Looking for suggestions on calves

[blackladies]

It would be CRAZY to keep any heifers that test positive. The potential for the defect to be passed on and eventually get into the general population is always going to be a concern. I don't care if they are the prettiest heifer on the planet... they go to the feedlot. Anything else is irresponsible.

Just have the vet an out for a blood draw? What would I ask him to test for?

 

[blackladies]

One of the great things about the cattle business is that we can grow out of our mistakes if we recognize them and plan accordingly.

If your "speckled parks" throw white on their calves after being bred registered homozygous black Angus they are always going to throw chrome on their calves. One calf and they will still make good freezer beef and you don't have to take the hit at the sale barn.

Freezer beef idea might be good

 

[Travlr]

Just have the vet an out for a blood draw? What would I ask him to test for?

If you're getting a DNA test they already know what they are looking for. They have specific markers that will be identified and you will know if your animal is a carrier or not. That's the only way to be safe moving on with animals that might be carriers.

 

[farmerjan]

Sometimes you just get a dink for no explainable reason, environmental, disease, cow's fault, or whatever. If you kept the cow and get a second dink, then probably the cow's fault.

My sentiments. Have had that happen... an occasional just doesn't grow calf... once it was the cow, 2nd crappy calf and cow went to cull pen... another different cow, just was something weird, next calf was fine... bred to same bull... no other problem calves out of him either...

 

[farmerjan]

Those 2 heifers do not look so much longhorn to me, but I only have 1 longhorn to judge by. I will say that the white stripe down the back often shows up for generations... had a char/hereford/holstein cross cow... looked more char than anything... but with one bull threw a heifer with that stripe... much like a pinzgauer... and she was a nice heifer, I was growing my herd, and all her daughters had the stripe.... HURTS at the feeder sales....
My longhorn is mostly white, some speckles... had a black and white overall speckled heifer first time, solid black bull, 2nd calf... twin solid black heifers 3rd time... white speckled with black bull calf this time(4th calf)... first 2 calves were same bull sire, the 3rd and 4th time were the same sire (different than first sire). Both bulls were homozygous black and polled... None of the calves had horns...
With the markets as good as they have been, it might well be in your best interest to sell the 2 heifers and put that in the kitty also towards a new bull. Around here if they top 7-800 lbs they are worth an easy $1 plus a lb....

 

[Mark Reynolds]

It would be CRAZY to keep any heifers that test positive. The potential for the defect to be passed on and eventually get into the general population is always going to be a concern. I don't care if they are the prettiest heifer on the planet... they go to the feedlot. Anything else is irresponsible.

I wouldn't call it irresponsible. It's more of a calculated risk at that point. Irresponsible would be more along the lines of not testing them and knowing that there is a 50/50 chance of them being a carrier. Keeping a heifer that tests positive and being diligent to be certain she is never bred with an unknown or positive sire and making sure the progeny are only market animals, or are also tested, is a viable course of action. Kinda depends on how cautious and diligent you want to be. Different producers have different goals, different needs, and different tolerances.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

PB Angus breeders have been doing that for years now. Know your defects in your cows and go from there.
Personally, I wouldn't keep one that tested positive, but I have a totally different market. Yes, I have a feedlot buyer that takes all my steers sight unseen - but my true sales are my breeding stock. Reputation is everything. I do not need to be "harboring" a positive tested animal in my herd.
But, again, we are talking totally different farms.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

PB Angus breeders have been doing that for years now. Know your defects in your cows and go from there.
Personally, I wouldn't keep one that tested positive, but I have a totally different market. Yes, I have a feedlot buyer that takes all my steers sight unseen - but my true sales are my breeding stock. Reputation is everything. I do not need to be "harboring" a positive tested animal in my herd.
But, again, we are talking totally different farms.

Case in point, and I'm right there with you. But, to each their own.

 

[Travlr]

I wouldn't call it irresponsible. It's more of a calculated risk at that point. Irresponsible would be more along the lines of not testing them and knowing that there is a 50/50 chance of them being a carrier. Keeping a heifer that tests positive and being diligent to be certain she is never bred with an unknown or positive sire and making sure the progeny are only market animals, or are also tested, is a viable course of action. Kinda depends on how cautious and diligent you want to be. Different producers have different goals, different needs, and different tolerances.

You send that kind of genetic anomaly out into the general population... it's irresponsible.

Keeping genetic carriers of bad mutations and breeding them is not a good thing to do.

 

[wbvs58]

Here is a Fact Sheet by AAA on the Angus DD defect:

https://www.angus.org/pub/DD/DDFactSheet.pdf#:~:text=This%20abnormality%20was%20recently%20found%20to%20be%20a,extra%20limb%20%28a%20condition%20referred%20to%20as%20polymelia%29.

