Wheel Invented!!! Inbreeding in Terminal Cattle

No, I was saying that a group of smaller, more inbred cows weaned smaller calves regardless of calf sire in this particular year.

Common? Isn't mainstream common?

tulip wrote:

Kent Powell wrote:

In calf performance, I see more influence based on the Inbreeding of the dam. Little difference between the highly inbred calves from inbred dams and the outcross calves from inbred dams. Both are lower than the average.

This is a way of saying that it is cheaper to linebreed paternal breeds compared to maternal breeds; because while their female productivity will suffer some from inbreeding, the number of "paternal cows" should be small compared to the great numbers of maternal cows. The more homozygous the paternal sire is, the more consistency. And the more outcrossed the maternal cow is, the more consistency is needed to have a decent calf crop of f1 or f2 calfs for the commercial producer.
Or in other words, the more common the f1 cows for maternal purposes are, the more important to have homozygous paternal sires.

In selecting against low fertility, how much progress has been made through all this culling of the females which fail to reproduce without delving into the why?

If you do not alter your management or selection when that was the problem, what do you gain?

If it is 100- 110 with blowing dust nearly every day all summer with no green grass, is lack of rebreeding ability a genetic issue if a few more than usual are open?

Mean Spirit wrote:

is there any data supporting the proposition that F1s produced by inbred parents are more useful in some way-- better performance, more consistent, something- as compared to F1s produced by non-inbred cattle?



Clearly, killing all of the inbred progeny, as I did this year, seems to be problematic. But, assuming I can get the IBC calibrated to the point that I don't feel obliged to kill all the progeny, is there value in inbred terminal cross cattle?

Mean Spirit, as usual, seeking validation.

MS, this may not qualify as data, but an interesting statement paragraph #7. Dairy F1's.


What the problem may be is your status quo selection criteria being misapplied to inbred parent stock causing you to feel obliged.

For me this suggests that our old quantitative selection criteria needs modification. It may be that at some point selecting on growth in an inbred population is totally irrelavent, it may well be the case that as long as the animals are sound enough and fertile enough to breed that is all that is required.

DB, struggling the same misapplied selection confusion.

Dennis Voss wrote:

Also, as an afterthought, I like the idea of "what you see is what you get" ie, char colored with blk noses, the buyer/feeder knows what he is getting, versus the currant trend to blacken everything into "blk cattle" which could all qualify for CAB or other angus labels. in my opinion this is heading for a train wreck. On my longhorn X angus cattle I want the same, no illusion, I want them to look like what they are, in this case blk and white. Any decent cattle buyer knows anyhow so what the hell. W. T. in my cake line, often the longhorn cross heifers are nearest the cake feeder then the straight angus and last, cleaning up the end are the hereford X angus F1's. Three different attitudes of agression to cake. DV

DV, my few longhorns are always getting a bit of every pile when we supplement with cake on range and are at the last piles mostly to themselves. I use to think they were stupid not stopping and eating, now I think they are the smartest getting the most of what they want with their strategy.

Dennis Voss wrote:

G nome wrote:

If one appreciates the vigorous performance of an average bull on an average cow of a second breeds, I think there is a lot of efficient growth left out of the equation. Inbred lines within these breeds that were proven to have complimentary action would raise the bar on heterosis by a great deal. The animals from each breed may not (in fact would not be expected to) be the largest fastest growing animals from their respective herds. The F1s are uniform because of the elevated number of heterozygous loci, the best performing and also uniform group among these would those from parents maximizing the number of those, giving uniformity from combination. Inbreds obtain uniformity through homozygosity. Selection of parents for linebreeding and outcrossing are of equal importance.

