Hereford - New Sire DNA Policy

[TR]

Anyone heard of this? I have to wonder with the new Trich testing and now this, how it will affect bottom line on bull sales for us Herf folks.....Seriously.....

From Hereford e-News:

The AHA will require all Hereford sires born after Jan. 1, 2011, to be DNA genotyped at the official AHA DNA laboratory before their progeny can be registered.

This policy has been adopted to improve the quality control of pedigrees. Numerous times during the year, AHA staff identifies pedigree mistakes, and the discovery comes at times when it is very difficult to make a determination of correct parentage of an animal. Genotyping walking herd sires will be very beneficial toward minimizing this issue in a cost-effective manner.

 

[1914 Hereford]

The way we read it DNA profile would only be required on bulls born after 1-1-11 that sire calves that are
to be registered. Bulls going into commercial herds would not be required to be DNA profiled. Bulls going into registered herds could be profiled after they are sold.

 

[KNERSIE]

Its a good thing, embrace it! It has been a requirement here for all calves born from 2009 onwards to be registered their sire needs to have a DNA profile.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

In the Simmental breed all donors & AI bulls have been DNA tested for ??? I don't know how long - seems like always. But now herd bulls.

 

[TR]

I have to say, with the TPR fees if you want your EPD's published, one time yearly registration fee of $100 plus each calf's registration fee, now DNA testing on future herd sires in order to even register calves, the business model for a small registered herd just isn't panning out. I know who sires our calves, so I feel like I'm now having to pay for other's mistakes or whatever you want to call them. I'm not ok with this, but then again, today has been one of those days. Maybe I'll see it differently tomorrow.

 

[sporder]

been doing it in the uk for a while now. would you like to buy a bull thinking his sire was top notch to then find out when you calve that his is something else with high birth weight. to late once your herd is in calf to him

 

[Brandonm22]

Anything that improves the accuracy of pedigrees going forward and tells customers more about the animal they are buying I think is a good thing for the breed.

 

[MO_cows]

I have worked for breed registries that required parent verification by blood typing, then later on DNA, on animals to be registered. Some of them required it on every animal that was to be called purebred or fullblood or whatever their highest level of registry status was. It was undoubtedly a major expense for the breeders and it made more work and headaches for everyone involved. But it sure did reveal a lot of mistakes/inaccuracies that would have went into the herd book undetected otherwise.

Hereford seems to be gaining back some of the ground they lost over the years. Seems like this is one more selling point to build on. Hope the extra expense and work pays off for the breeders.

 

[3waycross]

The Gelbvieh Assn requires that DNA tests be performed on the bull and both parents before they will be approved for AI.

I believe they were the first to require this. I am going through it right now and think it's a good idea, unless you have something to hide!

I am also doing Igenity, PAP, Ultrasound, and TRICH so one more test is not big deal.

 

[chippie]

It's a good thing. Many horse registries require it.

It is good if anyone questions an animal's parentage.

If cattle are tested like horses, it isn't any big deal. We pull either a little mane hair or tail hair being sure to have the root bulb.
Tape it to the test form and mail it.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Need to EDIT my last post:
Typo - I said "but NOW herd bulls" I meant to type NOT herd bulls.
ASA has required blood testing of AI bulls from the beginning, just didn't know when they switched to DNA - long time, probably since it was available.

 

[KNERSIE]

It's a good thing. Many horse registries require it.

It is good if anyone questions an animal's parentage.

If cattle are tested like horses, it isn't any big deal. We pull either a little mane hair or tail hair being sure to have the root bulb.
Tape it to the test form and mail it.

Same procedure.

 

[Beef Man]

It is to bad that the integrity of a group of cattle breeders has to be questioned but as times has changed so has the people. I think it is a step in the right direction as [at least in the hereford breed] a required dna test would have eliminated the Titan controversy and a few more. Those type of things do not do any breed any good. I remember seeing one of the first frame 8 angus bulls and my dad was along and said "just a damn black holstein" and the bull definetly had the dairy bull disposition. DNA whould have answered the question of what he really was. To me as a old hereford breeder, I beleive dna is ths right thing to do as it will be only on the bulls that are used to produce reg. cattle. I once got burned on a bull from a reputation herd that were useing some titan cattle for size and milk and cleaned up amess a few years later by buying a lot of grey steer and heifer calves back from customers and replaced their bulls. Hard lesson learnedand costly. Also had some females selected as replacements that went to the deepfreeze biz.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

It is to bad that the integrity of a group of cattle breeders has to be questioned but as times has changed so has the people. I think it is a step in the right direction as [at least in the hereford breed] a required dna test would have eliminated the Titan controversy and a few more. Those type of things do not do any breed any good. I remember seeing one of the first frame 8 angus bulls and my dad was along and said "just a be nice black holstein" and the bull definetly had the dairy bull disposition. DNA whould have answered the question of what he really was. To me as a old hereford breeder, I beleive dna is ths right thing to do as it will be only on the bulls that are used to produce reg. cattle. I once got burned on a bull from a reputation herd that were useing some titan cattle for size and milk and cleaned up amess a few years later by buying a lot of grey steer and heifer calves back from customers and replaced their bulls. Hard lesson learnedand costly. Also had some females selected as replacements that went to the deepfreeze biz.

