Crash Course Hereford

[LFF]

they didn't have genetic defects, and they are still available in an un-outcrossed state. There are a very few lines of Herefords that meet this criteria. .

I probaly should not mention this , however because we have people that want to learn about Herefords I will. The line one cattle have a genetic defect. It is called Idiopathic Epilepsy and known carriers are listed on their pedgree.

 

[JHH]

they didn't have genetic defects, and they are still available in an un-outcrossed state. There are a very few lines of Herefords that meet this criteria. .

I probaly should not mention this , however because we have people that want to learn about Herefords I will. The line one cattle have a genetic defect. It is called Idiopathic Epilepsy and known carriers are listed on their pedgree.

None of the miles city bulls have this problem. It came from other sources outside the station.

 

[Idaman]

What are the requirements for an ongoing successful line?. Obviously the L1's are a successful line in that they never had to have an outcross, they didn't have genetic defects, and they are still available in an un-outcrossed state. There are a very few lines of Herefords that meet this criteria. Jim Lents would be one that meets these conditions but there are only a very few others.

If there are still other lines at Miles city then they probably would meet these conditions.

What are the requirements for an ongoing successful line? In the case of the Line 1's, the biggest asset they have going for them is the federal treasury. I am a big fan of the line 1's, don't get me wrong. They are a great asset to the Hereford breed. Boy, wouldn't it be nice to have that kind of a line of credit?

I agree with the ARS being behind the L1s but they were also behind all the other Miles City lines that failed.

If you are interested check all of the failed lines at the CSU Hesperus staion.

 

[alexfarms]

What are the requirements for an ongoing successful line?. Obviously the L1's are a successful line in that they never had to have an outcross, they didn't have genetic defects, and they are still available in an un-outcrossed state. There are a very few lines of Herefords that meet this criteria. Jim Lents would be one that meets these conditions but there are only a very few others.

If there are still other lines at Miles city then they probably would meet these conditions.

What are the requirements for an ongoing successful line? In the case of the Line 1's, the biggest asset they have going for them is the federal treasury. I am a big fan of the line 1's, don't get me wrong. They are a great asset to the Hereford breed. Boy, wouldn't it be nice to have that kind of a line of credit?

I agree with the ARS being behind the L1s but they were also behind all the other Miles City lines that failed.

If you are interested check all of the failed lines at the CSU Hesperus staion.

"Fail". Well, at Miles City, I am pretty sure the Line 1's had the largest head count to start with. That probably was strongly to their benefit. I think financial concerns played a strong role in discontinuing most of the lines and if they were going to keep one, it was logical to keep the biggest. I think the most remarkable thing about the current Line 1 program is that it is still in existence at all. There has to have been, and probably still is, alot of political pressure to discontinue it or alter it in some way.

 

[Idaman]

The things you say are certainly true about the L1s and that breeding program. I believe some lines failed for reasons other than the programs funding. Funding , I think, was the final reason that the CSU Hesperus program shut down. However reading through the list of the original lines at Hesperus shows the reason the particular lines were discontinued and I think Miles City was much the same as Hesperus had been designed to be like Miles City. There were quite a few defects but mostly discontinued long before the folding of the program was low economic viability.

As to the continued funding of the program I think it is pretty stable. Miles City is an Agricultural Research Station in the ARS department which is under the USDA. The ARS is the largest scientific research organization in the world. They do a tremendous amount of research on plants and the collection of much of snowfall and precipitation for forecasting is done by them.

We are in one of their precipitation and water flow research areas and that ARS office has been in operation for well over 60 years. They measure every drop that falls and map where it goes until it departs the area.

They have a lot of say even between the different bureaus. A few years ago we were cooperating with the local ARS in the planning for a rotational burning project on our private ground since the ARS doesn't own much ground there. The ARS doesn't have any firefighting capabilities so they went to the BLM to get them to light and manage the fire. The BLM said no and this impasse went on for some time. Then at one meeting with the BLM and the ARS a lady no one knew came in and sat down. We asked her why she was there and she said to order the BLM to light and manage the fire. She said that she was from the BLM Washington legal department and that law required the other Agencies to follow the requests from the ARS as long as it was for research purposes. The next morning the BLM called and said that they had had a change of heart and would do the burn.

They did the burn and got a lot of research data from it. The ARS even put GPS collars on a bunch of our cows to track their grazing patterns 2 years prior to the fire and 5 years after. The collars would click every 15 minutes and that was transmitted to a computer in the main office where it was transposed onto a map to study the patterns. One cow would leave the bunch every few days and travel for a mile or two and then return to the herd. They were confused about the strange behavior of this one cow. We super imposed a map of the fences with gates drawn in and sure enough she was going over that distance to see if someone had left the gate open.

Sorry for the rambling.

 

[Hereford76]

so you are basically saying you got a government study to tell you cows can sniff an open gate

 

[alexfarms]

The things you say are certainly true about the L1s and that breeding program. I believe some lines failed for reasons other than the programs funding. Funding , I think, was the final reason that the CSU Hesperus program shut down. However reading through the list of the original lines at Hesperus shows the reason the particular lines were discontinued and I think Miles City was much the same as Hesperus had been designed to be like Miles City. There were quite a few defects but mostly discontinued long before the folding of the program was low economic viability.

