Reflections from LL ©

while the mentor sneers, when I mention the word, golf makes for better cattle

Well I've suckled that little fart twice a day since he was born a couple days ago. It's hard for me, being only a generation from old Norwegian sheepmen/stockmen, to let something like this fail. I've learned since I was a little boy how to get anything to suck. My dad, grandfather, and great grandfather, were all excellent at suckling anything. I know that maybe it isn't something to brag on but it a skill we all have that very few others do. I guess what it come down to is that the tight old Norwegian in us won't allow us to give up on something that might make us a penny later on. This morning was the last straw for the little SOB as just when I got him about full that bitch kicked me and knocked me on my ass. I picked him up to pack him back to the pen and as I was carrying him under my arm I grabbed him by the jaw and turned his face up to mine and said "This is it you little bastard you either live or die". If he lives I shouldn't have to worry about cutting him as his nut sack is about the size of a pencil eraser and I can't feel anything in there anyway. I just want to save him out of curiosity of what he will end up to be. If he dies I have a twin to go on the cow anyway. And don't get me started on twins, four sets of twins to equal about three and a half calves by the time I fish a tangled up dead mess out of one of the cows.

Ben Loyning, In the vicinity of wondering why these old bags can't be happy with just one good calf instead of two little farts.

P.S. Did I mention I hate twins.

well Ben, least someone take me too seriously, we sav`em too...live and die a little with them all...not to be bulls, but to be meat...cause they usually are never up to snuff if they start wrong anyway...
found one calf 5 ft deep in an 18 inch diameter hole; made it to his feet in two days, needs an ankle splinted; should have been done three days ago, maybe tomorrow...
we`re caretakers and breeders...we can be both if time allows...

Larry Leonhardt wrote:

I was very pleased to hear Mikes customers appreciated his new no nonsense sale format where a strong demand for KA maternal genetics exceeded the supply.....where practical buyers report they were provided with more pertinent information to make sound buying decisions without EPD and registration papers than at any sale they had attended before with them.

Meanwhile here in the desert of WY I've finished planting beets ahead of the normal calendar date; always dreading the task of irrigating them for germination, always hoping for a good growing season without late spring freezing temps. We're getting about 15-20 calves a day now, spring is here despite that it snowed yesterday, our coming two year old bulls have been sold by private treaty, so taking some time this Easter weekend to enjoy resurrecting some interesting KC posts about pictures.....selecting types........outliers........ developing ancestral pens of look alikes........details.......and patience.

For instance, when Bootheel wrote:
Never fret the picture game......Simplicity of life, peace, enjoyment of life, serentity of cows being cows while being serviced by bulls being bulls; just simply fits me better. There is enough complication of life without my unneccessary addition to the complication of it.....

I laughed, thinking Joe, you are too young to abandon all the lofty ambitions in the traditional registered cattle business.....and I am too old to care much about all the complexities that the registered societies continue to pursue. Your post reminded me of Tom Lasater's wise words -"Cattle breeding is a relatively simple endeavor, the only difficult part is to keep it simple". Tom was a concientious man who developed a practical herd of Beefmasters during an era when the mainstream about destroyed the reproductive functionality of cattle with their pudgy square cattle. He professed that the breeder's name was all the pedigree needed......KA has earned that self-responsible right that goes hand in hand with his recent Declaration of Independence.

I do enjoy looking at digital pictures better than looking at numerical digits, a way of recapturing one precious moment lost in time. I marvel at the artistry of nature captured and preserved by DB's terrific picture galleries..... especially in awe at the intricate, genetic coloring patterns of those horned owls..... and pigs, and horses, and cattle, and natural scenes, combined with the diversity of extra-ordinary ordinary people....... thinking how Mother Nature must have an enormous sense of pride in all her wondrous works of art , everything designed each for a very special purpose, where absolutely nothing is wasted.......just glad I'm not a dung beetle who thrives on BS.



Taking pride in one's work can be different than self serving egotistical ambitions. What a boring world this would be without the beauty of color.....and without the colorful band of characters on KC. I laugh with DV's study of the mating habits of sand cranes, and antelope, and cattle, and how reproduction is all about sexuality. I once asked DV to draw me a picture of the sexiest, most maternally functional cow in the world, but he admits to having some difficulty fulfilling that request. .....the same sort of difficulty we seem to be having in deciding which type of cow to favor in our modern, stressful, competitive, complicated black and white numerical world of records and measures turning everything grey.....all because of man's pursuit of monetary values.

I've noticed DV is quite adept at drawing ugly weird cows, and cows who can jump thru hoops and over the mooooon, so for now I'll just have to be content re-showing a real life picture of one of the sexiest, most profitable and prolific beef cows in the entire world.......hummm, no public registration paper but she is distinctively white with black pigment, the only flaw I see is the calf's crooked tail....but perfectionists are very unhappy people.



DB says he "certainly prefers this type of cow, 90T below, a paternal 1/2 sister. Her ancestral pen has more consistent longevity." I certainly wouldn't expect 90T to be a top performance outlier, but WITH GREAT PRIDE, I think we could all simply live happily ever after with entire herds of cows like this?? I am dazzled by the maternal functional beauty of 90T's extended tail to the tip of her nose.....no, her flaws haven't been photoshopped away by incidental nit-picking perfectionists, they are in their real working clothes.



Hilly, who actually is a really very wise old man posing in a young man's body, in response to DB's series of cow and bull pictures wrote:

"......I can tell you which of those cows I would prefer just based on a picture and age if I had to choose for my farm but the useful of that information would be worth what you paid for it. To me the bulls are a byproduct when it comes to maternal efficiency, once I get to redundancy of individuals in my cows I may start to study them more. But again I have my favorite based on your pictures."
If we have a sense of pride in our work, and Bootheel never frets the picture games, why in the world did we ever allow ourselves to get so wrapped up in these mindless, competitive number games.....are the number games just another busy road to hell paved with good intentions, unlike Mike's road less traveled.....or are they just another marketing tool to attract the novice ? .

I enjoyed reading that W.T. had one of the greatest times in his life during his April Fools bull buying journey to IA, but was sorry to hear he wasn't successful in earning a sorting stick. While he and Eddie M were in the IA vicinity, since this is the peak of the sale season, I wondered if they by chance happened to stop by dependable genetics to look at the short-tailed Lot 1 (pictured below) in order to learn how to put some much needed bi-sexual Aberdeen back into their Angus. I suppose if I were a registered nit-picking perfectionist seeking the ultimate in all-purpose perfection, I'd critique her teats as being too close together, but for wider muzzled cattle with greater self-serving appetites, perhaps her calves could suck two teats at once to make the nursing effort worthwhile. However. I share DB's concerns about sexy reproductivity while trying to discern where to draw the line between dairy and "beefy" cows.......details.....details.....yes Joe, life is sure full of complicated details requiring the need for sorting sticks, T-posts and multiple numercial measures to satisfy the inexperienced "stockmen".




But what the heck does a forelorn farmer in WY know about gross looking fat IA cows buried in corn stover anyhow.....they must have a reason for being if only to serve as a bad example. Selecting types...I recently received a personal email inviting me to Dr. Pankratz's total dispersal of over 1000 head featuring the top outliers, 9 yearling bull and heifer calves pictured below with measures and sired by the latest and greatest popular high EPD bulls.....I can only imagine what the bottom outliers looked like out of the 1000's previously sold. To provide a little trivial background behind this complete dispersal, Dr. Pancratz, owner of Grand Lab (producing livestock vaccines), stopped by about 10 years ago driving his wife's luxurious Cadillac looking for cattle wanting to get started into the registered Angus business. I still registered my cattle back then and so after spending the day with him, he offered to buy about 100 cows from me at a very lucrative price.... but being a novice, his expert consultant told him my cattle's EPD were too low. Following his consultant's advice, thankfully destiny prevailed and I lost that tempting potential sale, my only consolation was that my cows wouldn't have enjoyed their short stressful life in Freeman, SD anyway.




To build the latest and greatest look alike ancestral pen to move onward, upward and forward, I'm considering selecting female Lot No. 1011 and the male Lot No. 1149 representing a nucleus of two of the highest high dollar reputation herds in the U.S, the Sitz Upward /Connealy Impression combination would surely put some phzazzy extension back into the IA "Aberdeen" Angus. Not to be confused with the TruLine concept, some days I wish DV would transform me from a plain black smokin raven who feeds on road kill into a wiser horny owl who preys on live vermin (expert consultants), but in any event, being a bird does provide me with an immunity from defamation of character lawsuits. That immunity allows me to say that these longer necks must've been a natural mutative result in order to lick their constantly itchy n' dirty uphill asses, however, I suspect nature will ultimately solve this problem by reducing the frequency of their reproductive capability. You just can't make stuff like this up.

