Cloning??????

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Baylorcattleguy

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I received a flyer from a cloning company that is doing beef cattle cloning. What is everyone's opinion on this? Do you think the big boys will flock to this? It seems logical, if you paid $50-100k for a cow and could have 10 copies for under $7k apiece, it sounds like a good deal.

Thoughts anyone? Just curious, not that I have anything even worth it or the marketing ability to promote such a cow.
 
Given what you can do with ET and AI I really don't see what more you are going to gain from cloning; but I can see it for older, proven AI studs and for aged proven donors. If a cow has had $150,000 worth of progeny sales, a couple of sons selling semen in a big way, EPDs in the top 20% of the breed, superb phenotype, and daughters who are donors in elite herds across the country, why not clone her late in life?
 
Baylorcattleguy":1p7pfye4 said:
I received a flyer from a cloning company that is doing beef cattle cloning. What is everyone's opinion on this? Do you think the big boys will flock to this? It seems logical, if you paid $50-100k for a cow and could have 10 copies for under $7k apiece, it sounds like a good deal.

Thoughts anyone? Just curious, not that I have anything even worth it or the marketing ability to promote such a cow.
Click to expand...

I don't see how it would be good for the commercial cattle industry, at least not for a long time. We're trying to improve our cattle every year. If we go to cloning, we wouldn't improve anything.

I do know of a guy who had a high dollar bull that he couldn't collect. He claimed the bull was the "perfect" bull of the breed, but he could only be used natural service. I HEARD he paid Texas A&M $10,000 to clone the bull. :roll: Wouldn't a clone have the same problems?

Other things: I don't think they have true cloning down pat. I saw some cloned cats that looked very different from the donor cat. Didn't Dolly the Sheep die young? And does the FDA allow cloned animals into our food supply?
 
I read today that they are 5 years away from being able to take a few cells and "replicate" a steak. Skip the animal altogether.

Meat ( beef , chicken, pork ) could be manufactured in a factory environment.

They are close enough that they have had taste tests. So far they say it tastes like "jelly on fabric" ( or Murray Grey :lol: ).

I think the only thing that will save us from this type of thing is the repugnance of putting something like that in your mouth. But the same was probably thought about microwave popcorn.
 
Three years ago A & M said they could clone for $20,000 at that time.. and it would be down to $10,000 within 5 years, and possibly just a few thousand in 10.

The thing to consider is this.. if you can clone the "Best" of any breed, it would significantly depreciate the semen and embryos of the "Best"... so what is the marketing advantage?
 
This is intrigueing to me and I don't claim to have all the answers.
I don't see how cloning is much more playing God than ET or even AI when you get right down to it.

Where it could be beneficial I see is more on the female side versus bull.
Say a small-medium size breeder has one outstanding female in their herd or they save up and go spend the money to buy a good one. It sounds like for a reasonable price (atleast in the Angus world) you could have it cloned for multiple copies and have a pasture full of your best cow. It seems it could raise the performance and consistency of your herd w/o the hit or miss of buying at multiple breeder sales and not truly knowing what you have.

The price quoted was $15k for the first copy, $12.5K for the 2nd, $10k for the 3rd, $7500 for the 4th and $5k for each remaining copy wanted. So for $67,500 you could have 10 copies of the best genetics in your herd.

I find all this fascinating.
Just my $.02
 
When it comes to cloning,"breed" or your "herd" may not matter much.

There are individuals that have high FCR - Feed Conversion and produce high levels of beneficial fatty acids and all the other things that are benificial for food animals, that are not in EPD's. Why not just clone them?

Why clone just to maintain "breed".

With cloning you are one step from genetic engineering. Once again, the end of breeds. The end of genetic diversity.

Look how GE has messed up the plant world, that scares me enough.
 
Baylorcattleguy":2h1h11c4 said:
This is intrigueing to me and I don't claim to have all the answers.
I don't see how cloning is much more playing God than ET or even AI when you get right down to it.

Where it could be beneficial I see is more on the female side versus bull.
Say a small-medium size breeder has one outstanding female in their herd or they save up and go spend the money to buy a good one. It sounds like for a reasonable price (atleast in the Angus world) you could have it cloned for multiple copies and have a pasture full of your best cow. It seems it could raise the performance and consistency of your herd w/o the hit or miss of buying at multiple breeder sales and not truly knowing what you have.