I sure appreciate your posts G nome. I'm not after the most growth or the most muscle or the most of anything. What I'm after is a nice soft complementarity between 2 breeds. Along with my nephew's cattle of similar origin using Eaton Charolais bulls, we want to feed these cattle out and see how they do all the way to the end. Mean Spirit's Charolais appear to me to be the type of Charolais I have been after. No sharp edges, excellent udders and feet, balanced overall phenotype, mellow disposition. I'm convinced that mellow disposition is key to feedlot performance and in the end probably tenderness, as well as all the array of handling practicalities and so forth. Years ago my brother had a big troop of Charolais bulls that I would help gather or whatever and they were big boned, raunchy dispositioned, big bad guys which kind of took it out of me for ever wanting anything to do with Charolais. And then years ago I used to feed a couple hundred bulls with Howard Rambur up in Sidney and I started realizing how much the Charolias breed had changed because they were pretty Angusy in type. Very appealing looking, acting Charolais bulls. So from my completely novice point of view, if you take my linebred Angus cows which are mellow and soft on the corners and mate them to similar types of the Charolais breed, one should get a nice product of basically average mated with average. And I would suppose if somebody wanted my 1/2 Charolais, 1/2 Angus heifers for breeding purposes that would be possibility too. I have no idea. They would have to want them worse then I would want to feed them out. More later.

DV

DV, research done by the feds up here between straight breds and numerous different crossbreds as range cows founf the An Char cross come out on top for overall productivity and longevity.

Kent Powell wrote:

If it is 100- 110 with blowing dust nearly every day all summer with no green grass, is lack of rebreeding ability a genetic issue if a few more than usual are open?

In extreme conditions lack of rebreeding is not much of a genetic issue, however the ones that actually do rebreed are likely to have a high genetic value for reproduction traits.

Kent Powell wrote:

In selecting against low fertility, how much progress has been made through all this culling of the females which fail to reproduce without delving into the why?

If you do not alter your management or selection when that was the problem, what do you gain?

If it is 100- 110 with blowing dust nearly every day all summer with no green grass, is lack of rebreeding ability a genetic issue if a few more than usual are open?

None if any.

tulip wrote:

Kent Powell wrote:

If it is 100- 110 with blowing dust nearly every day all summer with no green grass, is lack of rebreeding ability a genetic issue if a few more than usual are open?

In extreme conditions lack of rebreeding is not much of a genetic issue, however the ones that actually do rebreed are likely to have a high genetic value for reproduction traits.

What if next year a higher percentage of those are then open, or the year after, or the one after that?

Maybe the cow that sacrificed reproduction in the lean year, makes up for it by lasting an additional 5 or 7 or 8 years. Maybe they don't, but snapshots in a moment of time, tell us piddly sqaut about dang near anything you want to talk about.

What likelyhood?

Do you throw away 70 years of breeding based on a cyclical weather pattern?

Are my pronghorns less fertile because the herd of 11 only produced two or three babies when they ususally produce close to 11?



Is their genetics for fertility altered because the only reason two or three lived was because I let water run on the ground all summer?

I saw no pheasant, quail, mule deer, or white tail babies last year. If I could find those who raised a baby, would they be more fertile genetically?

Do I cull my Jerseys because 2 of them couldn't produce enough milk for my three kids when it was 110?

OR are there times that just happen and we have to move on. When grass is belly deep and summer is 80 degrees, am I selecting against fertility because the less fertile get a pass?

Can you select for fertility while managing for expression of full genetic potential and selecting for as much performance as possible?

Good stuff Kent.