Should anyone decide to build an ancestral pen of the most elite Angus in the business, the black hills gold of SD would be secondary to the black gold rush in ND. No, not the booming oil fields where workers are earning a $1000 a day with the prostitutes of Las Vegas converging in ND, I'm talking about the black gold on the pastures at St. Anthony where calves with 205 day weaning weights under 900# are considered runts. To provide KC readers with some important details to help them make better breeding decisions, they have a golden opportunity to select semen from over 27 trait leading Angus bulls in major studs like ABS, CRI, Select Sires, Accelerated Genetics or many more from SAV or the buyers of other SAV bulls who sold for $156,000, $147,500, $92,500, $67,500, $135,000, $75,000, $117,500, $265,000, $28,000, $80,000, $60,000, $180,000, $35,000, $275,000, $40,000, $95,000, $47,500, a $25,000 bull who sired the $265,000 bull, $30,000, $150,000, $87,500, $80,000 and $65,000 to average a paltry $101,521.80.

Moving on selecting types back in the peon world, MK wrote:

wow
for me, Dylan`s cow`s were too close in type for me to comment...I need simple and extreme examples ...



Farmerkuk wrote:
WOW that is extreme differences!!

Could we get some details about the cow on the left?

If my entire herd looked like that cow I would be set....

mk replied...
that is truly the impossible dream Jeremy; although I only gave up the same dream recently... she`s the cream; when I breed her to a cream bull like her; to make more cream, I get some cream and plenty of milk...I could only have all cream by culling away all the milk, everytime...not worth it; especially considering that milk still has the capability to recombine and make cream again...I`ve learned to like 2% milk ; no one should expect ice cream every meal

Hilly's post, :
once I get to redundancy of individuals in my cows I may start to study them more

in reply jonken wrote
who the hell has patience ? who the hell has patience ?

mk replied...
and besides Jon, with redundancy, there wouldn`t be any "superior", top selling bulls to brag about...and less need for production sales, to get rid of the cull cows


Well Mike, ice cream melts.and from my perspective, the cow on the left is not the cream nor an outlier, she simply represents the centerpiece of Shoshone homogenized rather than heterogenized milk. And yes, I am scratching my head trying to respond to all the thought provoking, practical comments so generously contributed by Hilly, Grassfarmer and Dylan.....and CC, IMHO Bonsma's observations are invaluable guides to observing what has already happened. I suppose I am a little more like Bootheel in that I am not a great nit-picker of incidental flaws.....which is what one would expect in the peon world.

It was very difficult for me to determine what type to establish without first hand experience, however, once a preferred type was finally determined, reflecting on the old adage that the apple doesn't fall too far from the (family) tree, I guess I could begin here with the patience needed to BUILD ANCESTRAL PENS of a preferred type. With major mainstream emphasis to change cattle from what they were to something better, ancestral pens of similar types are rare and therefore are not easily acquired, they need to be methodically developed in accordance with the principles of natural law. "WHO THE HELL HAS PATIENCE" and why the hell would anyone be stupid enough to want to depart from the monetary rewards of the traditional system?..... I suppose because most of us choose to eat beef over caviar.

It seems to be a no brainer to recognize that mixed populations of mixed types will produce mixed types .....and I fully understand not everyone will agree on what functional type to establish. So to answer Farmerkuk's request for details on the cow on the left above, I can provide them either pertinent simplicity or with in depth complexity. I sold her to Mike for nearly double the price of a plain ole common bred commercial cow worth about $1250. Some people might think Shoshone cattle have no family tree without public pedigree, but for whatever homogenized milk is worth to anyone, listed below is the maternal family tree of the cow on the left. Residing in KY now, she was one of the very first daughters of her sire (pictured below taken by MK).....a bull who was NOT selected for being an outlier, but rather for the preferred renewable qualities of his maternal ancestral pen......a "leftover" bull so to speak, born May 8, 2003, unpicked by bull buyers from among his yearling contemporaries, under circumstances similar to Mike's Unwanted bull...... his natural mature form just happened to be the way it is from maternal selection.....he was a closebred carcass quality cowmaker "boss" bull who could move like a jack rabbit and had the libido to go with it, but got careless one day as a six year old while in action and apparently got way laid by another upcoming bull who broke his right rear stifle joint......sh*t happens with cattle just being cattle doing their thing, just glad he wasn't a high priced purchased bull from SAV



REAPING WHAT WE SOW, THE DOMESTIC ANCESTORAL PEN OF THE COW ON THE LEFT ABOVE - #A426.
SHOSHONE GEORGINA'S PUREBRED FAMILY TREE
(Of 324 Georginas born from 1983 thru 2011 in this herd, 57 are currently active in this herd. They are not available to registered breeders with papers. Below is the 25 generation maternal family tree of A426)
A426 born 3/05/2006, paternal grandam 6374 born 3/25/96
A472 born 3/04/2002, paternal grandam A348 born 3/16/94
A421 born 3/24/2000, paternal grandam 6383 born 3/13/91 (dam of 6374)
A448 born 3/11/1998, paternal grandam 2065 born 3/20/88
A461 born 3/20/1993, paternal grandam 6357 born 5/29/88
A406 born 3/07/1991, paternal grandam 1702 born 2/16/80

K.A. CLARK GEORGINA FAMILY TREE (each named in traditional family fashion)
Gehenna of Craigie, born 8/22/83 - 10373917
Genie of Craigie, born 3/03/74 - 8058137
Genoa of Craigie, born 4/11/68 - 5982966
Georgina of Tetley 15 - born 1/03/64 - 4367582
Georgina of Tetley 3 born 2/6/58 - 2672663
Gladys of Balllylough born 2/2/51 - 1638690

FOREIGN GEORGINA FAMILY TREE
Glory of Tullyraw - AACAS 138540C
Galas of Tullyraw - AACAS 123119C
Gertie of Mullarack - AACAS 107932C
Girlie of Mullarack - AACAS 98961C
Galeen of Mullarack - 83210
Gaelic Girl - 79616
Gems Gaelic - 75000
Gloria B of Ballintomb - 59546
Gabrielle - 31231
Gem of Abergeldie - 27816
Gentian of Ballindalloch - 19258
Genista - 15051
Georgina 2 of Aberlour - 5979

So what does this cow family pedigree tree tell anyone about the ancestral pen without knowing the selection direction of the last dozen generations. EPD are a poor indicator of describing a functional type. The only one that can have personal intimate detailed knowledge about the cattle is the owner, anyone else is second guessing. The primary selection emphasis of this cow family from Gladys to Gehenna was BEEF QUALITY alongside practical maternal function, measured by the skilled eye of a packer order buyer whose life was spent observing cattle with both their hides on and off. I would be second guessing at whatever other characteristics that ancestry displayed, but what I know for absolute certainty is that not a single ancestor was sterile.

Prior to A406 born in 1991, lacking a skilled eye, I spent 10 years evaluating actual carcass characters of different types of cattle in my herd, both publicly and privately, data which strongly correlated to industry trends during a major change when registered industry fashions were maximizing early rapid growth and increased mature size....mature Angus bulls in the industry at that time ranged from 1300 to 3000 lbs....everyone suddenly began promoting ton plus bulls. About this same time, a friend and very successful performance breeder from Nebraska was winning the carcass events at the Denver Stock Show with his "cull heifers". I suppose the insinuation was to just imagine how much better their replacement heifers would be, but that would not be an accurate assumption. An interesting tidbit I read in one of the first Waigroup promotional ads touted winning the NZ carcass contests with their open "cull heifers". In all likelihood, the replacement heifers that bred up well would not have fared so well, believe it or not. The mature weight of my higher carcass quality bulls were around a ton, their sisters mature cow weight was about 1100-1300# depending on the time during the year when weighed. People in the know tell me dairy cattle have the most consistant predictable carcass, yet the dairy people select for milking ability. Hmmmmm.

DF asked:

LL, if you get a chance, can you discuss replacement female selection and bull selection? At what age would you feel is the most accurate to make the selection? Is there still some phenotypic variation in your herd? At what age do you feel you "know" a cow or bull?