The price quoted was $15k for the first copy, $12.5K for the 2nd, $10k for the 3rd, $7500 for the 4th and $5k for each remaining copy wanted. So for $67,500 you could have 10 copies of the best genetics in your herd.

I find all this fascinating.
Just my $.02
Click to expand...
Multi ovulate your best cow,inseminate her to a top breed bull,
flush the embryos,and have a diverse herd, some of which are hopefully an improvement on your best cow!
 
No way. Cloning is wrong. You raised that stock by breeding, and if you want to have more good stock, make good breeding choices. If you would clone than in the show ring, no one else would even have a chance if you cloned a "prefect show animal". That is not the way that God made it. If we were supposed to clone, we would have from the beginning... It isn't natural. Cloning is not good. ET I don't agree with, but you are not making copies of one animal... just more offspring in one mating with a certain animal. And all iof this coming form a 13 year old...
 
Angus Cattle Shower":3s1s715y said:
No way. Cloning is wrong. You raised that stock by breeding, and if you want to have more good stock, make good breeding choices. If you would clone than in the show ring, no one else would even have a chance if you cloned a "prefect show animal".
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Not true at all. At most big shows with lots of quality animals if you took 10 judges and let each of them score the animals I think you would have 8 different grand champions. There is NO assurance at all that the 2004, 1994, 1984, or 1974 National Grand Champion (if cloned) would win any show in 2006. My "perfect" beef animal lacks the stature for some judges, aren't feminine enough to place higher for some judges, needs to be deeper ribbed for some judges, or doesn't have "enough muscle carried down the legs and into the hocks" (whatever that is supposed to mean). I have been to Denver and talked to people more qualified than I and we both totally missed the top 4 and I am not sure we were "wrong".
 
Okay, but it's not the natural way of life... Take Prime Time's Eileen 29'99 for example... if she were cloned, then the smaller people (people that do not have as many aniimals) would not have as good of a chance of winning, bu tif you cloned a good animal, and it i sentered in shows, it may not win, but it will still do better than most, becaseu it is like showing the same animal over, and over, with out it aging. Just my $0.02.
 
Angus Cattle Shower":coj3vl4e said:
Okay, but it's not the natural way of life... Take Prime Time's Eileen 29'99 for example... if she were cloned, then the smaller people (people that do not have as many aniimals) would not have as good of a chance of winning, bu tif you cloned a good animal, and it i sentered in shows, it may not win, but it will still do better than most, becaseu it is like showing the same animal over, and over, with out it aging. Just my $0.02.
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Oh I agree that clones will win SOME shows; but I don't see how the big guy does not have an advantage NOW. If I suddenly did the real estate deal of all real estate deals and found myself rich, went completely nuts, and made it my life's goal from that point on...to win cow shows! all I would have to do is buy 10-15 good class winners, 150 recips, and flush the donors to the top show bulls in the land (and there ARE people doing something similar NOW) and I should be able to pull a VERY competitive show string out of those ET calves. Would it REALLY improve that person's chances of winning a ribbon greatly if he also cloned his donors?? I don't think so; but I think we in the cattle industry are on the verge of finding out for certain.
 
there are more cloned cattle out there than you think. The dairy and longforn people have been doing it since the 80's. A huge angus outit did a lot of it about 10-15 years ago. I know the brangus breed has some people that have done it and have daughters in production. I think most have the wrong reason to clone. It is to get a genetic exact of teh animal being cloned. Not to produce a similar looking animal but a exact genetic match. I am probably going to have a cow that will go down as the most influencial cow in our breed cloned. she is 16 and has generated more $ than any cow in our breed three fold. I will use this cow as a donor and it will just be a continuation of her clone. If you look at what a top donor sells (That may or may not be proven)for $15,000-well over $150,000. If you can get a clone of one of the top animals for $7000-$15,000/ I don't think there is much of a decision to be made there. I don't know what is being god about remaking an animal. I bet in 10 years colning will be as mainstream as ET work.
 
Angus Cattle Shower":xd805u61 said:
Yeah, I guess you're right, but if you ET, you will still have some "oddballs" as Dad would put it-lol.
Click to expand...

We still have "oddballs" from cloning.
 

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