As to the continued funding of the program I think it is pretty stable. Miles City is an Agricultural Research Station in the ARS department which is under the USDA. The ARS is the largest scientific research organization in the world. They do a tremendous amount of research on plants and the collection of much of snowfall and precipitation for forecasting is done by them.

We are in one of their precipitation and water flow research areas and that ARS office has been in operation for well over 60 years. They measure every drop that falls and map where it goes until it departs the area.

They have a lot of say even between the different bureaus. A few years ago we were cooperating with the local ARS in the planning for a rotational burning project on our private ground since the ARS doesn't own much ground there. The ARS doesn't have any firefighting capabilities so they went to the BLM to get them to light and manage the fire. The BLM said no and this impasse went on for some time. Then at one meeting with the BLM and the ARS a lady no one knew came in and sat down. We asked her why she was there and she said to order the BLM to light and manage the fire. She said that she was from the BLM Washington legal department and that law required the other Agencies to follow the requests from the ARS as long as it was for research purposes. The next morning the BLM called and said that they had had a change of heart and would do the burn.

They did the burn and got a lot of research data from it. The ARS even put GPS collars on a bunch of our cows to track their grazing patterns 2 years prior to the fire and 5 years after. The collars would click every 15 minutes and that was transmitted to a computer in the main office where it was transposed onto a map to study the patterns. One cow would leave the bunch every few days and travel for a mile or two and then return to the herd. They were confused about the strange behavior of this one cow. We super imposed a map of the fences with gates drawn in and sure enough she was going over that distance to see if someone had left the gate open.

Sorry for the rambling.

That story about the cow going to check the gat is interesting to me. It may be virtually worthless to researchers, but It confirms my belief that certain cows are always looking for a way to get out.

 

[Idaman]

so you are basically saying you got a government study to tell you cows can sniff an open gate

Yes, that was part of the outcome. The unbelievable part of that story and study was the cost.
At that time the collars cost $7,000 each and we had 15. Then there were at least 3 PHDs but only part time and lots of fence builders for the exclosures and other labor. That is beside the cost of the fire.

They did, to me at least, several interesting other things related to the fire. At the time they were testing a new sleeping bag thing that they hoped a trapped firefighter could crawl into to survive being burned over by the fire. The dummy they put in the bag fried.

The other thing that was useful to us was a sprinkler system that they installed on several acres. The idea was to study the effects of heavy rainfall before and then for 5 years after the burn. They set up the sprinklers on pretty steep ground and had to haul water to feed the sprinklers. They put a v ditch at the bottom of each area and then funneled the runoff into jars for further sampling. The results were as you and I would suspect. Some sediment in the runoff before the fire since it was on a juniper infested site. Lots of runoff immediately after the fire with a very high ash content and then after 1 year almost no runoff and what there was was almost devoid of sediment.

 

[Idaman]

The things you say are certainly true about the L1s and that breeding program. I believe some lines failed for reasons other than the programs funding. Funding , I think, was the final reason that the CSU Hesperus program shut down. However reading through the list of the original lines at Hesperus shows the reason the particular lines were discontinued and I think Miles City was much the same as Hesperus had been designed to be like Miles City. There were quite a few defects but mostly discontinued long before the folding of the program was low economic viability.

As to the continued funding of the program I think it is pretty stable. Miles City is an Agricultural Research Station in the ARS department which is under the USDA. The ARS is the largest scientific research organization in the world. They do a tremendous amount of research on plants and the collection of much of snowfall and precipitation for forecasting is done by them.

We are in one of their precipitation and water flow research areas and that ARS office has been in operation for well over 60 years. They measure every drop that falls and map where it goes until it departs the area.

They have a lot of say even between the different bureaus. A few years ago we were cooperating with the local ARS in the planning for a rotational burning project on our private ground since the ARS doesn't own much ground there. The ARS doesn't have any firefighting capabilities so they went to the BLM to get them to light and manage the fire. The BLM said no and this impasse went on for some time. Then at one meeting with the BLM and the ARS a lady no one knew came in and sat down. We asked her why she was there and she said to order the BLM to light and manage the fire. She said that she was from the BLM Washington legal department and that law required the other Agencies to follow the requests from the ARS as long as it was for research purposes. The next morning the BLM called and said that they had had a change of heart and would do the burn.

They did the burn and got a lot of research data from it. The ARS even put GPS collars on a bunch of our cows to track their grazing patterns 2 years prior to the fire and 5 years after. The collars would click every 15 minutes and that was transmitted to a computer in the main office where it was transposed onto a map to study the patterns. One cow would leave the bunch every few days and travel for a mile or two and then return to the herd. They were confused about the strange behavior of this one cow. We super imposed a map of the fences with gates drawn in and sure enough she was going over that distance to see if someone had left the gate open.

Sorry for the rambling.

That story about the cow going to check the gat is interesting to me. It may be virtually worthless to researchers, but It confirms my belief that certain cows are always looking for a way to get out.

Since the collars could identify the individual cows it was very interesting to see that it was always the same cow going to the same gate. The other amazing thing was her regularity in checking the gate and the distance she had to travel and always alone.They were first worried about lost collars but soon found out that they were very easily located with the GPS still pinging but from the same spot.