Ky hills
Well-known member
Building on some recent posts of my own as well as those of others, I think a lot of the issues and criticisms that we have of breeds is directly linked to the selective direction that breeders take their respective breeds.
The trends have started well before AI, with the belt buckle size cattle of the 50's. They had changed dramatically from the enormous sizes reported for Herefords in England many years before.
Then in the 70's-80's we had the 6ft tall cattle across almost every breed of cattle. Then in the 90's and following we had the needed trend of moderation.
My view of AI is that it is a very useful tool to bring in outcross genetics when needed. It certainly has its place in situations where running bulls is not desirable, such as small acreage beef herds and in dairies where bulls can be dangerous to work around.
It seems to me we have a perfect storm of disaster with the current trends and of heavy reliance on EPD's, and also taking the word of breeders hundreds or more miles away with likely much different management, weather, and forages, or the AI reps advice which is likely just parroting the aforementioned sales pitch.
I've used AI heavily at times, and had varying degrees of conception rates and calf results. Not all AI sires are superior to natural ones. A lot of people have bought into the hype that someone else has much better cattle, just cause they have a well known prefix.
I've noticed when going to look for bulls, or females for that matter, it's pretty common for the sales pitch to start out he's sired by so and so so he's a good one. As a whole I think we are loosing our ability to visually assess cattle and relying on the hype of popular genetics and numbers to do it for us to our own detriment.
AI can yield decent results on conception and can get some good calves. I've always said that if you can do the work yourself on observed heats the success rates should be much better. I gave up on it after having to go to the timed methods. At best we then got 50% where previously when I had a local tech that could come for observed heats instead of just once to breed them all.
Also noticed a difference in conception rates of different sires, one was 0 of 10, another was 2 of 10, and on the same times as the 20% another sire had 60%.
I had to maintain just as many bulls, so it just did not make financial sense to continue AI.
With natural service there are all the problems with bulls themselves, but without the added expense of another entity making money off of our cattle.
The trends have started well before AI, with the belt buckle size cattle of the 50's. They had changed dramatically from the enormous sizes reported for Herefords in England many years before.
Then in the 70's-80's we had the 6ft tall cattle across almost every breed of cattle. Then in the 90's and following we had the needed trend of moderation.
My view of AI is that it is a very useful tool to bring in outcross genetics when needed. It certainly has its place in situations where running bulls is not desirable, such as small acreage beef herds and in dairies where bulls can be dangerous to work around.
It seems to me we have a perfect storm of disaster with the current trends and of heavy reliance on EPD's, and also taking the word of breeders hundreds or more miles away with likely much different management, weather, and forages, or the AI reps advice which is likely just parroting the aforementioned sales pitch.
I've used AI heavily at times, and had varying degrees of conception rates and calf results. Not all AI sires are superior to natural ones. A lot of people have bought into the hype that someone else has much better cattle, just cause they have a well known prefix.
I've noticed when going to look for bulls, or females for that matter, it's pretty common for the sales pitch to start out he's sired by so and so so he's a good one. As a whole I think we are loosing our ability to visually assess cattle and relying on the hype of popular genetics and numbers to do it for us to our own detriment.
AI can yield decent results on conception and can get some good calves. I've always said that if you can do the work yourself on observed heats the success rates should be much better. I gave up on it after having to go to the timed methods. At best we then got 50% where previously when I had a local tech that could come for observed heats instead of just once to breed them all.
Also noticed a difference in conception rates of different sires, one was 0 of 10, another was 2 of 10, and on the same times as the 20% another sire had 60%.
I had to maintain just as many bulls, so it just did not make financial sense to continue AI.
With natural service there are all the problems with bulls themselves, but without the added expense of another entity making money off of our cattle.