I am more than happy to discuss my own replacement selection.... I cannot speak for others. I thought I had discussed my selection criteria somewhat extensively here on KC before. For my maternal purposes, the day a calf is born is the most important age to make initial selections which reveals the most important economic maternal traits for a cow/calf producer. The bulls are just the males of my preferred cows and beyond balanced functional soundness and their mannerisms, rightly or wrongly, that is about the scope of my bull selection. That may seem like "blue sky" but the bulls are usually dead or gone before I could ever really "know" any bull's true maternal breeding attributes. I finally really "know" a cow by the daughters she leaves in the herd at whatever age that would be. Regardless of what our occupation is, beginning with apprenticeship, the more experience we have, we instinctively get more proficient. So from my accumulated years of observations, after their day of birth if my yearling heifers were all lined up eating along a feedrack, I probably can do as well selecting my replacements by walking along the feedrack and selecting them by their heads as well as any other method.

Perhaps I need to reiterate that I am not focused on individual cows or bulls, I've moved to what is referred to as population genetics, a selection direction to stabilize a strain, finally learning to avoid the perceived outliers, preferring the centerpoint of the distributions.....my own personal selection objective is to consider the entire herd a"unit of one kind" Of course there is "still some phenotypic variation in the herd" due to many natural factors.....and my lifetime in the cattle breeding world is a very short period in time when most of that time was spent floundering. For example, LIKE NOW I HAVE A DETAIL PROBLEM. Mike informed me that the cow pictured on the left above was not #A426, that he had it identified as being cow #2979. Good grief, my cattle are getting to look so damn much alike, even I can't tell the difference anymore, it must be my eyes, it can't possibly be my age.
For the purpose of this post, it doesn't make much difference to me, but to straighten me out since they are now both Mike's cows, he went to all the trouble to go out and take a current picture of #A426. I don't know if he has a current picture of #2979 for a better comparison or not. I readily admit that some days my cows look better or worse to me than they do on other days.



Not being a nit-picking frustrated perfectionist, I still cannot see any SIGNIFICANT OR PERTINENT FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENCE between cows A426 and 2979.....one picture was taken when the sun was just right and the trees were all leafed out, the picture directly above was taken when the sun wasn't quite right for clarity and the trees don't have their full leaves yet. {mk note..426calf=1 week old} I don't know if one cow is more "homogenized" than the other or not, I do have about 30 new healthy calves on the ground, born without any trouble sired by A426's yearling bull . The only major difference I cannot see between "homogenized' and a "heterogenized" look alike cows is that one would be more renewable than the other, which the industry refers to as prepotency.

I quit DNA testing several years ago since several sires could qualify as the sire of a calf, reasoning that if the DNA was similar, what the hell difference does it make who is who since my selection for a specific functional type remains constant. I've referred to it as "breeding a breed within a breed", performance breeders might refer to it as being stagnant, others might refer to it as linebreeding but they are misinformed.....I am simply stabilizing a preferred type to reduce rather than increase problems. Any actual IBC's are likely self-governed by selection and are not worth trying to calculate based on averages. To demonstrate the purebred pedigree of cow #2979 for DF and Farmekuk, it is as follows:

SHOSHONE LUCY PUREBRED MATERNAL FAMILY TREE
(Of 346 Lucys born in this herd from the base cow since 1978, there are 64 Lucys currently in the herd)
2979 born 2/20/2007 pat grandam MS (one of several of the same type paternal grandams)
2966 born 5/15/2000 pat grandam 712
2931 born 4/10/1998 pat grandam 6345
2900 born 4/06/1995 pat grandam 1702
2944 born 2/02/1988 pat grandam 1702
2937 born 4/02/1986 pat grandam 2712
2910 born 4/13/1981 pat grandam 2003
2901 born 3/15/1978 pat grandam 6001
GDA29 born 2/8/1976 pat grandam Candida of Wye
DA29 born 3/21/1973 pat grandam Cerelia of Wye
A29 born 4/6/1970 pat grandam Battista of Wye
29 born 5/6/1968 pat grandam Moles Hill Enzora
----------------------------------------------------
Haystack Lucy 30 born 9/28/64
Bandolier of Arkdale 5 born 4/9/62
Arkdale Bandolier 30 born 3/5/57
Bandoliers Ella 5 born 2/20/46 (note her dam would've been 16 yrs old, there is more than ample evidence that "sprinters" lack longevity)Ellas Sixth Lassie born 3/25/30
Ella of Ash Roe born 1/5/1922

It would be interesting to me if I could use the TruLine color wheel rather than numbers to describe "functional purity" by visualizing the gradual shades of color changes over time due to selection of each individual generation.. To fixate certain characters in a population, in general it is estimated to require up to 8 generations of close breeding depending on several factors. Cows 2944 thru 2979 would be a distinctive yellow. Certainly knowing the qualities of the ancestry is essential to the breeder, but it is a waste of time by going back to 1922 except perhaps for nostalgic reasons or in looking back to discern long term trends....none of which can be changed.

For further discussion's sake, from 1965 through 1980 there was a significant difference among the Angus cattle in my herd, I could recognize who was who with or without identification tags the same as we can recognize people by their faces. While the mainstream uses outliers to change cattle selecting for progeny differences, I am trying to make them more alike selecting for progeny similarities. Today in this herd, there is no significant difference in cow families like there once was. In my closed population, I maintain their family identification only for my own logistical purposes. My constant selection becomes the preferred type that ultimately prevails anyway and becomes the only Shoshone pedigree needed for outside usuage. I simply do not know which cattle's random half of the genotype is superior to others based on phenotype.

And for further discussion about variation, I have often wondered if anyone really cares about doing a thorough psychoanalysis of the ultrasound distributions of a sire, a herd, a breed or composites for prepotency. I do pay alot of attention to distributions. I have developed a fat phobia over time observing the side effects. For example, Mike told me cow #426 got relatively fat before she calved this spring, yet I remembered her more as being what I call a beef jersey type. And Hilly posted a picture of his Shoshone cow a month or two ago, who didn't work last summer raising a calf and she looked fat to me. My cows do get fat when they don't work, and I suppose that could be one way DB could define the difference between a dairy cow and a beef cow. I do believe the $EN numbers offer some reasonable estimated guidelines.

It would be nice if we could instill appetite governors on our cattle, but it is impractical, all we can do practically is control the amount of feedstuffs they eat. I have yet to see any cows get fat on poor feed and water. We all know fat is accumulated by environmental factors, where that fat is stored in the body is determined by genetics. I prefer the genetics that store fat intramuscularly and in the milk. To add another trivial detail for whatever its worth, .a grandaughter of #A29, cow #ECA29 born in 1974 produced a bull born in 1978 that became one of the highest marbling bulls in the breed at that point in time, used successfully to freshen Holstein cows to improve the beef value of the resultant progeny. I have learned to identify some external phenotypic characteristics as indicators of carcass quality. I suspect that I have had several bulls who have been superior to that 1978 bull, they just weren't evaluated as individuals..

I dislike cattle with "blue" milk and with patchy fat that was so prevalent in Shorthorns and mellow yellow Herefords at one point in time.....and pudgy Angus.....and bulky exotic oxen.......and cattle with too much milk are inefficient convertors of feedstuffs to beef. So, we are left pick our plums or poison.....to pick stayers or sprinters....to maximize or reduce variation......but whatever we choose, I remain convinced that averages without distribution ranges are a cowman's nightmare and that the registered breed societies as a whole remain in a chaotic state of disarray......and that without a shadow of a doubt they prefer it to remain that way.....and it will as long as they are financially supported by the populace.

I guess I chose to stick with an Angus derivative base since despite man's intent on changing them for the last 60 years, they have somehow prevailed with their inherent distributions. I think I've said more than enough to stimulate some discussion on replacement female and bull selection.....whew, trying to simplify the complex gets very complicated, perhaps we should just do what Bootheel and Bob H do, to enjoy life just put the bulls with the cows and let nature take its course.......but we won't.

LL in the vicinity of enjoying chocolate Easter bunnies, Russell Stover marshmallow eggs and yellow, pink and orange sugar coated peeps to help sustain $80.00 per ton sugarbeets

Man alive, when you keep champagne bottled up, under pressure, and yank the cork, the goodies just get everywhere.


