Bull pick of this years crop

[JWBrahman]

The biggest sin you can commit in corporate elite agriculture is to use your own bull or to use your own seeds.

Cowgirl8 and her husband are outlaws, traitors to the corporate world order. Unlawful use of non Packer Approved bulls and your own seed corn is treason!!!

It's always about IMPROVEMENTS!
Definition of improvement- producer pays more to earn less

 

[Ebenezer]

The biggest sin you can commit in corporate elite agriculture is to use your own bull or to use your own seeds.

Cowgirl8 and her husband are outlaws, traitors to the corporate world order. Unlawful use of non Packer Approved bulls and your own seed corn is treason!!!

It's always about IMPROVEMENTS!
Definition of improvement- producer pays more to earn less

Had to laugh. Bulls here are by home ear tag. Get plenty of poo-poo's on them but they suit me fine with a known and proven great mama and a daddy that was good and from the same background. Hard to mess that up. But not near as hard as picking one via a touched up picture with his feet in tall grass (for some reason?) or a few numbers and a clipped look at a sale. More power to each and all but use something that helps you. If it helps you it is good for others in the long run.

 

[Stocker Steve]

The biggest sin you can commit in corporate elite agriculture is to use your own bull or to use your own seeds. It's always about IMPROVEMENTS! Definition of improvement- producer pays more to earn less

Great post.
Some here are going back to public (no longer patented) seeds and home raised bulls to increase their net.
No reason that Monsanto has to take most of the profit.

 

[Stocker Steve]

If you have been using bulls, and heifers out of your herd for the past 20ish years, then really you don't have breed X-Y-Z. After so long of genetic makeup coming from one source, you actually begin to stabilize the composite makeup, and make a new genetic line.
If you had 10 angus cows, and bred them all to a Simmental bull. Then took the resulting F1 calves, and only used them for breeding, say 1 bull and 6 heifers from the cross, and used the F1 bull on the F1 heifers. You would have a Line 1 composite, and after years of breeding within that line, you would make a stabilize composite line. Which would be neither Angus nor Simmental, but a composite.

Several folks here are selling sim angus bulls sired by the high growth AI bull of the month.
Seems like they cut about 1/2 to 2/3 of their Ai sired calves and sell the rest to producers with commercial cows.
The composite bulls picked look good, but are not very stable, and their often calves show it.

What percent of these composite bulls would you expect to sire consistently superor calves?
How much could this percentage improve with DNA testing?

 

[cowgirl8]

Having 5 separate herds helps...No way we could do what we do with just one. Each herd is in a different stage...
We castrated and vaccinated the red bulls herd yesterday. We though we knew of at least one bull(pictured in first post) we wanted to keep.. Turns out, we thought we were seeing one calf, but we were seeing several thinking it was one. Kept 5 bulls in that pasture.

Got this picture this morning of a heifer out of the Hereford mix with the posty legs.. He stamps his calves faces, easy to pick them out. This one is a keeper. I have some heifers of his from last year, i'll have to get pictures of them, same exact face....He is out of a reg black Hereford and one of my daughters commercial show cows....I'm guessing that he just grew so dang fast his legs couldn't keep up or viza versa.. Looking forward to seeing how this bulls body matures, right now he's all leg, which is deceptive when you look at him. I stood next to him in the corral and I was like, dayum he's huge....looking at him in the pasture he doesn't look so big...and luckily, his calves seem to be moderate size at birth...

 

[sim.-ang.king]

If you have been using bulls, and heifers out of your herd for the past 20ish years, then really you don't have breed X-Y-Z. After so long of genetic makeup coming from one source, you actually begin to stabilize the composite makeup, and make a new genetic line.
If you had 10 angus cows, and bred them all to a Simmental bull. Then took the resulting F1 calves, and only used them for breeding, say 1 bull and 6 heifers from the cross, and used the F1 bull on the F1 heifers. You would have a Line 1 composite, and after years of breeding within that line, you would make a stabilize composite line. Which would be neither Angus nor Simmental, but a composite.

Several folks here are selling sim angus bulls sired by the high growth AI bull of the month.
Seems like they cut about 1/2 to 2/3 of their Ai sired calves and sell the rest to producers with commercial cows.
The composite bulls picked look good, but are not very stable, and their often calves show it.

