Heterosis

[greenwillowherefords]

I do not even intend for this to be a deep, scientific discussion. I will state what I think, and would like to know your opinions:

In order for hybrid vigor to produce offspring that matches or exceeds the performance of the best parent, there must be near equality between the parents, and the commercial herd must have a structured breeding plan.

To illustrate what I mean: A good friend, a registered Hereford breeder, has land bordering that of an Angus breeder. He has a cow that has always indexed near the top of his herd, before and after the following incident. His neighbor's Angus bull jumped the fence and bred this cow. The resulting calf had one of the lowest weaning weights of the group. This leads me to believe that in this case, the quality of the offending bull was so much less than that of the herd, that heterosis could not overcome the difference. Let me stop and say right here:I am not insinuating that this was the case because the offending bull was an Angus. It could have happened easily the other way around. So please don't be offended, Angus breeders!

I have also noted in several circumstances, purebred cows weaning heavier calves than crossbred cows when bred to the same bull. Other commercial herds with more years of careful selection are very competitive.

I feel that it is important to make sure that you choose a bull that will improve your herd as a whole, rather than chase a short term fad. There are of course exceptions when dealing with terminal crosses.

 

[farmer rich]

I would say that is a fair statement. As an extreme example, if you cross a holstein with an angus you wouldnt expect the progeny to have better beefing qualities than the angus or give more milk than the holstein. If one side of the cross has poor conformation you cant expect the other half to drag it right up. Traits have varying degrees of heritability.

 

[Ryder]

Right GW. If you defiine heterosis as being the superiority of the offspring over the mean of the parents, then one good and one poor parent may produce an offspring better than parent average, but not as good as the best parent.

Heterosis is a great tool to sometimes maximize genetic potential, but it cannot make up for a lack of genetic potential to start with.

 

[MY]

Well, regarding BW heterosis it would appear that the Angus' traditionally low birthweight was completely dominant here. However, I don't know that it's fair to say at this juncture that there was no heterosis in the mating until there is a chance to look at WW and YW, and carcass quality. It may be that this small BW crossbred calf will be a easy fleshing rapid gainer exceeding either of the parents' previous offspring, their herd average, or even breed averages in performance.

The ultimate goal of some breeders is to have a program that produces such consistent and uniform high quality specimen, that they may likely lose vigor when crossbred. I know this defies logic for most of the commercial cattlemen because most are in the habit of thinking crossbred= hybrid vigor=higher profits. To my way of thinking though linebreeding= less variation=higher quality more often=higher profits. Not all will agree, but solid long standing programs in both the Angus and Hereford breeds have proven this to be true. Greenwillow, it could be that either the Angus bull or Hereford cow produce offspring benefitting more from heterosis within their respective breed than when crossbred. I don't view that as a bad thing, but I'm not the guy buying a bull for crossbred commerical purposes from either of those herds, so my ideas may not be worth two squirts of lemon juice.

 

[greenwillowherefords]

MY, I think you misunderstood the situation. I don't know what the BW of the calf was, just that it was the lightest calf the cow weaned before or after, and she has always weaned near the top of the herd. The Hereford herd was linebred. Based on what I've read and heard, a linebred animal should produce offspring that maximize a cross-breeding situation.

I believe it is right to say that if you had a top-notch herd of cows, and turned a scrub bull in on them, the calves might be better than the sire, but they will not attain unto the dam.

On the other hand, if you had a herd of less than ideal cows, and put a top-notch bull on them, the calves will be better than their dams, but will not attain unto the sire. That is the name of the game IMO, to always improve the average of the herd through the sire.

 

[Lngvew]

The use of hybrid vigor is a wonderful tool but by no means a sure thing. A super cow bred to a below average bull will give you an average calf, good cow to good bull better calf and so on. Then there are the extremes, at some point in a cows production years she will produce 1 very poor and 1 very good calf (based on the average of her production). The same applies to the bull. If this occurs at the same point in time then you will a calf that just sucks or the one we all live for. My point is that I agree with the statement that you should always try breed up. Have any of you experenced this cycle? I have gotten the calf that sucks but have not hit the other end of the scale, YET,

 

[Ryan]

I believe it is right to say that if you had a top-notch herd of cows, and turned a scrub bull in on them, the calves might be better than the sire, but they will not attain unto the dam.