Bootheel, not worried about what to breed the heifers to

Larry, Jimmy is a good guy and a good operator. I don't exactly agree with his cattle philosophy as there is an easier way, but it works for him. They have a section that neighbors our pature we call the "lower range" toward Bridger on the other side of Mark L's place. Its prettyt good country but not good enough for those big Simmy calves they raise. they never use it.

Ben Loyning, in the vicinty of no wind strangely enough.

I can sympathize with your problem case Ben. We are just getting started calving here and have a problem heifer. The heifer school was going great - a 55lb calf, the third one born in the field - unfortunately the mother had stolen the previous two from their mothers when they were born but decided she didn't want her own when it came along. Shut them in a corral yesterday and went away to do something else, came back an hour later to find the heifer hanging upside down with her leg caught between the top rail of the gate and the post. Bolted through post type gate hinges so I had to saw through a chain to release her. Shut in the barn now being supervised to suckle a few times a day, heifer nursing a sore leg. I won't cull her for this, probably just dumb luck but sure is a pain in the ass.

a friend and very successful performance breeder from Nebraska was winning the carcass events at the Denver Stock Show with his "cull heifers". I suppose the insinuation was to just imagine how much better their replacement heifers would be, but that would not be an accurate assumption. An interesting tidbit I read in one of the first Waigroup promotional ads touted winning the NZ carcass contests with their open "cull heifers". In all likelihood, the replacement heifers that bred up well would not have fared so well, believe it or not...
good stuff...further differeniation between meat and maternal function..

Ben Loyning wrote:

Well I've suckled that little fart twice a day since he was born a couple days ago. It's hard for me, being only a generation from old Norwegian sheepmen/stockmen, to let something like this fail. I've learned since I was a little boy how to get anything to suck. My dad, grandfather, and great grandfather, were all excellent at suckling anything. I know that maybe it isn't something to brag on but it a skill we all have that very few others do. I guess what it come down to is that the tight old Norwegian in us won't allow us to give up on something that might make us a penny later on. This morning was the last straw for the little SOB as just when I got him about full that bitch kicked me and knocked me on my ass. I picked him up to pack him back to the pen and as I was carrying him under my arm I grabbed him by the jaw and turned his face up to mine and said "This is it you little bastard you either live or die". If he lives I shouldn't have to worry about cutting him as his nut sack is about the size of a pencil eraser and I can't feel anything in there anyway. I just want to save him out of curiosity of what he will end up to be. If he dies I have a twin to go on the cow anyway. And don't get me started on twins, four sets of twins to equal about three and a half calves by the time I fish a tangled up dead mess out of one of the cows.

Ben Loyning, In the vicinity of wondering why these old bags can't be happy with just one good calf instead of two little farts.

P.S. Did I mention I hate twins.

At least you didn't hit him with a T-post!

No I didn't hit him with a T-post. This morning however I got tired of looking at him, put him down, popped his hide off and put it on a twin. Its better deal for everyone involved.

On another note I quit chewing about ten days ago and have been feeling rather violent the last few days. So if anyone needs hit with a T-post or knows someone who does I'm your man. This time I'm gonna try not to start smoking again as a replacement to my Snooce.

Jack I was gonna run over and check your sale out today but I really don't feel like seeing anyone today. Best wishes on your sale, I hope you get enough for every one of them buggers.

Ben Loyning, In the vicinity of tearing off my left shirt pocket looking for a can of Copenhagen.

hang in there Ben, and stay away from Cowley for several days of course, LL may have kicked the habit as well via that electronic thing he was firing up as a replacement...

Ben Loyning wrote:

No I didn't hit him with a T-post. This morning however I got tired of looking at him, put him down, popped his hide off and put it on a twin. Its better deal for everyone involved.

On another note I quit chewing about ten days ago and have been feeling rather violent the last few days. So if anyone needs hit with a T-post or knows someone who does I'm your man. This time I'm gonna try not to start smoking again as a replacement to my Snooce.

Jack I was gonna run over and check your sale out today but I really don't feel like seeing anyone today. Best wishes on your sale, I hope you get enough for every one of them buggers.

Ben Loyning, In the vicinity of tearing off my left shirt pocket looking for a can of Copenhagen.

Boy ben have I got a deal for you..... Been to IOWA,,,,Wanna Go.....

Grassfarmer wrote:
Yep, you can really tell a lot about birthweight genetics when you weigh ET calves out of recipient dams ......I don't understand some people's cattle - a bigger than usual heifer calf weighs 65lbs at birth yet by the time they are a 1st calf heifer they look like a 5 year old cow - are they the ultimate curve benders or does it take them that long to mature and have their first calf?

Shades of the past 50's & 60's returning again BACK WHEN commercial "British breed heifers" were 3 yrs old before they had their first calf.

Stolen from JC's posts on 4.9 - pictures are surely worth a 1000 words - form following functional selection
"Here is the Pinebank bull I have purchased:"



"Morgan, You are right, I posted the wrong picture. I have purchased the 526 bull on the registration paper. Below is the 526 bull"



Camera angle from a worm's eye view......I see JC mixes up his pictures with the proper ID too, and he's not nearly as old as I am

"More pictures of the Pinebank 526 bull's dam:"


"James
Are you mating yearling heifers and either way he will give you trouble free calving. It does not appear to matter what the heifers or cows birth weights are, it looks as though it is the birth weight of the bull that is critical. Birth weight has a heritability of 39% which is high so if you have dystokia, or calving problems, then it is well worth selecting bulls with low birth weights. Do you pull many calves?. I take it that you are purchasing the second bull (561) for your heifer mating and for that purpose he should be ideal. His calves will not grow on as well as bull No1’s (526) you bought, I would expect his growth patten to be a little better......The best bred bull with the stongest cow family is 526. He is a little bigger then Kit ‘s criteria but the smallness of your cows will bring his size back. It is of course up to you. If you wish to improve the performance of your herd then 526 is the bull that we recommend from here. Are you anticipating that Kit will use the bull as well as yourself? Or is he having no say in what bull you select, I always thought that it was for you.
Gavin"

JC added, "This is a 13 year old straight Shoshone cow, she had twins this year and weaned about 80% of her weight. If she is late calving this year, she will go to Ron Vance





"Straight Shoshone" cows don't carry freeze brands - but partial ones still have tails - my goodness that " bunch" are ruthless cullers.....poor Ron Vance, wondered what he does with all the culls

POINTS TO PONDER. Common Angus birthweights in the 50's & 60's were 60 to 65#, shorter gestation (lighter) birthweights are highly correlated to earlier maturity, yield grades 4 and 5's were also common

This is his dam" (561's , how many of you think her bull calf is her male equivalent


THANK GOD FOR DISTRIBUTIONS !!!!!!!

Bootheel wrote: .......Pyramid schemes are an accepted portion of reality today, so the ability to prosecute said activeties is voided. My view of the world today is rather negative, and started with a personal discussion of one of the Moneychanger's, with all the best cows, gathered from all over the world..... and my thoughts were ''Why must they still purchase the best cows from everyone else'''. The continual saga of gathering the outliers from all the outlaying lands, seems to never end. Today, I have no use for LIARs or OUTLIARs, whereever they may lay.

Bootheel, just mad

MK responded:
Dozer been hung up again Joe...or is this totally cattle inspired?
I`m with you; the games of rarity and chance and following the clamor of the crowd make me mad enough to laugh and make fun of them all
these pot gutted, sway back back mainstream bulls weighing 1300 at a year with an 11 sq inch loin eye make me think that we materal creators are relying too greatly on the mainstream for terminal genetics to use on our cows...Jeff Mundorf`s Limmy looks more logical all the time; same for the Wagyu or a Wagyu deriviative in the quality grade direction...

Well Mike, don't you remember the data from BB's 2010 all Shoshone sired steers, gained 5.52# a day in the feedlot, killed at 1500+ lbs, graded 95% prime with no yield grade 4's or 5'sl.....now why would we need Limmy's or Wagyu, inquiring minds would like to know

W.T. wrote:Recorded some of the 5L sale at one time they had some nice cattle they have gone mainstream now and there were a lot of sway back sorry mainstream cattle that were no sales. the red's were better topped until everyone started to want everything. They got it just a different shade. Is it red ,yellow, or blue?


By DV........Three white feathers for LL.

MK wrote:

"......a friend and very successful performance breeder from Nebraska was winning the carcass events at the Denver Stock Show with his "cull heifers". I suppose the insinuation was to just imagine how much better their replacement heifers would be, but that would not be an accurate assumption. An interesting tidbit I read in one of the first Waigroup promotional ads touted winning the NZ carcass contests with their open "cull heifers". In all likelihood, the replacement heifers that bred up well would not have fared so well, believe it or not..."
good stuff...further differeniation between meat and maternal function..

