350,000 Dollar Bull

[Commercialfarmer]

I hope someone isn't trying to say that a purebred- especially a purebred animal extensive linebred animal is on average more fertile than a crossbred animal. The fertility of a F1 dam is a cornerstone of animal husbandry and backed up by numerous studies.

And as far as any producer or buyer goes, the only free lunch in this industry is the extra growth from heterosis- which can be significant. You can line breed for a life time and you won't beat what you can get by making a half intelligent decision with cross breds. This is another cornerstone of animal husbandry.

There is benefit to linebred animal in some applications, it's a tool. It's not a magical wand to waved across the industry and think you are somehow going to benefit every situation. That's a lot of koolaid to drink right there.

 

[WalnutCrest]

I hope someone isn't trying to say that a purebred- especially a purebred animal extensive linebred animal is on average more fertile than a crossbred animal. The fertility of a F1 dam is a cornerstone of animal husbandry and backed up by numerous studies.

And as far as any producer or buyer goes, the only free lunch in this industry is the extra growth from heterosis- which can be significant. You can line breed for a life time and you won't beat what you can get by making a half intelligent decision with cross breds. This is another cornerstone of animal husbandry.

There is benefit to linebred animal in some applications, it's a tool. It's not a magical wand to waved across the industry and think you are somehow going to benefit every situation. That's a lot of koolaid to drink right there.

For the commercial guy to get THE MOST heterosis possible, there need to be some people out there linebreeding their stock. The people linebreeding need to get paid enough by the heterosis seekers in order for them to continue justifying doing it -- otherwise, you're right, it only makes sense for them to put the heterosis in their own pastures.

Gee, maybe this is how all the breeds turned black -- the commercial guys stopped paying for true heterosis?

:hide:

 

[Jake]

True heterosis is not a free lunch. It has been sold as such by the universities for generations but it does not necessarily lead to more profit. Which makes sense because universities don't have to operate in the black.

Sure my calves will weigh more, but I have half a crop of throwaway heifers that no longer fit my program.
This past year we sold 90 steers, 75 of which sold in one group. The brought a dime premium to have a load lot of consistent cattle. They weighed 610 when we sold them. So that premium netted us an extra $60 over just commodity cattle. At 1.80 for 6 weight calves I would have had to get an extra 33# out of cross bred calves on average to get me to the same point, and I guarantee they wouldn't have been able to go with that type or sort. We used to play that game years ago and you'd have 3 sorts minimum on that group and your average dollar/head would have been hurt by that.

This doesn't even start the conversation on what I have to do for replacements. Cross breeding has it's place but so does straight breeding. There is no free lunch, the people telling you its free have something to sell.

 

[WalnutCrest]

Sure, crossbred heifers don't have a place in straightbred operation (unless part of a breed-up program like some associations offer) ... but ... the F1 heifers aren't throw away if the operation is part of a two-way or three-way cross ... which, if the case, they should want very linebred bulls out of two or three different breeds, as opposed to quasi-mongrelized bulls of any of the breeds which have no particular strain within the desired breed.

 

[Jake]

Sure, crossbred heifers don't have a place in straightbred operation (unless part of a breed-up program like some associations offer) ... but ... the F1 heifers aren't throw away if the operation is part of a two-way or three-way cross ... which, if the case, they should want very linebred bulls out of two or three different breeds, as opposed to quasi-mongrelized bulls of any of the breeds which have no particular strain within the desired breed.

I'm just speaking from the point of our operation. We don't have enough cattle yet to be able to produce load lots of steers out of a two or three way cross system. We have some F1 females in the herd and they sure don't outproduce the straightbred females by enough of a margin that I am clamoring to have 100 of them.

Simply put there is a reason that a bunch of big ranches run straight bred cattle, the extra management needed to implement a crossbreeding system can be applied elsewhere for a greater return on the time invested.

 

[WalnutCrest]

...which is why (for the most part) we run a straightbred operation, too.

 

[Ebenezer]

Agree that many should crossbreed. Never painted a "happy ever after" picture of any linebreeding as I have discussed disposing of lines, groups, families. Not trying to sell anybody that it is easy or for all. "Free lunch" of crossbreeding is for real on % bred and other traits. Calves do grow more, about 7%, I think, was the university number. Only thing, they have to eat 7% more to do it unless there is data that generic crossbreeding increases feed efficiency.

 

[Muddy]

Most large ranches here, run straightbred cows.......with a bull of another breed. Most times crossbred calves often outperformed the straightbred calves based on weight. What do you think why there is a huge demand and premium for black baldy calves and Sim cross calves more than straight Angus calves.

 

[Commercialfarmer]

For the commercial guy to get THE MOST heterosis possible, there need to be some people out there linebreeding their stock.

I'll have to disagree a little. Consistency is what linebreeding provides and I like consistency. But a fullblood linebred breed Y, crossed with a fullblood linebred breed X, will not on average provide any more heterosis than a fullblood non linebred Y crossed with a fullblood nonlinebred X.


Jake,

I'm not about to tell someone how their operation should work. I'm talking facts, how they figure into your use is a different story.

But when accounting is done, the average producer needs to not only consider the lbs per calf that may not be realized, but also the % breed back and how quickly that occurs. A one or two cycle delay costs money as well.

 

[WalnutCrest]

For the commercial guy to get THE MOST heterosis possible, there need to be some people out there linebreeding their stock.

I'll have to disagree a little. Consistency is what linebreeding provides and I like consistency. But a fullblood linebred breed Y, crossed with a fullblood linebred breed X, will not on average provide any more heterosis than a fullblood non linebred Y crossed with a fullblood nonlinebred X.

Maybe. Depends on a bajillion factors. Genetics is complicated...