Ben

Some generalities to focus on: 1)Usually, the wild type gene is dominant to muntant recessives and may function near 100% as though the animal contains both alleles as wildtype; 2)It is the additive nature of the number of dominant alleles
(favorable to wild adaptation) that allow accumulative results of crossing various lines with varying dominant locations in the genome; 3)the most obvious heterosis is milk production in the F1 dam (even to the point we must watch the amount of milk in both parental lines to prevent 1st calf heifers with blown udders); 4) though data indicates the Char/Angus is best northern pasture dam, that probably will not be the case in tropical or costal subtropical regions where heat/humidity adaptation is favored; 5)One way to insure continued heterosis it to create a maternal F1 and then use a third breed for terminal only purposes (one example of this is the myostatin, double muscle, mutants that are considered leathal when homozygous in offspring because of difficult birth effect on both dam and calf, but which can add up to 30% more ribeye and a reduced fat when heterozygous. As Kent has pointed out above, the paternal (double muscle) breed can be maintained even though there is a high cost associated with that because bulls and semen go a lot further than if such is attempted from the cow side, making it commercially unfeasable to use double muscled females to produce heterozygous calves. Use of such mutants requires discipline and accurate records of parentages to prevent "wrecks". Associated highly visable dominant markers with the terminal bulls would be a great safety net.

G nome wrote:

Some generalities to focus on: 1)Usually, the wild type gene is dominant to muntant recessives and may function near 100% as though the animal contains both alleles as wildtype; 2)It is the additive nature of the number of dominant alleles
(favorable to wild adaptation) that allow accumulative results of crossing various lines with varying dominant locations in the genome; 3)the most obvious heterosis is milk production in the F1 dam (even to the point we must watch the amount of milk in both parental lines to prevent 1st calf heifers with blown udders); 4) though data indicates the Char/Angus is best northern pasture dam, that probably will not be the case in tropical or costal subtropical regions where heat/humidity adaptation is favored; 5)One way to insure continued heterosis it to create a maternal F1 and then use a third breed for terminal only purposes (one example of this is the myostatin, double muscle, mutants that are considered leathal when homozygous in offspring because of difficult birth effect on both dam and calf, but which can add up to 30% more ribeye and a reduced fat when heterozygous. As Kent has pointed out above, the paternal (double muscle) breed can be maintained even though there is a high cost associated with that because bulls and semen go a lot further than if such is attempted from the cow side, making it commercially unfeasable to use double muscled females to produce heterozygous calves. Use of such mutants requires discipline and accurate records of parentages to prevent "wrecks". Associated highly visable dominant markers with the terminal bulls would be a great safety net.

Do surviving homozygous progeny have 60% more muscle or something less?

I want a Homozygous Double muscle Bull with Oleic Acid-rich, high quality fat , Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase (SCD) and Growth Hormone (GH) Exon 50 marbling found in Wagyu.

I'll bet he would be an ugly critter, but who cares, I plan on using him on beautiful cows.

Kent, You make my face muscles hurt> Beauty is in function, not form! And beautiful cows are generally fat ones, just not on a working ranch. See Ya.

df, Don't think the difference is all that great. However, it is thought that the amount of muscle is less and also develops a bit later in the heterozygous animals. Plus, the various mutantions causing double muscling varies from breed to breed and in size of the effect. Double muscled and carrier cows have a restsricted birth canals as well. So, every animal with double muscle genes goes to slaughter except the possibility of the herd sire and he might better come in a jug.

Kent Powell wrote:

I want a Homozygous Double muscle Bull with Oleic Acid-rich, high quality fat , Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase (SCD) and Growth Hormone (GH) Exon 50 marbling found in Wagyu.

I'll bet he would be an ugly critter, but who cares, I plan on using him on beautiful cows.

BELGIAN BLUE X AKAUSHI = F1
BELGIAN BLUE X F1 = PRETTY DANG CLOSE INITIALLY, but will need a few tests from Gnome to pick the correct bull(s). Use these back on the F1's and 1/2 of these bulls would still be homozygous for double muscling and use more of Gnome's tests and should have your new terminal line. I wouldn't breed the F1's to Wagyu's or Longhorns for the first calf (unless you don't mind doing c-sections) and maybe Angus for the second calf and don't forget to give 5mls of Mu-Se in the third trimester to the cows that may have homozygous calves. It would be a long term project, but I have plenty of Belgain Blue semen if anyone is ambitious and know which bulls I would recommend for the 2 crosses.