OR, could it be SELECTION for APPETITE CAPACITY and BACK FAT rather than meat to uphold individual POUNDS of performance with LOW BIRTHWEIGHTS .....just looking at the TRENDS in "fat" and "YG" of the MAINSTREAM curvebenders

LL, tickled pink by DV's feathers while uncorking PINK bubbly champagne enertainin' myself at the "unraveling genetic mysteries" party from the archives of history

Well Mike, don't you remember the data from BB's 2010 all Shoshone sired steers, gained 5.52# a day in the feedlot, killed at 1500+ lbs, graded 95% prime with no yield grade 4's or 5'sl.....now why would we need Limmy's or Wagyu, inquiring minds would like to know


I do, I do remember...but that doesn`t change my belief that greater overall production efficiency can be achieved using complimentary pieces, not wholes...
mk, in the vicinity of rolling out the red carpet for Jon and Kendra in anticipation of their visit today and tomorrow...Jon, the only person who makes me a bit insecure when talking about close breeding...and Kendra? well now, Kendra`s eyes always looks past the exterior to see what`s inside...she`s always thinking, and I never know quite what...and I care, because I`ve met none finer on this road less traveled...sending cows home with J&K in order to walk hand and hand on that closebred road instead of on a paper trail that goes pooof when held to the flame of economic reality for paper makes such a weak foundation...

The literal image of the complex abstractions involved in correlating primary colors evolving into secondary colors as it pertains to breeding cattle by utilizing the symbolism of colors, for Bootheel/LL.

DV in the vicinity of giving further guidance as time permits

"Straight Shoshone" cows don't carry freeze brands - but partial ones still have tails - my goodness that " bunch" are ruthless cullers.....poor Ron Vance, wondered what he does with all the culls

another prime example of why there`ll be no public registration in a Tru-line concept...and why there will be few on the road least traveled...
mk, waiting thankfully for J&K to get their morning coffee, so we can load the no public paper dams of their herd bulls, and walk, maybe even run together, on the road least traveled ...
and Ron, poor Ron, he can flush the mis- named straight Shoshone papered cow, thrice culled... with papers, so he can authenicate they are something gooooooooooodddddddddddd...for there is always a bigger fool somewhere to buy into the con game...that`s a damn broad, ever circling road, that as Larkota points out, is praised, even after it has bankrupt you...
but my question yesterday for Larkota was...why are you not making a clear separation from that crowd?

MKeeney wrote:

"Straight Shoshone" cows don't carry freeze brands - but partial ones still have tails - my goodness that " bunch" are ruthless cullers.....poor Ron Vance, wondered what he does with all the culls

another prime example of why there`ll be no public registration in a Tru-line concept...and why there will be few on the road least traveled...
mk, waiting thankfully for J&K to get their morning coffee, so we can load the no public paper dams of their herd bulls, and walk, maybe even run together, on the road least traveled ...
and Ron, poor Ron, he can flush the mis- named straight Shoshone papered cow, thrice culled... with papers, so he can authenicate they are something gooooooooooodddddddddddd...for there is always a bigger fool somewhere to buy into the con game...that`s a damn broad, ever circling road, that as Larkota points out, is praised, even after it has bankrupt you...
but my question yesterday for Larkota was...why are you not making a clear separation from that crowd?

have you ever done something you know is wrong?

Tobacco and nicotine can be addictive .
Nicotine withdrawal occurs when you suddenly stop smoking or using tobacco after using it for a long time. It can also occur if you cut back on the number of cigarettes or amount of tobacco products you use. Nicotine withdrawal creates anxiety, irritability, headache, hunger, and a craving for cigarettes or other sources of nicotine. These symptoms peak 12 to 24 hours after quitting and then slowly go away.

reg papers and tobacco have the same effect on me. I try so hard to give both up, just dam hard to get past the 24 hours.
proud to say I have not reg. anything since since 2009, and I stop chewing every nite.

Larkota waking every morning with a battle.

MK, laughing, in the vicinity of today`s chosen to be picked on guinea pig, to hear how loud he squeals...and he didn`t even squeal, he just squirmed a little

papers...if you ain`t whole hog with us, you better keep them current

Many moons ago I was in the Registered Brangus business. Many, many, many tens of thousands of dollars ago, I got out of that business.

I'm devoted to the Tru-Line concept building my herd of commercial maternal cows. Once done, I intend to utilize Tru-Line Terminal Crosses for delivery into the feedlot. My ideal concept is medium sized maternal cows, weaning around 9-10 months and with a little feed help, have a 950# steer ready for direct delivery to the feedlot at 12 months of age. With the right Tru-Line genetics and not confusing maternal with terminal growth, I think we can be closer than we think to this goal.

The last time I looked the cattle sell by the pound. Direct to the feedlot at around 950, feed around 80 days and they are ready to slaughter at 1250-1300 pounds, yielding around a 800 pound carcass. Direct in the middle for the packers. No discounts for being too small or too large.

It is a great pleasure not to have to go through all those registered hoops, birth weights, weening weights, yearling weights, form after form.

Raise mothers, raise calves, cash check. That's my program all led by the Tru-Line concept.

Thanks Mike and Larry for giving me an alternative to the $5000-10,000 bulls and an alternative to the constant mongrelization in the cattle business.

Dennis Voss wrote:

The literal image of the complex abstractions involved in correlating primary colors evolving into secondary colors as it pertains to breeding cattle by utilizing the symbolism of colors, for Bootheel/LL.

DV in the vicinity of giving further guidance as time permits

WOW!!

Bootheel wrote:

Larry Leonhardt wrote:

I was very pleased to hear Mikes customers appreciated his new no nonsense sale format where a strong demand for KA maternal genetics exceeded the supply.....where practical buyers report they were provided with more pertinent information to make sound buying decisions without EPD and registration papers than at any sale they had attended before with them.

Meanwhile here in the desert of WY I've finished planting beets ahead of the normal calendar date; always dreading the task of irrigating them for germination, always hoping for a good growing season without late spring freezing temps. We're getting about 15-20 calves a day now, spring is here despite that it snowed yesterday, our coming two year old bulls have been sold by private treaty, so taking some time this Easter weekend to enjoy resurrecting some interesting KC posts about pictures.....selecting types........outliers........ developing ancestral pens of look alikes........details.......and patience.

For instance, when Bootheel wrote:
Never fret the picture game......Simplicity of life, peace, enjoyment of life, serentity of cows being cows while being serviced by bulls being bulls; just simply fits me better. There is enough complication of life without my unneccessary addition to the complication of it.....

I laughed, thinking Joe, you are too young to abandon all the lofty ambitions in the traditional registered cattle business.....and I am too old to care much about all the complexities that the registered societies continue to pursue. Your post reminded me of Tom Lasater's wise words -"Cattle breeding is a relatively simple endeavor, the only difficult part is to keep it simple". Tom was a concientious man who developed a practical herd of Beefmasters during an era when the mainstream about destroyed the reproductive functionality of cattle with their pudgy square cattle. He professed that the breeder's name was all the pedigree needed......KA has earned that self-responsible right that goes hand in hand with his recent Declaration of Independence.

I do enjoy looking at digital pictures better than looking at numerical digits, a way of recapturing one precious moment lost in time. I marvel at the artistry of nature captured and preserved by DB's terrific picture galleries..... especially in awe at the intricate, genetic coloring patterns of those horned owls..... and pigs, and horses, and cattle, and natural scenes, combined with the diversity of extra-ordinary ordinary people....... thinking how Mother Nature must have an enormous sense of pride in all her wondrous works of art , everything designed each for a very special purpose, where absolutely nothing is wasted.......just glad I'm not a dung beetle who thrives on BS.



Taking pride in one's work can be different than self serving egotistical ambitions. What a boring world this would be without the beauty of color.....and without the colorful band of characters on KC. I laugh with DV's study of the mating habits of sand cranes, and antelope, and cattle, and how reproduction is all about sexuality. I once asked DV to draw me a picture of the sexiest, most maternally functional cow in the world, but he admits to having some difficulty fulfilling that request. .....the same sort of difficulty we seem to be having in deciding which type of cow to favor in our modern, stressful, competitive, complicated black and white numerical world of records and measures turning everything grey.....all because of man's pursuit of monetary values.