Beefman - if I read your post correctly, you are saying an Angus bull you sold produced some grey calves. That would NOT be the bulls fault. A black animal of ANY breed cannot throw the diluter gene. The COWS passed the duluter gene. Impossible for a black bull to be responsible for grey/chocolate calves. All he did was pass on the black gene. So, if you "cleaned up that mess", you got :bang:

 

[KNERSIE]

It is to bad that the integrity of a group of cattle breeders has to be questioned but as times has changed so has the people. I think it is a step in the right direction as [at least in the hereford breed] a required dna test would have eliminated the Titan controversy and a few more. Those type of things do not do any breed any good. I remember seeing one of the first frame 8 angus bulls and my dad was along and said "just a be nice black holstein" and the bull definetly had the dairy bull disposition. DNA whould have answered the question of what he really was. To me as a old hereford breeder, I beleive dna is ths right thing to do as it will be only on the bulls that are used to produce reg. cattle. I once got burned on a bull from a reputation herd that were useing some titan cattle for size and milk and cleaned up amess a few years later by buying a lot of grey steer and heifer calves back from customers and replaced their bulls. Hard lesson learnedand costly. Also had some females selected as replacements that went to the deepfreeze biz.

Beefman - if I read your post correctly, you are saying an Angus bull you sold produced some grey calves. That would NOT be the bulls fault. A black animal of ANY breed cannot throw the diluter gene. The COWS passed the duluter gene. Impossible for a black bull to be responsible for grey/chocolate calves. All he did was pass on the black gene. So, if you "cleaned up that mess", you got :bang:

Jeanne, he breeds herefords and as I read it he was referring to hereford bulls he sold that carried the diluter gene that came from the infamous Titan 23D

 

[Beef Man]

Jeanne, No we did not breed the black bull, he came out of the state of Washington and was used by a large well known breeder and when we saw him he was on a neighbors purebred operation. The grey calves I bought back were out of bulls that we had sold to our commercial customers and on their cows produced these diluter calves. The thing that bothered me the most was after we had purchased the herd bull,I asked the people ,that had raise'd him if there would be any problems if we used him on our registered cows and their answer was we would use him ourselves. Know I'm one of the old breeders that grew up inthe hereford dwarfdays and should have known better. But instead took a reputeable breeders word. After an extencive search i found found one of the highly touted sons of 22D in his pedigree.This was before we had PC's available and we did things like that with pen and paper.Always had to do some researchboth through tha AHA and read advertised pedigrees. Like I said before a big mistake BUT it could have been worse if we would'nthave discovered this when we did we had tremendous interest in this particular bull by a number of fellow hereford breeders as he was a super type of bull complete with perfect red to the ground and loads of pigment. I shudder to think what damage this one could have done to our breed . It has always hurt me to see what length's some people will do to get ahead nevermind what they leave behind as their legacy. Sorry for my extensive ramblings.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

BeefMan - sorry I misunderstood and thought you were talking about an Angus bull. It would pay for me to know OTHER breeds pedigrees better.
I had heard about Herefords passing the diluter gene (hmmm that seems to be a Simmental trait - along with nice goggle eyes!) sorry, couldn't help myself. bad girl bad girl bad girl :dunce:

 

[Beef Man]

Jeanne, NO its good honest girl. There is a few other traits, hair pattern,ears and ear set and of coarse color. Not many herefords had as yellow hair color as the oldtime simmi's had or the milking ability.

 

[KNERSIE]

BeefMan - sorry I misunderstood and thought you were talking about an Angus bull. It would pay for me to know OTHER breeds pedigrees better.
I had heard about Herefords passing the diluter gene (hmmm that seems to be a Simmental trait - along with nice goggle eyes!) sorry, couldn't help myself. bad girl bad girl bad girl :dunce:

The goggle eyes were found in the earliest herefords in England as painting dating back 250 years in the headquarters of the Hereford Foundation in Offa Street Hereford shows.

No doubt the frame race was just to good to be completely true, its common knowledge that Chianina and British Friesian was used in the UK to "help" the angus progress along.

I have no doubt some had slipped some simmental and who knows what else in in the hereford frame race, but what puzzles me is that most of the frame race bulls bred away every little drop of milk that there was and surely if there was that much simmental in them they would have added milk?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

You would think they would have kept milk if there was any Simmie in the woodpile.