If you purchase ANY Angus commercial or PB cattle (even crossbreds) you are taking the chance of several defects in the breed. Not bashing - just facts. AAA does not require a breeder to test anything. You can run a DNA test on your heifers (not sure, but don't think it's very costly - maybe $45???). Not saying ALL Angus cattle are of high risk - but, evidently there is a good population around you that are carriers. What is the chance you purchased two unrelated animals and both are carriers?
LOL - now are you ready to try black Simmental (required to be tested if Angus or Chianina or Shorthorn or Maine, etc) genetics are used to create the offspring in question.
LOL - I'm being a smartazz.
Back to your replacement heifers. If you would like to keep them, just test them. If they test clean, your good. If 1 or more test positive - you can ship or keep as long as you test the sire you plan to use.
In the Simmental breed, if an animal tests positive, you still have the right to register them, but the genetic defect is put on their registration

It would be CRAZY to keep any heifers that test positive. The potential for the defect to be passed on and eventually get into the general population is always going to be a concern. I don't care if they are the prettiest heifer on the planet... they go to the feedlot. Anything else is irresponsible.

********.

Ken

 

[Travlr]

********.

Ken

Say it out loud, Ken. If you have another opinion this is the place to put it out there.

 

[Warren Allison]

Current bull (black one), red and white is the beefmaster that hopefully fills out some more or I just need to sell him he will be the bull for next year. The black beefmaster cow is his dam. Travlr was wanting some pics

There is your answer right there. Sell both of these bulls and they will more than bring you enough money to get a reg Angus, Brangus or Black Simm.

 

[Warren Allison]

Kept the heifers out of the black bull is the reason I am getting rid of him.

Sell them too, along with those two bulls, and buy some young cows. Right now, with conditions like they are in much pf the west, people are taking good cows to the sale that they would have kept ig they had gotten rain.

 

[Warren Allison]

If you know the bull is or conclude that he is a carrier, then potentially (50/50 chance) that each one of his offspring is a carrier. If you are retaining the offspring as breeding stock, then your breeding stock has a 50/50 chance of being a carrier. IF your breeding stock is a carrier and you mate it with a parent outside your herd of unknown genetic background and that parent happens to be a carrier (you don't know) you now have a recipe for a 25% chance of the calf produced from that pairing to be phenotypically defective, or dead. Do you want to take that chance? I did on a computer simulated project working on my Bachelor's degree from college 34 years ago. I still remember it. I ended up losing 5 of 47 calves to a resulting genetic defect. It didn't cost me monetarily then, but if I were to do that in real life, a loss of nearly 15% of my calf crop income, plus a year of cost feeding those now proven genetically defective cows (5 of them known, and an additional amount unknown if they are defective that didn't throw dead calves) would be financially devastating, even for a single calf season. Not worth the risk in my book.

Yep. And for God's sake, @blackladies , DO NOT breed that bull to his daughters! Someone on here told you it would be ok to do it a time or two, but NO....it is NOT!!

 

[Warren Allison]

Those were two I bought off of that Craigslist ad. Speckle parks have angus in them so I thought breeding to a black bull might throw a nice calf. The longer I have them though the more they look like longhorns.

Can you post a pic of them? Have they been dehorned?

 

[Travlr]

 

[Warren Allison]

Can you post a pic of them> Have they been dehorned?

Never mind, I saw the pics you had already posted. Looks like they may be an angus/LH cross. When you get that new reg polled c black bull, that is homo black, they will probably raise you some good black polled calves.

 

[redcowsrule33]

I would have no trouble keeping a tested carrier in my herd if she was otherwise worthy to stay. I would not sell her or her progeny as a breeding animal to anyone without a clean test.

Selling a carrier as a feeder calf is no guarantee that it will not end up in someone's herd.

 

[blackladies]

Can get the heifers tested if that's is the sentiment and it's not horribly expensive. Will just let the vet do the second round of shots and castrate the bull calves instead of myself this year and let him do a blood test while he is at it. Haven't had trouble with any other calves except out of that one cow and dummy me the first one out of her wouldn't have even been that bulls because I bought her bred, didn't even think of it till just now.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Can get the heifers tested if that's is the sentiment and it's not horribly expensive. Will just let the vet do the second round of shots and castrate the bull calves instead of myself this year and let him do a blood test while he is at it. Haven't had trouble with any other calves except out of that one cow and dummy me the first one out of her wouldn't have even been that bulls because I bought her bred, didn't even think of it till just now.

Testing is good if you want to go that route. HOWEVER, have a plan (write it down) as to what you are going to do if 25%, 50%, 75% of the heifers are positive. Sell all at once, Sell over a couple years, keep and breed to negative bull and sell all progeny or test progeny and keep negatives/sell positives. In other words, testing isn't going to do you any good if you don't respond in some fashion to the test results.