cow family

Will,

The purpose/goal of line-breeding/inbreeding/type-breeding is to increase prepotency. "Dinks" are expected here as we distill the gene pool. Believe me, I have learned a lot about my Bushwacker to E161 to 878 to 6807 to EXT cattle in the past 5 years of inbreeding...the distillation process has been painful and but hope reigns eternal. It is most likely that your hybrids are anti-prepotent. I have no doubt that you can sell them well/easily because it is our predisposition to like what you are producing...blooming, bigger and faster. However, the "HOWEVER" is huge relative to what your buyers are actually getting genetically. "Ignorance is bliss" and "There is a sucker born every minute" remain. You can get by with your banter over on the Advantage board because none of the minions who participate there have any idea of the concept we are working on here. Our game, is as different as slow-pitch softball versus fast-pitch softball...same equipment...totally different game.

"OUR" line of thinking may go against the popularly held mindset but the folks on this board have it right, in my opinion, and hopefully, in the long run, will prevail and blaze a new path for the beef business. Truth and facts are on our side-we will see if they can win out.

Will wrote:

Jack I do not agree with you. I do not get dinks like that. The throwaways I get are the opposite of dinks. Growth curve is to long. Two maybe three hiefers every year are to late maturing. Grow to long and would get to big as cows if I fed them enough. Easy to see at 10, 11 or 12 months. I just pound them out and they really bring in the dollars. My throwaways are the opposite of dinks. This was a dink in my herd but maybe it would not be a dink in someone elses herd. She brought $925.66 on May 2, 2012. Jack do you get any dinks when you inbreed? One other thing I put a F1 Sim-Angus daughter from the mother to the dink with the line bred Bushwacker bull and she had a good bull in the sale. Lot 7. The mother R103 always has a keeper.

It would seem logical to me anyway, that if you can get outliers on one end of the spectrum you could get them on the other.

My inbreeding program is in it's infancy but I'm sure I will get my share of dinks. Hell I got dinks every now and then no matter what i've bred to but no sense in repeating what outsidethebox just said.

Jack

Outsidethebox, I understand what you are doing and I respect that, but is it really needed. Do we need to produce all those throwawys to get consistent cattle. I know I don't. I have been in my hybrid program long enough to know it works for my customers. I also know the dinks are expected when you in breed. You get prepotent bulls for one cross then you have to either find a new bull customer or have another line developed. I do not get by with my banter at Advantage. I'm on the hot seat most of the time.

Jack, yes you get dinks anyway because the Angus breed is pretty inbreed without even trying to make it inbreed. In my previous post the daughter was an F2 not a F1.

Will wrote:

Jack, yes you get dinks anyway because the Angus breed is pretty inbreed without even trying to make it inbreed. In my previous post the daughter was an F2 not a F1.

Could not disagree with you more Will. The angus breed has spent the last thrity years avoiding inbreeding to mask the dink makers. Inbreeding will expose the dink makers while outcrossing hides them. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of hybrids, but for the commercial guy. My goal is to raise one of the components to allow them to utilize, fully utilize the benifits of a hybrid.

And as Forrest said, "that's all I'm going to say about that".

Jack

Jack, several years ago when my son was in college I use to visit with Kris Ringwell from the Dickinson Research Center quite a bit. He was also one of my son's teacher's. Very sharp, very nice guy. He made the same comment about the diversity in the Black Angus breed. I laughed and said take out the registration papers out on your herd bulls and you will be amazed at the amount of inbreeding. A couple weeks later he wrote in "Beef Talk" how inbred the Black Angus breed was.

“It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” ~ Mark Twain

Had a guy tell me onetime that he did not want to see the same bull twice in a three generation pedigree.....My answer to
him was if the 1680 bull had been linebred early on, then there wouldn't be thousands of progeny recorded in the AAA.
Bull would have had his throat cut long ago. I feel most are afraid to linebreed because they are afraid of what they might find...

Will, Believe you may have misunderstood Mr. Ringwell. His findings did not deal with angus breed as breed. They looked at common ancestors of 21 AI sires they were using and found there were sone common sires. Mr. Ringwell is opposed to any close breeding and like most mainstream wants to continually outcross. His proposed way for commercial folks to select herdsires is to get good sale catalog and look at two things:
1. Average EPDs for bulls being sold;
2. Average EPDs for similar bulls within breed.
He claims if you really want good bull then get one that NDSU Dickenson extension selects.
By way the info you claim supports inbreeding in Angus breed is in his letter of May, 2003.
Hope this helps in clarifying but if I have misspoken please let me know. Jim

Afraid of what they will find, and when they do- blame linebreeding.