I've noticed DV is quite adept at drawing ugly weird cows, and cows who can jump thru hoops and over the mooooon, so for now I'll just have to be content re-showing a real life picture of one of the sexiest, most profitable and prolific beef cows in the entire world.......hummm, no public registration paper but she is distinctively white with black pigment, the only flaw I see is the calf's crooked tail....but perfectionists are very unhappy people.



DB says he "certainly prefers this type of cow, 90T below, a paternal 1/2 sister. Her ancestral pen has more consistent longevity." I certainly wouldn't expect 90T to be a top performance outlier, but WITH GREAT PRIDE, I think we could all simply live happily ever after with entire herds of cows like this?? I am dazzled by the maternal functional beauty of 90T's extended tail to the tip of her nose.....no, her flaws haven't been photoshopped away by incidental nit-picking perfectionists, they are in their real working clothes.



Hilly, who actually is a really very wise old man posing in a young man's body, in response to DB's series of cow and bull pictures wrote:

"......I can tell you which of those cows I would prefer just based on a picture and age if I had to choose for my farm but the useful of that information would be worth what you paid for it. To me the bulls are a byproduct when it comes to maternal efficiency, once I get to redundancy of individuals in my cows I may start to study them more. But again I have my favorite based on your pictures."
If we have a sense of pride in our work, and Bootheel never frets the picture games, why in the world did we ever allow ourselves to get so wrapped up in these mindless, competitive number games.....are the number games just another busy road to hell paved with good intentions, unlike Mike's road less traveled.....or are they just another marketing tool to attract the novice ? .

I enjoyed reading that W.T. had one of the greatest times in his life during his April Fools bull buying journey to IA, but was sorry to hear he wasn't successful in earning a sorting stick. While he and Eddie M were in the IA vicinity, since this is the peak of the sale season, I wondered if they by chance happened to stop by dependable genetics to look at the short-tailed Lot 1 (pictured below) in order to learn how to put some much needed bi-sexual Aberdeen back into their Angus. I suppose if I were a registered nit-picking perfectionist seeking the ultimate in all-purpose perfection, I'd critique her teats as being too close together, but for wider muzzled cattle with greater self-serving appetites, perhaps her calves could suck two teats at once to make the nursing effort worthwhile. However. I share DB's concerns about sexy reproductivity while trying to discern where to draw the line between dairy and "beefy" cows.......details.....details.....yes Joe, life is sure full of complicated details requiring the need for sorting sticks, T-posts and multiple numercial measures to satisfy the inexperienced "stockmen".




But what the heck does a forelorn farmer in WY know about gross looking fat IA cows buried in corn stover anyhow.....they must have a reason for being if only to serve as a bad example. Selecting types...I recently received a personal email inviting me to Dr. Pankratz's total dispersal of over 1000 head featuring the top outliers, 9 yearling bull and heifer calves pictured below with measures and sired by the latest and greatest popular high EPD bulls.....I can only imagine what the bottom outliers looked like out of the 1000's previously sold. To provide a little trivial background behind this complete dispersal, Dr. Pancratz, owner of Grand Lab (producing livestock vaccines), stopped by about 10 years ago driving his wife's luxurious Cadillac looking for cattle wanting to get started into the registered Angus business. I still registered my cattle back then and so after spending the day with him, he offered to buy about 100 cows from me at a very lucrative price.... but being a novice, his expert consultant told him my cattle's EPD were too low. Following his consultant's advice, thankfully destiny prevailed and I lost that tempting potential sale, my only consolation was that my cows wouldn't have enjoyed their short stressful life in Freeman, SD anyway.




To build the latest and greatest look alike ancestral pen to move onward, upward and forward, I'm considering selecting female Lot No. 1011 and the male Lot No. 1149 representing a nucleus of two of the highest high dollar reputation herds in the U.S, the Sitz Upward /Connealy Impression combination would surely put some phzazzy extension back into the IA "Aberdeen" Angus. Not to be confused with the TruLine concept, some days I wish DV would transform me from a plain black smokin raven who feeds on road kill into a wiser horny owl who preys on live vermin (expert consultants), but in any event, being a bird does provide me with an immunity from defamation of character lawsuits. That immunity allows me to say that these longer necks must've been a natural mutative result in order to lick their constantly itchy n' dirty uphill asses, however, I suspect nature will ultimately solve this problem by reducing the frequency of their reproductive capability. You just can't make stuff like this up.

Should anyone decide to build an ancestral pen of the most elite Angus in the business, the black hills gold of SD would be secondary to the black gold rush in ND. No, not the booming oil fields where workers are earning a $1000 a day with the prostitutes of Las Vegas converging in ND, I'm talking about the black gold on the pastures at St. Anthony where calves with 205 day weaning weights under 900# are considered runts. To provide KC readers with some important details to help them make better breeding decisions, they have a golden opportunity to select semen from over 27 trait leading Angus bulls in major studs like ABS, CRI, Select Sires, Accelerated Genetics or many more from SAV or the buyers of other SAV bulls who sold for $156,000, $147,500, $92,500, $67,500, $135,000, $75,000, $117,500, $265,000, $28,000, $80,000, $60,000, $180,000, $35,000, $275,000, $40,000, $95,000, $47,500, a $25,000 bull who sired the $265,000 bull, $30,000, $150,000, $87,500, $80,000 and $65,000 to average a paltry $101,521.80.

Moving on selecting types back in the peon world, MK wrote:

wow
for me, Dylan`s cow`s were too close in type for me to comment...I need simple and extreme examples ...



Farmerkuk wrote:
WOW that is extreme differences!!

Could we get some details about the cow on the left?

If my entire herd looked like that cow I would be set....

mk replied...
that is truly the impossible dream Jeremy; although I only gave up the same dream recently... she`s the cream; when I breed her to a cream bull like her; to make more cream, I get some cream and plenty of milk...I could only have all cream by culling away all the milk, everytime...not worth it; especially considering that milk still has the capability to recombine and make cream again...I`ve learned to like 2% milk ; no one should expect ice cream every meal

Hilly's post, :
once I get to redundancy of individuals in my cows I may start to study them more

in reply jonken wrote
who the hell has patience ? who the hell has patience ?

mk replied...
and besides Jon, with redundancy, there wouldn`t be any "superior", top selling bulls to brag about...and less need for production sales, to get rid of the cull cows


Well Mike, ice cream melts.and from my perspective, the cow on the left is not the cream nor an outlier, she simply represents the centerpiece of Shoshone homogenized rather than heterogenized milk. And yes, I am scratching my head trying to respond to all the thought provoking, practical comments so generously contributed by Hilly, Grassfarmer and Dylan.....and CC, IMHO Bonsma's observations are invaluable guides to observing what has already happened. I suppose I am a little more like Bootheel in that I am not a great nit-picker of incidental flaws.....which is what one would expect in the peon world.

It was very difficult for me to determine what type to establish without first hand experience, however, once a preferred type was finally determined, reflecting on the old adage that the apple doesn't fall too far from the (family) tree, I guess I could begin here with the patience needed to BUILD ANCESTRAL PENS of a preferred type. With major mainstream emphasis to change cattle from what they were to something better, ancestral pens of similar types are rare and therefore are not easily acquired, they need to be methodically developed in accordance with the principles of natural law. "WHO THE HELL HAS PATIENCE" and why the hell would anyone be stupid enough to want to depart from the monetary rewards of the traditional system?..... I suppose because most of us choose to eat beef over caviar.

It seems to be a no brainer to recognize that mixed populations of mixed types will produce mixed types .....and I fully understand not everyone will agree on what functional type to establish. So to answer Farmerkuk's request for details on the cow on the left above, I can provide them either pertinent simplicity or with in depth complexity. I sold her to Mike for nearly double the price of a plain ole common bred commercial cow worth about $1250. Some people might think Shoshone cattle have no family tree without public pedigree, but for whatever homogenized milk is worth to anyone, listed below is the maternal family tree of the cow on the left. Residing in KY now, she was one of the very first daughters of her sire (pictured below taken by MK).....a bull who was NOT selected for being an outlier, but rather for the preferred renewable qualities of his maternal ancestral pen......a "leftover" bull so to speak, born May 8, 2003, unpicked by bull buyers from among his yearling contemporaries, under circumstances similar to Mike's Unwanted bull...... his natural mature form just happened to be the way it is from maternal selection.....he was a closebred carcass quality cowmaker "boss" bull who could move like a jack rabbit and had the libido to go with it, but got careless one day as a six year old while in action and apparently got way laid by another upcoming bull who broke his right rear stifle joint......sh*t happens with cattle just being cattle doing their thing, just glad he wasn't a high priced purchased bull from SAV



REAPING WHAT WE SOW, THE DOMESTIC ANCESTORAL PEN OF THE COW ON THE LEFT ABOVE - #A426.
SHOSHONE GEORGINA'S PUREBRED FAMILY TREE
(Of 324 Georginas born from 1983 thru 2011 in this herd, 57 are currently active in this herd. They are not available to registered breeders with papers. Below is the 25 generation maternal family tree of A426)
A426 born 3/05/2006, paternal grandam 6374 born 3/25/96
A472 born 3/04/2002, paternal grandam A348 born 3/16/94
A421 born 3/24/2000, paternal grandam 6383 born 3/13/91 (dam of 6374)
A448 born 3/11/1998, paternal grandam 2065 born 3/20/88
A461 born 3/20/1993, paternal grandam 6357 born 5/29/88
A406 born 3/07/1991, paternal grandam 1702 born 2/16/80

K.A. CLARK GEORGINA FAMILY TREE (each named in traditional family fashion)
Gehenna of Craigie, born 8/22/83 - 10373917
Genie of Craigie, born 3/03/74 - 8058137
Genoa of Craigie, born 4/11/68 - 5982966
Georgina of Tetley 15 - born 1/03/64 - 4367582
Georgina of Tetley 3 born 2/6/58 - 2672663
Gladys of Balllylough born 2/2/51 - 1638690

FOREIGN GEORGINA FAMILY TREE
Glory of Tullyraw - AACAS 138540C
Galas of Tullyraw - AACAS 123119C
Gertie of Mullarack - AACAS 107932C
Girlie of Mullarack - AACAS 98961C
Galeen of Mullarack - 83210
Gaelic Girl - 79616
Gems Gaelic - 75000
Gloria B of Ballintomb - 59546
Gabrielle - 31231
Gem of Abergeldie - 27816
Gentian of Ballindalloch - 19258
Genista - 15051
Georgina 2 of Aberlour - 5979

So what does this cow family pedigree tree tell anyone about the ancestral pen without knowing the selection direction of the last dozen generations. EPD are a poor indicator of describing a functional type. The only one that can have personal intimate detailed knowledge about the cattle is the owner, anyone else is second guessing. The primary selection emphasis of this cow family from Gladys to Gehenna was BEEF QUALITY alongside practical maternal function, measured by the skilled eye of a packer order buyer whose life was spent observing cattle with both their hides on and off. I would be second guessing at whatever other characteristics that ancestry displayed, but what I know for absolute certainty is that not a single ancestor was sterile.

Prior to A406 born in 1991, lacking a skilled eye, I spent 10 years evaluating actual carcass characters of different types of cattle in my herd, both publicly and privately, data which strongly correlated to industry trends during a major change when registered industry fashions were maximizing early rapid growth and increased mature size....mature Angus bulls in the industry at that time ranged from 1300 to 3000 lbs....everyone suddenly began promoting ton plus bulls. About this same time, a friend and very successful performance breeder from Nebraska was winning the carcass events at the Denver Stock Show with his "cull heifers". I suppose the insinuation was to just imagine how much better their replacement heifers would be, but that would not be an accurate assumption. An interesting tidbit I read in one of the first Waigroup promotional ads touted winning the NZ carcass contests with their open "cull heifers". In all likelihood, the replacement heifers that bred up well would not have fared so well, believe it or not. The mature weight of my higher carcass quality bulls were around a ton, their sisters mature cow weight was about 1100-1300# depending on the time during the year when weighed. People in the know tell me dairy cattle have the most consistant predictable carcass, yet the dairy people select for milking ability. Hmmmmm.

DF asked:

LL, if you get a chance, can you discuss replacement female selection and bull selection? At what age would you feel is the most accurate to make the selection? Is there still some phenotypic variation in your herd? At what age do you feel you "know" a cow or bull?

I am more than happy to discuss my own replacement selection.... I cannot speak for others. I thought I had discussed my selection criteria somewhat extensively here on KC before. For my maternal purposes, the day a calf is born is the most important age to make initial selections which reveals the most important economic maternal traits for a cow/calf producer. The bulls are just the males of my preferred cows and beyond balanced functional soundness and their mannerisms, rightly or wrongly, that is about the scope of my bull selection. That may seem like "blue sky" but the bulls are usually dead or gone before I could ever really "know" any bull's true maternal breeding attributes. I finally really "know" a cow by the daughters she leaves in the herd at whatever age that would be. Regardless of what our occupation is, beginning with apprenticeship, the more experience we have, we instinctively get more proficient. So from my accumulated years of observations, after their day of birth if my yearling heifers were all lined up eating along a feedrack, I probably can do as well selecting my replacements by walking along the feedrack and selecting them by their heads as well as any other method.

Perhaps I need to reiterate that I am not focused on individual cows or bulls, I've moved to what is referred to as population genetics, a selection direction to stabilize a strain, finally learning to avoid the perceived outliers, preferring the centerpoint of the distributions.....my own personal selection objective is to consider the entire herd a"unit of one kind" Of course there is "still some phenotypic variation in the herd" due to many natural factors.....and my lifetime in the cattle breeding world is a very short period in time when most of that time was spent floundering. For example, LIKE NOW I HAVE A DETAIL PROBLEM. Mike informed me that the cow pictured on the left above was not #A426, that he had it identified as being cow #2979. Good grief, my cattle are getting to look so damn much alike, even I can't tell the difference anymore, it must be my eyes, it can't possibly be my age.
For the purpose of this post, it doesn't make much difference to me, but to straighten me out since they are now both Mike's cows, he went to all the trouble to go out and take a current picture of #A426. I don't know if he has a current picture of #2979 for a better comparison or not. I readily admit that some days my cows look better or worse to me than they do on other days.



Not being a nit-picking frustrated perfectionist, I still cannot see any SIGNIFICANT OR PERTINENT FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENCE between cows A426 and 2979.....one picture was taken when the sun was just right and the trees were all leafed out, the picture directly above was taken when the sun wasn't quite right for clarity and the trees don't have their full leaves yet. {mk note..426calf=1 week old} I don't know if one cow is more "homogenized" than the other or not, I do have about 30 new healthy calves on the ground, born without any trouble sired by A426's yearling bull . The only major difference I cannot see between "homogenized' and a "heterogenized" look alike cows is that one would be more renewable than the other, which the industry refers to as prepotency.

I quit DNA testing several years ago since several sires could qualify as the sire of a calf, reasoning that if the DNA was similar, what the hell difference does it make who is who since my selection for a specific functional type remains constant. I've referred to it as "breeding a breed within a breed", performance breeders might refer to it as being stagnant, others might refer to it as linebreeding but they are misinformed.....I am simply stabilizing a preferred type to reduce rather than increase problems. Any actual IBC's are likely self-governed by selection and are not worth trying to calculate based on averages. To demonstrate the purebred pedigree of cow #2979 for DF and Farmekuk, it is as follows:

SHOSHONE LUCY PUREBRED MATERNAL FAMILY TREE
(Of 346 Lucys born in this herd from the base cow since 1978, there are 64 Lucys currently in the herd)
2979 born 2/20/2007 pat grandam MS (one of several of the same type paternal grandams)
2966 born 5/15/2000 pat grandam 712
2931 born 4/10/1998 pat grandam 6345
2900 born 4/06/1995 pat grandam 1702
2944 born 2/02/1988 pat grandam 1702
2937 born 4/02/1986 pat grandam 2712
2910 born 4/13/1981 pat grandam 2003
2901 born 3/15/1978 pat grandam 6001
GDA29 born 2/8/1976 pat grandam Candida of Wye
DA29 born 3/21/1973 pat grandam Cerelia of Wye
A29 born 4/6/1970 pat grandam Battista of Wye
29 born 5/6/1968 pat grandam Moles Hill Enzora
----------------------------------------------------
Haystack Lucy 30 born 9/28/64
Bandolier of Arkdale 5 born 4/9/62
Arkdale Bandolier 30 born 3/5/57
Bandoliers Ella 5 born 2/20/46 (note her dam would've been 16 yrs old, there is more than ample evidence that "sprinters" lack longevity)Ellas Sixth Lassie born 3/25/30
Ella of Ash Roe born 1/5/1922

It would be interesting to me if I could use the TruLine color wheel rather than numbers to describe "functional purity" by visualizing the gradual shades of color changes over time due to selection of each individual generation.. To fixate certain characters in a population, in general it is estimated to require up to 8 generations of close breeding depending on several factors. Cows 2944 thru 2979 would be a distinctive yellow. Certainly knowing the qualities of the ancestry is essential to the breeder, but it is a waste of time by going back to 1922 except perhaps for nostalgic reasons or in looking back to discern long term trends....none of which can be changed.

