Gold Mine, Victor Domino, RW Jones Herefords (photo)

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Mossy Dell

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The photo part is a lie, because I have read all the instructions on uploading and failed. Weird because it's on Photobucket and I have pasted such easily into forums like this. Here is the url:

http://s722.photobucket.com/user/MossyD ... 6.jpg.html

My father bred and registered this polled Hereford of Gold Mine lineage in early 1950s southern California. This bull seems really poorly muscled to me. Plus not very masculine! But my question is Why does his back appear to slope downward—could his front legs be shorter than his rear? The corral looks level to me. Maybe not? Or is his sloping topline an optical illusion because the mountains in the background are rising?

A few years after that photo, we resettled in Georgia, at Leesburg. Dad had figured out grass grew better where it rained. And he went commercial on the cattle but bought purebred bulls. We lived 20 miles from a famous polled Hereford breeder. His stock put Dad's old Herefords to shame. The man was R.W. Jones Jr., of Leslie. I still have a stock cane he gave me when I was four.

We went there that day to buy a bull and I was old enough to go. I am 60 now and just came across that cane. Brought back memories. Mr. Jones's most famous bull at the time was a great-great-grandson of Victor Domino. He gained so much weight each day and grew so large—to 2,305 pounds on nothing but pasture, 705 pounds heavier than his own sire—that an animal scientist at the Georgia Coastal Plain Experiment Station, in nearby Tifton, called him a "genetic freak." Dad, I realize now, was there that day with four-year-old me to buy one of that bull's sons.

I got some of the info above on Mr. Jones's cattle from an article I found on line, and which I think has been posted here, Marilyn Sponsler's "The Victor Domino Heritage."

Anyway, I would appreciate an honest conformation critique of Dad's bull. I expect it to be harsh. But as I say, what I really want to know is why does he appear to slope downward? I don't know much about reasons, including if the photo just makes it look that way.

We moved off the farm to Florida when I was still a boy. I have since raised about everything except cows, including 10 years as a shepherd. My Katahdin sheep flock was in the National Sheep Improvement Assn., got EPDs, etc. I became a shepherd but always have loved cattle. I enjoy Cattle Today a lot.
 
On the right side of the Photobucket picture under Share links, click the IMG box. It will change to yellow and you will see the message "copied".
Go to CT and just paste. When previewing you will see the image.
 
The corral is sloped look at the missing front feet in the photo while you can still see the back feet. An animal who's rump is higher than the shoulder is still growing and is just in a disproportionate stage.

Your dad's is pretty good, the right kind of muscle, good bone, well balanced, masculine enough. A touch more set to the hocks than ideal and could have been deeper chested, not herdsire material, but a pretty good bull nonetheless.
 
Thanks, Knersie. That's a good point—if the corral hadn't been sloped the front feet would be as visible as the rear.

You or anyone, he's a young bull, right? Like two years old?
 
Thanks so much, jms! I am going to blow that up and read it. I find Mr. Jones impressive for his emphasis on performance. I gather from what I have read that he was not fully appreciated as a breeder until the 1970s, though he died in 1967.
 

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