G nome wrote:

Kent, You make my face muscles hurt> Beauty is in function, not form! And beautiful cows are generally fat ones, just not on a working ranch. See Ya.

df, Don't think the difference is all that great. However, it is thought that the amount of muscle is less and also develops a bit later in the heterozygous animals. Plus, the various mutantions causing double muscling varies from breed to breed and in size of the effect. Double muscled and carrier cows have a restsricted birth canals as well. So, every animal with double muscle genes goes to slaughter except the possibility of the herd sire and he might better come in a jug.

At one time I was able to put together a group of 9 fullblood Belgian Blue cows that calved to 3 different fullblood bulls 3-4 years in a row with no assistance at birth. The next year my herd bull injured his tool and I didn't know it until after the breeding season and they all came up open and were worth too much by the pound for me to wait another year for a calf. I was much less experienced at the time, but it didn't take too long to put the group together. The fallout rate (any that didn't calve on their own) from the original group was less than 30%, but I did visit several farms and talked to many breeders & multipliers before I made my choices + my budget was more limitied and I did not pick the most expensive (extreme) options. Most of the ones that calved regularly had good muscle expression, but still calved well. The above generalization about calving with homozygous double muscled animals is like many other mainstream generalizations - some merit, but not completely true. I have calved out enough fullblood and percentage Belgian Blues to know. I actually had an easier time calving out the fullbloods than the halfblood and 3/4 blood females. Another animal that might work even better in one of Kent's terminal bulls would be an Angus that is a double muscle carrier to breed back to the F1's in the above equation.

G nome wrote:

Kent, You make my face muscles hurt> Beauty is in function, not form! And beautiful cows are generally fat ones, just not on a working ranch. See Ya.

df, Don't think the difference is all that great. However, it is thought that the amount of muscle is less and also develops a bit later in the heterozygous animals. Plus, the various mutantions causing double muscling varies from breed to breed and in size of the effect. Double muscled and carrier cows have a restsricted birth canals as well. So, every animal with double muscle genes goes to slaughter except the possibility of the herd sire and he might better come in a jug.

Just curious. I thought hybrid vigor was normally equated with quantitative traits, not traits controlled by a single gene.

What is normally equated is that we have to have one animal do it all.

What about, as in this example, we can broaden our options operating under the assumption that maternally orientated cows being bred to end product oriented sires is a more efficient way to produce beef. We are now open to using product and performance enhancing traits which were formerly abandoned as they were too inhibitative on functionality, reproduction, delivery, and mothering ability. Double muscle, Enhanced Marbling mutations, etc...

Kent Powell wrote:

What is normally equated is that we have to have one animal do it all.

What about, as in this example, we can broaden our options operating under the assumption that maternally orientated cows being bred to end product oriented sires is a more efficient way to produce beef. We are now open to using product and performance enhancing traits which were formerly abandoned as they were too inhibitative on functionality, reproduction, delivery, and mothering ability. Double muscle, Enhanced Marbling mutations, etc...

Yes, but my interest is the use of hybrid vigor to characterize the effect of one (carcass?) gene, which may not be accurate. Is improved fertility, which is often described as a benefit of crossbreeding, controlled by a large number of genes or a small number of genes?

The nature of crossbreeding and vigor is in fact an accumulation of numerous genes. Gene action and background greatly alter our ability to elucidate the exact underlying truths. Can we better analyze within a breed rather than across the entire bovine genome? I think the answer is a definite yes. Can one or two major genes blur the picture of what is possible in their absence. Definitely. So, our understanding must be tempered with the gene pool surrounding our analysis. As the Music Man knows, "You gotta know yor territory". Right here in River City.

I’m not sure this picture belongs in this thread and its poor quality to add insult to injury... I just couldn’t get my phone to focus this morning, seemed to be locked up.

Anyway this is one of the flush litter from MS at a week and a half old.