Inbreeding question?

[BARNSCOOP]

I purchased a heifer that was supposed to be open in November. She gave birth at 16 months to a bull calf sired by her father. He is the best calf I have had this year. He would be 3/4 Murray Gray and 1/4 Limosine. What are his chances of being a normal bull? The guy I bought the heifer from informed me this week that he has kept some of the sires daughters for the last four years to breed back to him. He has a heifer calf from one of those cows. What are her chances of being normal? Is this a normal practice done when breeding for certain traits? He says he doesn't keep the second generation heifer calves.
Could someone explain this to me as all my calves are terminal and I don't breed to keep. Thanks

 

[BAR_R]

When some do this is it called line breeding. It can be effective at times but not wise due to the maginifaction of some possibally grossly undesireable traits. Not every animal will be like this. You calf could indeed be this years star in the field but in anything other than a terminal operation I would frown on the practice. Fresh DNA is always a good thing....IMHO

 

[grannysoo]

You've opened up a big ole' can of worms on this one. Use the search feature and look for in-breeding and line breeding. There are a lot of opinions that have been cussed and discussed.

The best way I've heard it described is that it's line breeding when it works and inbreeding when it doesn't...

 

[talldog]

NO truer words have ever been spoken--- you sure are smart grannysoo !!!!!

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

Can you see anything wrong with the calf?? If not whats the problem. It don't got three toes or two tails or something like that has it?

 

[farmwriter]

Grannysoo, that's exactly what my Daddy has always said.
We had an oops like that with our longhorn bull back when we had him. We still have the resulting cow and she had her second calf this year.
The first bull calf became freezer beef that turned out just fine.
This time it's a heifer, so we'll see if she turns into a breeder or a feeder.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

There isn't anything wrong with line breeding other than you take a risk of having defects show up. If more people in the Angus breed had done some line breeding, they may have found their defects sooner!
If you have an X son (XS) & an X daughter (XD) and they mate, you will get a calf that is 50% of X.
XS passes 25% of sire & XD passes 25% of sire = 50% of sire
Same % as when you used the direct sire.

 

[BARNSCOOP]

Thanks for the input everyone.