Will wrote:

I bet if you could breed a cow with a cow it would not be hard sided! What next?

Will to Will, hard headed.

Will wrote:

Jack, several years ago when my son was in college I use to visit with Kris Ringwell from the Dickinson Research Center quite a bit. He was also one of my son's teacher's. Very sharp, very nice guy. He made the same comment about the diversity in the Black Angus breed. I laughed and said take out the registration papers out on your herd bulls and you will be amazed at the amount of inbreeding. A couple weeks later he wrote in "Beef Talk" how inbred the Black Angus breed was.

I doubt Kris Ringwall can even find his ear tags...otherwise, he wouldn`t remind us so often...just like breeds and breeders who say, "we`re selecting for ??? "...usually means they have a problem with ?????

Quote :

Jack, I think I understand, but what if the long time customer has the same bloodlines in his cowherd as you have in your prepotent bull. Would the bull still be prepotent?

The bull would still be prepotent. The resulting offspring from the tighter breeding might express more regression but they might not, too. Then you can discuss the “if” of linecrossing to a similar line of differently segregated cattle. This is somewhat beyond Green Eggs and Ham from a thinking process!

Quote :

I also know the dinks are expected when you in breed. You get prepotent bulls for one cross then you have to either find a new bull customer or have another line developed.

How do you know this, Will? How do you know about the magical “one cross” and then they turn back into pumpkins? Why the doom and gloom of one chance to help another breeder or a commercial guy? What’s better, dinks or genetic defects? Sounds like genetic defects hidden by outcrossing shot you out of the saddle, not the many imaginary inbred dinks.

Quote :

The throwaways I get are the opposite of dinks.

I haven’t read Dr Seuss in a long time. I do not remember him writing about “bell curves and pork chops” so Will might be at a disadvantage. But I am amazed that you only have had one expected dink and yet you have a number of the expected over achievers from over on the other edge of the curve. And to know the dairy history of one Angus cow by what means? My goodness, I feel like I fell off of the merry-go-round and don’t know how (of if) to try to remount the wooden horse.

Eddie, all dressed up and nowhere to go. And I always liked the thought and sound of cow families.

Kent Powell wrote:

Afraid of what they will find, and when they do- blame linebreeding.

Exactly right...But it's OK to "Outcross" and sell seedstock with "Junk" in the background.

Jack McNamee wrote:

I gotta tell you until someone proves me wrong I'm still a pretty big believer in cow families. We started in 1987 with 3 cows and have been in a constant state of growth every since then to today with around 300 cows. We bought cows as we could afford them and consequently ended up with cows from just about everyone and any number of cow families. We have also kept most all of our heifers over the years until they were atleast 4 yr olds and it is very interesting what stays and what doesn't. We have 70 producing cows that go back to two different Juanada 7 bred cows and about 20 cows that go back to a Viking GD60 bred cow. LIke you said MK they have withstood some terrible abusive matings but they still seem to proliferate. They are not super cows by any stretch. I would call them problem free cows and that is why I believe they have been so sucsessful here but cow families just the same. We are now breeding them back to themselves and so far so good but time will tell.

Jack

My experience has been virtually identical to Jacks.

Thanks Jack.

DB

Yes I got shot out of the saddle by genetic defects. Lost a ton of money but it just might be one of the best things that ever happened to me. It was not caused by out crossing it was caused by people lying. Hell Gardiners were breeding 1680 back to his grand daughters a couple years before AM and NH was run up their rear end. Trusted the wrong people. Have Gardiner's catolog to prove they were doing it.

Whose responsibility was it?

Good question. It would be interesting to have the court system answer it. I have moved on so I will take the responsibility, but maybe I should of snuck down to Gardiners during calving and checked it out myself, or maybe I should of been at Cordingley's during calving. It is the price an outcrosser pays.

As has been discussed many times before, 1680 was a miserable puke of a bull and would of disappeared. But because the hysteria over ''carcass data'' he became the darling of the breed. The registurd business really did put the turd in the punch bowl.

Genetic defects are sooooo last season.



Bootheel