On the other hand, if you had a herd of less than ideal cows, and put a top-notch bull on them, the calves will be better than their dams, but will not attain unto the sire. That is the name of the game IMO, to always improve the average of the herd through the sire.

I completely agree with you. My dad and I, and others too, have been preaching this to other longhorn breeders for years.

I see this WAY TOO MUCH in the Longhorn industry, and it is getting worse and worse: Too many people are going out and spending ridiculous amounts of money on females that they think are top notch, the likes of $61,000, $72,000, and even $82,000 on cows they think are tops. But too many of them use a $1000 bull, and they wonder why their cows aren't producing.

If you have top of the line cows, buy a top of the line bull that can help your herd, and not some scrub bull.

Our head senior herdsire is as good, or better, than every female in the herd (well except maybe 1). We just bought a young bull that we think can be as good, if not better than him (i'll get a picture up of him next week). He was the TLBT National Youth Show Grand Champion Bull, Grand Champion Longhorn Bull at Houston, and many other places. We bought him b/c we know his bloodlines will work with our herd and we needed another bloodline to cross our young females to. We realized we needed to a top notch bull to increase the genetic opportunity of the offspring from our females.

Ryan

 

[MY]

OK, the calf was small regardless of BW. That is typically an Angus trait. My point was/is the small calf may still be a real good gainer despite the smaller size. It would appear that the Angus trait of low BW was dominant here.

Yes, one would think that a linebred animal should produce a literal "explosion" of hybrid vigor when outcrossed or crossbred, but it's not always the case. Sometimes there is a better niche of the genetics within a family or breed than with an outcross or crossbreeding.

Think of the polarity of magnets for a moment. One way they jump together, but turn one opposite and they repel. There is a point in some linebred programs that the genetics click up better with like-in-kind rather than with something different. I'm seeing this now in my nearly 2 decade old canine family, my inbred dogs are actually producing vigor that exceeds anything that I have ever used, and the couple of recent outcrosses or looser breedings we have done have not come close to the performance of the tighter dogs, even though they all still have a component of the core family within them also.

So things aren't always what they ought to be in animal husbandry, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing if we come to understand the nuances of each animal or small group of animals.

GW said:

I believe it is right to say that if you had a top-notch herd of cows, and turned a scrub bull in on them, the calves might be better than the sire, but they will not attain unto the dam.

On the other hand, if you had a herd of less than ideal cows, and put a top-notch bull on them, the calves will be better than their dams, but will not attain unto the sire. That is the name of the game IMO, to always improve the average of the herd through the sire.

While I say that either scenario may hold true, there are no absolutes like this in the breeding of any kind of animals. I bred Fancy Rats for a few years and was usually pretty surprised at the offspring. The experiment was basically one of size, color inheritance, and hair texture, and was really quite fascinating. The above quote Greenwillow I assume is made under the assumption that a particular animal is going to come close to replicating himself more often than not, while reality has shown me over the years that an animal will more often than not produce the average of his own ancestry not himself.....until we get into much tighter inbreeding. For example in the first part of the above quote, if the scrub bull was a real turkey, a cull that should have been steered, but comes from some distingushed ancestry the bull might produce something from those cows that exceeds anything they have ever been bred to. DOC HARRIS explained this well a couple weeks ago somewhere on here that Phenotype and Genotype are distinct characteristics.

Now in the second part of your quote I must ask why do we have to always improve our herd by the sires we choose? Do they contribute more than 50% to their offspring :?: Some bulls may be very prepotent and put a real stamp on their calves, but some may produce their great great grandsire repeatedly too, and maybe he was a poor speciman. The truth of the matter is this........ Excellence comes from a good cow and a good bull, who have a good solid 3 or 4 generation pedigree.... AND (most important factor here) the ability to produce the same kind that are behind them. Let's say we had a flush with 5 sexed bull calves all with identical pedigrees. They will not all be the same physically or in their ability to produce. The fact of the matter is the best producer may not be the best phisical speciman. In a commerical program, I believe we can breed just about anything and get away with it as long as the ancestry is sound. In a linebred program though you cannot throw in the culls any longer because as you increase the inbreeding coeffcient, you will increase the chances of a particular animal expressing closer genetic representations of himself more often. Selectivity becomes imperative. It doesn't ever hurt to be selective, but a nice cow with a poor bacground isn't as nice as a poor cow with an excellent background as a brood animal in my opinion. The fact is as breeders we have to make a few compromises sometimes, because the perfect animal doesn't come along very often. If the perfect animal can't produce himself or better than himself, well he ain't the perfect animal anyhow the way I see it.

Hope I didn't put anyone to sleep, insult anyone, or ruffle any feathers. I'm just trying to help shed a little different perspective on things based on a little bit of past experience.

 

[Ryan]

This kind of goes along with what MY said:

My grandpa had a this bull. He was a really good, sound, solid bull, but not the biggest, most muscular bull, nothing too great to look at. But he was the best producing bull i've ever seen. No matter what kind of cow he was with, they nearly always produced awesome calves. Produced many World Grand Champion offspring out of many different types of females (body, muscling, and pedigree differences). Then he bought 2 outstanding females (great body, conformation, capacity, and stellar pedigrees) from another breeder. The 2 females had similar breeding and were same in their type and kind. 6 calves out of this mating (3 from each female) later, and zero calves worth keeping.

To me, this just shows that sometimes 2 animals that are outstanding in their own right, might not produce offspring that are as good as you'd hoped, or as you thought they should be.

MY said:

So things aren't always what they ought to be in animal husbandry, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing if we come to understand the nuances of each animal or small group of animals

I think the above story is a good example of that quote. That bull with those 2 females should have produced home run calves. But for some reason that cross just didnt work.

Ryan

 

[SF]

...Too many people are going out and spending ridiculous amounts of money on females that they think are top notch, the likes of $61,000, $72,000, and even $82,000 on cows they think are tops. But too many of them use a $1000 bull, and they wonder why their cows aren't producing...

For small producers with less than 30 or 40 cows, their bull is half their herd. Another way of putting it. Your cows is where you are in the cattle business. Your bull or bulls are where you are going.

 

[Frankie]

Some interesting thoughts here. But I can tell you from experience that you can breed the best bulls available to a sorry cow and will probably get sorry calves. Been there; done that. You might not get a winner every time by breeding good bulls to good cows, but your odds are better.

ABS usd to have an Angus bull Emulation N Bar 5522. He was not an attractive animal. But he was a superior producer. Lots and lots of today's Angus cattle have him in their pedigree.

 

[Ryan]

Another way of putting it. Your cows is where you are in the cattle business. Your bull or bulls are where you are going.

I love the way you put it. I wil have to use that sometime, if thats okay.

Ryan

 

[Cattle Rack Rancher]

After a certain number of times of linebreeding in anything, you come to a point called 'suppression'. This is the point where you have a very defined set of dominant characteristics in the plant or animal that you have been breeding to. The secret then is to find another linebred plant or animal with a well defined set of dominant characteristics that are different but compliment the other plant or animal's characteristics that you are breeding to. The offspring will have all of these dominant characteristics. This works both ways of course. If you've had generations of bad dominant characteristics, they will show up just as easily as the good ones. In breeds like the Angus and the Herefords where there are so many different and diversified bloodlines, heterosis is usually available without going outside the breed. If I was to guess what the problem was with crossing the Hereford cow to the Angus bull as you mentioned and getting poor weaning weight, I would guess that this may be a characteristic expressed by both the cow and the bull and therefore would be one of those dominant characteristics even though it is not a desirable one. I would guess that the farmer who owns the cow may be buying his bulls based on weaning weights and if they are linebred for this, it will be expressed as one of those dominant traits.

 

[MY]

Great example Ryan, thanks for sharing.

Frankie said:

ABS usd to have an Angus bull Emulation N Bar 5522. He was not an attractive animal. But he was a superior producer.

Right along the lines of what I was stating above Frankie, thanks. Using that kind of bull AND the same type of cows is where it's at IMO. So many times on phenotype alone, these possible outstanding producers are culled in favor of some well put together animal who may be a poor producer.

CRR said:

In breeds like the Angus and the Herefords where there are so many different and diversified bloodlines, heterosis is usually available without going outside the breed.

Ding Ding Ding, we've got a winner folks! Excellent post CRR. Exactly my point above. Going too far out (i.e. another breed) may actually cause us to lose maximum heterosis, where simply crossing bloodlines within a breed may allow us to capitalize on it.
CRR said:

if they are linebred for this, it will be expressed as one of those dominant traits.

This is true regarding any trait when using a linebred animal, because we discard so many possible genetic combinations that everything recessive which is not manifest within the family will be lost. That is the entire purpose of a linbred animal IMO, to allow the hetrosis to occur within the breed so that we don't have to breed F1 crosses to achieve this hybrid vigor that we seek.

By the way CRR.... what exactly are your growing out behind the back fenceline that has got you so dadgum smart about genetic supression and the like? ;-) :cboy:

I love these discussions on breeding philosophy, some good replies thus far, what a great thread.

 

[greenwillowherefords]

All good replies. As for the breeder, he actually develops most of his own bulls, and will bring in an outside cow about as quickly as he will an outside bull, both seldom. I and several friends have witnessed firsthand what happens when his bulls are placed on outcross bloodline cows, and it is pleasing. Go to the series of pictures including the original "tidy udder" argument, and you can see a hindquarter shot of one of these calves. He weighed 273 at 58 or 59 days. Two others are under the "greenwillow's horned 092 calves." One of them weighed 294 at 53 days.

 

[greenwillowherefords]

BTW, the breeder in question does not push exclusively for weaning weights. He castrated the heaviest weaning bull last year because the thickness was not as great as he thought it should be. He also has a maximum BW that he will accept without castrating, regardless of growth. Good disposition is another of his requirements.

Many of his customers use his bulls on Brangus cows.

 

[TheBullLady]

Heterosis is a funny thing. We have probably a dozen cows that we jokingly say we could breed to a fence post and get a super calf. Two are cross breds, the rest are purebreds. Some of the older ones have had five different bulls on them, four different breeds, and always had a good calf. So at that point, I'm going to say that the bull didn't have much influence on the calf?

One of the first bulls we used exclusively on our herd of mostly crossbreds was a Brahman bull. And no matter what we bred him to , his calves were VERY consistent. I didn't realize how hard that trait is to find in a bull until four or five bulls later.

 

[MY]

I and several friends have witnessed firsthand what happens when his bulls are placed on outcross bloodline cows, and it is pleasing. Go to the series of pictures including the original "tidy udder" argument, and you can see a hindquarter shot of one of these calves. He weighed 273 at 58 or 59 days. Two others are under the "greenwillow's horned 092 calves." One of them weighed 294 at 53 days.

Exactly my original point, his stock may produce best to outcross animals within the breed, rather than crossed toanother breed. The question at this point is how often is this same breeder's stock used with Angus cattle? If you say "all the time with great success", then it tends to isolate it down to one cow who seems to produce best within her breed, (or she was merely bred to one of the worst producing Angus bulls on planet earth). If they are seldom used with Angus cattle (or any other breed), and he intends to keep them bred very straight and true then he probably is the type of breeder I mentioned in my early post:

The ultimate goal of some breeders is to have a program that produces such consistent and uniform high quality specimen, that they may likely lose vigor when crossbred.

I'm a fan of this type of program myself, for this type of breeder understands what I call the "Art of Breeding". It's not the right technique for everyone, few are successful with it, but those who are usually make a pretty good name for themselves, change the face of their breed, and leave behind a true legacy.

 

[greenwillowherefords]

In this case, most of his customers are commercial breeders. Having seen the offspring of the bull I purchased from him used in two commercial herds, I can say that the bull is a definite herd improver.

An additional note: The senior herd sire sired a bull that stole the show at the Oklahoma Hereford Tour last year. His thickness and disposition were the primary points of attraction. So we are not talking about an average herd bull that the intruder gets compared to.