Jake,

I'm not about to tell someone how their operation should work. I'm talking facts, how they figure into your use is a different story.

But when accounting is done, the average producer needs to not only consider the lbs per calf that may not be realized, but also the % breed back and how quickly that occurs. A one or two cycle delay costs money as well.

And relating to this, it's not about revenue in for a single year or two, it's about year-after-year income retained after expenses ... on a per acre basis.

 

[Commercialfarmer]

Genetics is complicated...

But fun to tinker with. ;-)

 

[Jake]

All I can tell you what has evolved into a working system for us. We have neighbors who are using two breed systems and we have higher breed ups and more acres weaned per acre than they do. Is there some gain we could get in some areas? I guarantee there are and I don't doubt it. But uniformity and consistency pay in our geography much more than what I see as one or two generation gains. And I know I can't afford to buy the replacements to keep the thing going with out eventually running the heterosis level back down.

I not a heterosis non believer but I am a person that doesn't believe it comes without consequence.

 

[DOC HARRIS]

Moderate to fine phenotype - too much milk epd - lousy rib eye epd.

DOC HARRIS

 

[Son of Butch]

I don't understand why this bull is getting so much press he isn't the highest selling bull this year that was back in Feb for 650,000.

So they got him for half price :banana:

Good one but.........
Steve, Steve, Steve ya need to sharpen your math skills a bit, your only off by $25,000
Oh Well, what's 25K between friends

 

[W.B.]

I agree with jake, I have been around crossbreds all my life and there is no free lunch. Individually we all have to decide wether it is worth it or not. The university experts never had to pay the bank with their cattle sales.

 

[Jake]

I agree with jake, I have been around crossbreds all my life and there is no free lunch. Individually we all have to decide wether it is worth it or not. The university experts never had to pay the bank with their cattle sales.

And there is no data on what those university cows were. Most are bull of the month club junk. Having worked around university cows while in school I would say "average" is a generous description.

 

[Commercialfarmer]

I agree with jake, I have been around crossbreds all my life and there is no free lunch. Individually we all have to decide wether it is worth it or not. The university experts never had to pay the bank with their cattle sales.

And there is no data on what those university cows were. Most are bull of the month club junk. Having worked around university cows while in school I would say "average" is a generous description.

The university experts never had to pay the bank with their cattle sales.

That's not true. There are plenty of agricultural professors that grew up on the family farm/ranch, and also have their own. The bank still requires the note to be paid for them the same as you.

In addition, you don't use a herd that is biased for research. A researcher that would use their own herd has obviously biased the situation by selecting cattle based on their pre-conceived ideas of what they believe to be productive. Which is why I find this thread ironic. From what I gather in the posts, you guys appear to be believe that heterosis is BS. But you have an extremely small sample size that you've biased based on your own selection decisions. There is nothing random about it. And to try to extrapolate that the hundred of thousands to millions of animal studied for the past approximately hundred of years can be represented by a seeing a single university's herd over a few year period of time is silly. Much research has been done with private herds.

Heterosis apparently has an effect across the board in every animal and plant species, except cattle?

The development of hybrid maize (Zea mays L) (Duvick, 2001) is the most significant
milestone in farming history (Reif et. al., 2003). In the nineteenth century, it was common for
farmers to visually inspect their cornfields and save ears from individual desireable plants for
planting the next year's fields. This method resulted in heterogenous phenotypes with yields of
about 30 bu/ac (Duvick, 1985). While Darwin and other naturalists of the 19th century
recognized heterosis, or hybrid vigor, it was not until the beginning of twentieth century for
heterosis to be exploited through planned development of hybrid varieties. The earliest recorded
experiments on heterosis were conducted by (Shull, 1908;Shull, 1911) at Cold Spring Harbour in
NY (Reif et. al., 2003) and (East, 1908a) at Connecticut State College. They observed that when
plants were self-pollinated, the performance of their progeny, in terms of growth and grain yield,
deteriorated. However, when two unrelated inbred lines were crossed the growth and yield
characteristics of the F1 hybrid progeny exceeded that of the best parent.

Four generations of pedigree is fairly in depth amount of data. 9,211 is a significant number of animals.

Contemporary groups were formed based on year and season of birth, location
of birth and age of dam. All AI sires were assigned a genetic group according to their
breed of origin. Dams mated to AI sires and natural service sires mated to F1 females
were assigned to different genetic groups (i.e., Hereford dams were assigned to
different genetic groups than Hereford AI sires). A four-generation pedigree containing
9,211 animals was used including founder animals representing the 13 genetic groups
36 including the seven AI sire groups (AN, AR, HH, CH, GV, LM, and SM), commercial AN,
commercial HH, commercial SM, commercial CH, commercial ARxSM and the MARC III
population.

Cross breeding may be a very poor choice for your operation. But to say heterosis effects aren't legitimate is absolutely wrong.

 

[Jake]

Where did I say they aren't legitimate? I said they don't come free.

What's your stance on climate change? It's really a rhetorical question as I don't want to starting a pissing match. But just because government funded universities preach something doesn't make it the only point of view especially when it comes to the profitability of individual operations.

 

[W.B.]

Universities use theories developed using our tax dollars. I am a graduate from a land grant institution I know how the system works. What the universities don't factor in is the losses involved with crossbreeding as there is no free lunch. Do the pluses add more than the losses? Depends on the individual situation. We can argue from he!! Til Sunday and prolly not agree on this as I am out on this one.

 

[Jake]

Universities use theories developed using our tax dollars. I am a graduate from a land grant institution I know how the system works. What the universities don't factor in is the losses involved with crossbreeding as there is no free lunch. Do the pluses add more than the losses? Depends on the individual situation. We can argue from he!! Til Sunday and prolly not agree on this as I am out on this one.

:clap: