`m doubting teeth being much a factor in shortening longevity in this wet grass country...poor teeth would cause skinny, poorly fleshed cows...right?

That was my point Mike, in wet grass country or an area of relatively good feed supply cows manage just fine with no teeth. We have huge quantities of long grass in summer and ample feed doled out in winter in this area and they don't even show up skinny. I'm guessing in areas of short, hard grass it is more of an issue. It certainly caused some leaner cows in Scotland because we were grazing shorter grass there (too much competition for every blade of grass)

Jack McNamee wrote:

EddieM wrote:

I'm going to see about getting braces for my bull before I offer him to ABS to cure their problems.

Quote :

Does selecting for longevity boil down to selecting structurally sound heifers out of old cows?

df, can you or anyone name a maternal breed of cows, either current or historic, that exhibited longivity? How about a terminal breed? How about other species?

Longhorns.

Scottish Highland.
Luings.

df wrote:

Does selecting for longevity boil down to selecting structurally sound heifers out of old cows?

Would it be better to select structurally sound bulls out of old cows?

I agree with Mike and GF, but down here, mid to late summer and into fall, the grass gets very 'hard' (lignified) most years...that's when animals with issues loss condition.

I've gotten hung up on something Tom Lasater said...once you decide to keep a heifer, never judge her on her appearance...judge her by what she produces.

RobertMac wrote:

df wrote:

Does selecting for longevity boil down to selecting structurally sound heifers out of old cows?

Would it be better to select structurally sound bulls out of old cows?

I agree with Mike and GF, but down here, mid to late summer and into fall, the grass gets very 'hard' (lignified) most years...that's when animals with issues loss condition.

I've gotten hung up on something Tom Lasater said...once you decide to keep a heifer, never judge her on her appearance...judge her by what she produces.

Why wouldn't you select structurally sound bulls and heifers out of old proven cows or out of young cows out of old proven cows and old proven bulls?

I think Lasater is wrong and that mentality is what has screwed up alot of cattle over the years. If a cows udder goes or her feet get bad or she developes any number of problems do you over look them if she is producing big calves? From your posts Robert I'm sure you wouldn't but too many breeders do.