What percent of these composite bulls would you expect to sire consistently superor calves?
How much could this percentage improve with DNA testing?

Breeding one generation of a cross, would not be stable, and would take many generations within the one line to make stable. In a sense they become their own breed once they are stabilized. Then taking the calves from the composite line, and using those on any breed would make superior calves.
The calves from any bull, be it a cross, or PB, would have higher heterosis than the two parents, as long as the bull and cow don't share any breed. When they do share breeds completely there is no raise in heterosis, well maybe a microscopic amount, but you do get consistent calves. When you breed two crossbreds, and they share one or more breeds, you have less heterosis than when they have no shared breed. You also get a lot less consistent calf crops also.
So the best cross is usually either two different PB, or one F1 cross, and a PB of no relation.
Two F1's of no relations, would have high heterosis, but the calves would be very inconsistent.
As for your example of Cross bulls on cross cows, is that cross is to far crossed, you might say.
You would be better off using those crossbred bulls on PB cows of any kind, even if they share a breed.
But of course if you throw DNA testing in, you could in theory find a bull that is the least related to a cow, even within the same breed. Thus making a Outcross, which is a cross within a breed, from two parents that are related the smallest amount, and there would be heterosis.

 

[Stocker Steve]

You would be better off using those crossbred bulls on PB cows of any kind, even if they share a breed.

But of course if you throw DNA testing in, you could in theory find a bull that is the least related to a cow, even within the same breed. Thus making a Outcross, which is a cross within a breed, from two parents that are related the smallest amount, and there would be heterosis.

Most producers are using sim angus bulls on commercial angus cows, so at first they are doing what you recommend.

Lots of posts on CT about the evils of composite bull variation. But, I think you could use the increased composite variation to your advantage by sorting with a DNA test. In theory - - getting a (more) outstanding bull by selecting the outlier? Anyone doing this?

 

[Ebenezer]

...getting a (more) outstanding bull by selecting the outlier? Anyone doing this?

Outliers are generally the most unstable: under tips of bell curve. The industry is built on the "outlier is the savior" theory. Constant need for improvement because of it. Outliers work good on terminal. Whatever you want to do and however many life times you have to do it.

 

[Stocker Steve]

OK, so outliers may be less stable. But as you pointed out - - some people really like being unstable...

Is the power of DNA testing targeted at culling the tips of the bell curve, or finding the next Morgan type stud to found a better breed, or some of both?

 

[Nesikep]

...getting a (more) outstanding bull by selecting the outlier? Anyone doing this?

Outliers are generally the most unstable: under tips of bell curve. The industry is built on the "outlier is the savior" theory. Constant need for improvement because of it. Outliers work good on terminal. Whatever you want to do and however many life times you have to do it.

I think an "outlier" bull with ordinary cows will yield mixed results, but if the herd the bull comes from also produces the same kind of females and you use them together, you can work toward a goal with more predictability..

Lets just pick a random gene "A", and the bull shows it because he's at least heterozygous for it, so "Aa".. Ordinary cows will be "aa", so offspring will be a mix of 25% "Aa" (the desirable one), and 75% "aa" or ordinary..
Now if your heifers are also "Aa" then you get 25% "AA" (will produce consistent offspring regardless of the bull they're bred to), 50% "Aa", They'll maybe still look the part but may not produce consistently), and the remaining 25% will be ordinary "aa"... And of course you're looking at MANY genes, not just one, but the idea doesn't change.

It's a long row to hoe to figure it all out.. I've got a few promising lines, time will tell how it works out

 

[sim.-ang.king]

OK, so outliers may be less stable. But as you pointed out - - some people really like being unstable...

Is the power of DNA testing targeted at culling the tips of the bell curve, or finding the next Morgan type stud to found a better breed, or some of both?

I forsee DNA in the near future being more like epd's are today, but more accurate. Used more to find which bull improves a herd, based both the cow and bulls DNA, and matching them up according to what your needs are. Once they are able to id all of the genetic strains, and able to match accordingly, there really won't be any need for breeds after that. Everyone will just take a DNA sample of all of their cows, and then match each cow to a bull that fulfills their needs. So even the outliers could find a place to be used.
This is all if, they don't start producing Alpha-Prime clones before this all comes to be.