For further discussion's sake, from 1965 through 1980 there was a significant difference among the Angus cattle in my herd, I could recognize who was who with or without identification tags the same as we can recognize people by their faces. While the mainstream uses outliers to change cattle selecting for progeny differences, I am trying to make them more alike selecting for progeny similarities. Today in this herd, there is no significant difference in cow families like there once was. In my closed population, I maintain their family identification only for my own logistical purposes. My constant selection becomes the preferred type that ultimately prevails anyway and becomes the only Shoshone pedigree needed for outside usuage. I simply do not know which cattle's random half of the genotype is superior to others based on phenotype.

And for further discussion about variation, I have often wondered if anyone really cares about doing a thorough psychoanalysis of the ultrasound distributions of a sire, a herd, a breed or composites for prepotency. I do pay alot of attention to distributions. I have developed a fat phobia over time observing the side effects. For example, Mike told me cow #426 got relatively fat before she calved this spring, yet I remembered her more as being what I call a beef jersey type. And Hilly posted a picture of his Shoshone cow a month or two ago, who didn't work last summer raising a calf and she looked fat to me. My cows do get fat when they don't work, and I suppose that could be one way DB could define the difference between a dairy cow and a beef cow. I do believe the $EN numbers offer some reasonable estimated guidelines.

It would be nice if we could instill appetite governors on our cattle, but it is impractical, all we can do practically is control the amount of feedstuffs they eat. I have yet to see any cows get fat on poor feed and water. We all know fat is accumulated by environmental factors, where that fat is stored in the body is determined by genetics. I prefer the genetics that store fat intramuscularly and in the milk. To add another trivial detail for whatever its worth, .a grandaughter of #A29, cow #ECA29 born in 1974 produced a bull born in 1978 that became one of the highest marbling bulls in the breed at that point in time, used successfully to freshen Holstein cows to improve the beef value of the resultant progeny. I have learned to identify some external phenotypic characteristics as indicators of carcass quality. I suspect that I have had several bulls who have been superior to that 1978 bull, they just weren't evaluated as individuals..

I dislike cattle with "blue" milk and with patchy fat that was so prevalent in Shorthorns and mellow yellow Herefords at one point in time.....and pudgy Angus.....and bulky exotic oxen.......and cattle with too much milk are inefficient convertors of feedstuffs to beef. So, we are left pick our plums or poison.....to pick stayers or sprinters....to maximize or reduce variation......but whatever we choose, I remain convinced that averages without distribution ranges are a cowman's nightmare and that the registered breed societies as a whole remain in a chaotic state of disarray......and that without a shadow of a doubt they prefer it to remain that way.....and it will as long as they are financially supported by the populace.

I guess I chose to stick with an Angus derivative base since despite man's intent on changing them for the last 60 years, they have somehow prevailed with their inherent distributions. I think I've said more than enough to stimulate some discussion on replacement female and bull selection.....whew, trying to simplify the complex gets very complicated, perhaps we should just do what Bootheel and Bob H do, to enjoy life just put the bulls with the cows and let nature take its course.......but we won't.

LL in the vicinity of enjoying chocolate Easter bunnies, Russell Stover marshmallow eggs and yellow, pink and orange sugar coated peeps to help sustain $80.00 per ton sugarbeets

Man alive, when you keep champagne bottled up, under pressure, and yank the cork, the goodies just get everywhere.


Bootheel, not worried about what to breed the heifers to

And they just keep flowing.

MKeeney wrote:

MK, laughing, in the vicinity of today`s chosen to be picked on guinea pig, to hear how loud he squeals...and he didn`t even squeal, he just squirmed a little

papers...if you ain`t whole hog with us, you better keep them current

I agree with everything said here. BUT
how long did it take LL and MK to see the world is not flat? the world cant be round cause with 3 inches of rain my heifers sleep standing up. if the world is round how come shit floats uphill?

larkota wrote:

MKeeney wrote:

MK, laughing, in the vicinity of today`s chosen to be picked on guinea pig, to hear how loud he squeals...and he didn`t even squeal, he just squirmed a little

papers...if you ain`t whole hog with us, you better keep them current

I agree with everything said here. BUT
how long did it take LL and MK to see the world is not flat? the world cant be round cause with 3 inches of rain my heifers sleep standing up. if the world is round how come shit floats uphill?

CRY ME A RIVER :cheers:SEQUEALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL....

MKeeney wrote:

"Straight Shoshone" cows don't carry freeze brands - but partial ones still have tails - my goodness that " bunch" are ruthless cullers.....poor Ron Vance, wondered what he does with all the culls

another prime example of why there`ll be no public registration in a Tru-line concept...and why there will be few on the road least traveled...
mk, waiting thankfully for J&K to get their morning coffee, so we can load the no public paper dams of their herd bulls, and walk, maybe even run together, on the road least traveled ...
and Ron, poor Ron, he can flush the mis- named straight Shoshone papered cow, thrice culled... with papers, so he can authenicate they are something gooooooooooodddddddddddd...for there is always a bigger fool somewhere to buy into the con game...that`s a damn broad, ever circling road, that as Larkota points out, is praised, even after it has bankrupt you...
but my question yesterday for Larkota was...why are you not making a clear separation from that crowd?

Sorry, I thought Larry's question was just rhetorical. The cow is a KA cow that I knew had been culled by Mike and now by James, but I didn't know that she had also been culled by someone else. Don't worry, I am just paying pound price for her and my expectations are only functional. I don't know how she worked for you Mike, but she was a "work and wear" cow for James and bred back each year and raised an acceptable calf and did a fine job with twins last year and bred back. James likes her a lot. Her type and known history appear functional and I think she is better than most of my previous cows. There is a reason that I have only registered one Angus calf in the past 5 years even though most of my cows were reg. Angus. Like many I bred (Yes, I put a lot of thought into it.) quite a few cows, but the AI and ET calves did not pan out because I expected them to do more than my environment could provide and I was expecting them to do more than they could functionally do. I didn't/don't want my name attached to something nonfunctional and they have sold as commercial cattle - either as calves or open cows. That is why I came to your sale as I was frustrated with the status quo. The good in your cattle and most of your thought processes was quite evident. The learning curve had already started before my arrival there as I believe that I was right about one bull on the place, but was sadly wrong on Unwanted. He was for sale at the time and I passed. It was and is a good lesson and hopefully the learning curve continues. If there is something terrible about this cow or her family, it would be nice to know. Otherwise, I hope she will have some functional daughters and sons that I can use. Whether they are useful or not, they will probably all sale at pound price. My "Vance" prefix does nothing to increase the value to anyone else, but it does mean that I think the cattle have a chance to be functional. If there are extra bulls that I believe will be functional, I like Kent's pricing plan for bulls, but will probably have to settle for 1.5 times steer price instead of 2 times steer price. It wouldn't matter on the heifers because I plan on keeping them until they come back open. Hopefully, they are useful and won't sale for pound price until they are teenagers. As far as the road less traveled, I believe I am the only one on mine, but that is okay. It is peaceful and I am content. There is still a lot to learn, but I no longer have to rush down the road. I have been able slow down and enjoy the ride. Thanks!

as they say on Family Feud {does that name apply somewhat here ? }, good answer

no, there`s no glaring defect with 903, and I guarantee she`s a better cow than most that little jimmer is keeping and buying...it`s just the con game marketing mis-nomers that we`re calling attention to; and it`s the great culling principles of the `s that little jimmer is trying to promote as to making their cattle and process so superior...and it`s all a con...
and another thing I`m pointing out is how buyers will deal with con`s and buy a lessor genetic cow than is readily available other places, just because she has "papers"...until you put genes ahead of papers, your registered response rings of rustling, not of the genes, but the reputation of someone else...not alone, the registered business is built on that exact premise...just read a Tom Burke footnote for further proof...

With cattle, it is all about the genes. In dealings, it is all about the people. Without both fitting you, someone is going to be unhappy.