DNA testing- experience?

[Alan]

long story short, last fall I lost my hard drive and backup in one power surge. I not only lost all my records and photo's ect., but I lost all my cattle records to date. So when AI calves start to drop, I'll have some Idea who's bred to who, but not completly sure. I've talked to AHA twice and haven't gotten a clear answer to what I need. One person said I just needed hair samples from the calf and the name of the bull I believe is the sire (I know the bulls DNA is on file), she said I did not need to DNA the cow. I have DNA'd a couple of foals for the AQHA, they require hair samples from the Sire, Dam and foal. Has anyone had any DNA testing done in particularly with the AHA?

Thanks,
Alan

 

[hillsdown]

Hair sample with name/s of possible bulls should be all you need, plus the dams reg number as well.

Alan I also have a book by my semen tank that I write everything down as I ai, I also have a separate AI breeding records book that I write everything down on and it keeps a duplicate copy and the original goes to the association along with all of the calf's info for registration. We did it that way with the dairy and it just continued on here with beef . It is a safety net in case your computer crashes and you did not back up your files.

 

[MO_cows]

As AI sires, the DNA of the bulls should already be on file. So your calves' hair samples and a list of the possible sires to check them against is a good start. You MIGHT find that more than one bull qualifies when just the calf and the sires are evaluated. In that case submit a DNA sample from the dam, so that the lab can look at mating combinations, and that should tell the tale.

I have worked with several different breed registries and let me tell you, herd records lead a hard and dangerous life! The crashed computer without a backup is a regular occurence. Then there's the notebook left in the coveralls and the wife washed it. Talked to a couple poor souls who had fires or tornadoes and lost all their records that way. Then there are the ugly divorces where one spouse has the cattle and the other the records. Records were in the pickup when it was stolen. And so on.

HD is right on the money about having more than one copy of records.

 

[Herefords.US]

Anymore, most crashed hard drives can still have the data recovered from them if you take them to the right computer repair tech. And the cost of doing so is certainly less than paying for a series of DNA tests.

George

 

[Doug Thorson]

Iff you need to test, don't bother with the AHA, here is a link to 2 private labs that do good work.

http://www.biogeneticservices.com/

http://www.agrigenomicsinc.com/cattle.html

 

[MO_cows]

Ummm, if he "doesn't bother" with the AHA and uses another lab, he will have to provide DNA on the sires. It will already be on file with AHA's lab. Sure, any lab can run the calves but without the sires data to compare it to, the mission won't be accomplished.

 

[Alan]

As AI sires, the DNA of the bulls should already be on file. So your calves' hair samples and a list of the possible sires to check them against is a good start. You MIGHT find that more than one bull qualifies when just the calf and the sires are evaluated. In that case submit a DNA sample from the dam, so that the lab can look at mating combinations, and that should tell the tale.

I have worked with several different breed registries and let me tell you, herd records lead a hard and dangerous life! The crashed computer without a backup is a regular occurence. Then there's the notebook left in the coveralls and the wife washed it. Talked to a couple poor souls who had fires or tornadoes and lost all their records that way. Then there are the ugly divorces where one spouse has the cattle and the other the records. Records were in the pickup when it was stolen. And so on.

HD is right on the money about having more than one copy of records.

Thanks all for the responses, I used a couple of bulls and a couple of sons ie; M326 and Rib Eye also 242 and Progress, so as why I was concerned about accurate testing without the dams DNA,.... how close would a father and son be? But I'll get through it, I'll only DNA the replacement heifers and a couple of bulls that look good enough to let grow out, for me not a whole lot of calves.

I posted my computer problem a while ago when it happened. My "old" computer had a "C" and a "D" drive, so I assumed that it had two drives. One I used as a backup to my other drive. As it turns out it was just 1 drive with a partition on it which split the drive in two. I did pull out the drive and sent it to a lab witha clean room in Texas, if they could have recovered the drive it would have cost $800, but they couldn't, too much damage during the power surge. I had most of my business records backed up to last Feb on an Ipod. So as far as important business files and tax records I only lost those for about 8 months, but I did spend 2 to 3 months reconstructing those from hard copy... fun. I wish I would have thought to put my cattle records on the Ipod also, I use the Ipod to transfer business records to a lap top when we go out of town for a period of time.

I'm one that keeps the paper in my pocket while AIing and then throwing it away when I put the records on the computer, not any more.

Anyone have any info on using a sire and a son in respect to how much difference they have in DNA?

Thanks to all,
Alan

 

[Aero]

the cow has nothing to do with it, the calf's dna should work fine. if it's worth $20/hd to do it, just send the blood in. i like tail bleeding for samples (like biopryn suggests).

 

[Herefords.US]

I posted my computer problem a while ago when it happened. My "old" computer had a "C" and a "D" drive, so I assumed that it had two drives. One I used as a backup to my other drive. As it turns out it was just 1 drive with a partition on it which split the drive in two. I did pull out the drive and sent it to a lab witha clean room in Texas, if they could have recovered the drive it would have cost $800, but they couldn't, too much damage during the power surge.
Thanks to all,
Alan

That's too bad! I've lost two hard drives in the last month - one on the computer at my store and one at home with all my personal, tax, and cattle records. Luckily, for me, they were able to recover all the data from both - at a cost of $75 for one and $125 for the other. I had gotten lazy and hadn't backed up either one in quite a while. First hard drives I've ever had crash and I've owned multiple PCs since the mid 90s. I've learned my lesson and will have a regular back-up method in the future.

George

 

[Alan]

George, It's amazing how quick hard drives seem to fail these days, or maybe it's because now some of us have more computers. I have a network of three for our business, I have one for my use and home business records, we have a laptop for travel and wait for this..... my wife is a big time gamer, you know ever "crack" and other games (yes she'll be 50 next May) but she and another tech built her computer, in summary it has 5 hard drives set up in a RAID for speed. Hers is in the shop now replacing one of the hard drives. About a month ago the lap tops hard drive failed, it's older and we use it as just a travel computer, so no real important info on it, it's kind of a back up so we'll replace it down the road. But in summary we have lost 3 hard drives in the last few months. Now I have a regular scheduled backup for my home computer onto an external hard drive...... as I have for the business for several years :roll: .

Alan

 

[Doug Thorson]

Thanks all for the responses, I used a couple of bulls and a couple of sons ie; M326 and Rib Eye also 242 and Progress, so as why I was concerned about accurate testing without the dams DNA,.... how close would a father and son be? But I'll get through it, I'll only DNA the replacement heifers and a couple of bulls that look good enough to let grow out, for me not a whole lot of calves.

Biogenetics tested mine last year with a Father and son in the same pasture. I was satisfied with the results.

Ummm, if he "doesn't bother" with the AHA and uses another lab, he will have to provide DNA on the sires. It will already be on file with AHA's lab. Sure, any lab can run the calves but without the sires data to compare it to, the mission won't be accomplished.

AHA doesn't have any DNA from any of my bulls on file. I personally do not like the idea of hair samples. It seems to me that it would be way to easy to have a contaminated sample.