Miles City calving sheets

[Taurus]

In theory, linebreeding increases homozygosity of gene pairs. If you increase homozygosity your gonna make one animal homozygous for positive genes and another homozygous for negative genes. So you will get superior animals and inferior animals. You keep the superiors and cull the inferiors and hope you can maintain enough numbers to keep the line going.

Will you expecting some consistency from this closed herd?

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

With all your great and expert cattle knowledge, you ask a question like that Taurus. I thought you knew everthing about cattle.

 

[Taurus]

With all your great and expert cattle knowledge, you ask a question like that Taurus. I thought you knew everthing about cattle.

And what is your big deal, RBB?

 

[alexfarms]

In theory, linebreeding increases homozygosity of gene pairs. If you increase homozygosity your gonna make one animal homozygous for positive genes and another homozygous for negative genes. So you will get superior animals and inferior animals. You keep the superiors and cull the inferiors and hope you can maintain enough numbers to keep the line going.

Will you expecting some consistency from this closed herd?

If you bought a bull off the Miles City sale (these would be the top cut) and out crossed him on a group of like-bred cows, you should expect a pretty uniform calf crop.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

In theory, linebreeding increases homozygosity of gene pairs. If you increase homozygosity your gonna make one animal homozygous for positive genes and another homozygous for negative genes. So you will get superior animals and inferior animals. You keep the superiors and cull the inferiors and hope you can maintain enough numbers to keep the line going.

So it appears after 70 some odd years they still haven't been able to cull out the one's suffering from dwarfism and bad udders.

 

[alexfarms]

In theory, linebreeding increases homozygosity of gene pairs. If you increase homozygosity your gonna make one animal homozygous for positive genes and another homozygous for negative genes. So you will get superior animals and inferior animals. You keep the superiors and cull the inferiors and hope you can maintain enough numbers to keep the line going.

So it appears after 70 some odd years they still haven't been able to cull out the one's suffering from dwarfism and bad udders.

I'm pretty sure there are no actual dwarfs in the crop, using the true definition of the genetic abnormality of dwarfism. But you bring up a good point: after 70+ years of selection for high growth, within the line, a great deal of variation in growth still exists within the line.

As for udders, I agree, they haven't improved them. I don't think they paid much attention to udder score when they made their selections. They have concentrated mainly on growth. The herd has been used in several long term USDA experiments. I bought a couple darn good uddered cows from Miles City and I bought a few that had horrid udders.

 

[alexfarms]

Yes the breed just about all has some Miles City influence and it makes me wonder if that will be good as we continue to try improveing economecly? What if we all had bred only Zato Heirs, King promises, Major Dhu's,Colorado Domino's, and so many more. We might breed ourselves in a corner and this breed cannot stand anymore mistakes!!

I agree. I've seen guys dive into the Line 1s, thinking they could quickly put together a herd of them and then bail out just as quickly with a lot less money to show for their investment.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

In theory, linebreeding increases homozygosity of gene pairs. If you increase homozygosity your gonna make one animal homozygous for positive genes and another homozygous for negative genes. So you will get superior animals and inferior animals. You keep the superiors and cull the inferiors and hope you can maintain enough numbers to keep the line going.

So it appears after 70 some odd years they still haven't been able to cull out the one's suffering from dwarfism and bad udders.

I'm pretty sure there are no actual dwarfs in the crop, using the true definition of the genetic abnormality of dwarfism. But you bring up a good point: after 70+ years of selection for high growth, within the line, a great deal of variation in growth still exists within the line.

As for udders, I agree, they haven't improved them. I don't think they paid much attention to udder score when they made their selections. They have concentrated mainly on growth. The herd has been used in several long term USDA experiments. I bought a couple darn good uddered cows from Miles City and I bought a few that had horrid udders.

Maybe the light weight is more of a defect found in all the cows, and that's why they haven't gotten it out of the herd yet? Since they still haven't broke out from the same line.

 

[Carlos F.]

Here is some information about L1:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/m ... rd0310.htm

 

[Beef Man]

Like I said sometime ago on a forum about the line 1's,they made no effort to correct for structural soundness,milk,there has been a problem with prolapse,which may have eliminated itself,a one time parot tongue. I do think that these last few years the advisoury board stepped up and some genetic things were dealt with. It is and will always be a puzzle to me how they existed and prospered as well as they have. Not many years ago I bought all their used young herd bulls and sent them to slaughter,but know at least 2 commercial herds that are as pure line 1's as the station's cowherd and sware by them. Neither one ever have much for weaning weight's and looks like to me that they may have somewhat of a fertility problem but they seem to run them pretty rough.Go figure!! A good Angus friend told us awhile back that they were looking to get into Hereford seedstock business. We wondered why as they are 3rd-4th generation Angus and they,decided if the hereford breed could stand and survive the line 1's we were indeed a basic survival breed. [probabley meant this as ajoke]

 

[alexfarms]

Like I said sometime ago on a forum about the line 1's,they made no effort to correct for structural soundness,milk,there has been a problem with prolapse,which may have eliminated itself,a one time parot tongue. I do think that these last few years the advisoury board stepped up and some genetic things were dealt with. It is and will always be a puzzle to me how they existed and prospered as well as they have. Not many years ago I bought all their used young herd bulls and sent them to slaughter,but know at least 2 commercial herds that are as pure line 1's as the station's cowherd and sware by them. Neither one ever have much for weaning weight's and looks like to me that they may have somewhat of a fertility problem but they seem to run them pretty rough.Go figure!! A good Angus friend told us awhile back that they were looking to get into Hereford seedstock business. We wondered why as they are 3rd-4th generation Angus and they,decided if the hereford breed could stand and survive the line 1's we were indeed a basic survival breed. [probabley meant this as ajoke]

They are tough range cattle and I think the carcass traits on them are better than they get credit for.

 

[Willow Springs]

A few on here seem to want to pick out the poorest calves and comment on them. I don't know about anyone else but always get a few that get sick, injured, mothers don't milk or just seem to be poor dooers each year.

Most of the weights actually didn't look that bad to me considering the cow weights and age of the calves. Just for fun I went through the first page of weights and did some calcs. Avg calf age when the weaning weight was taken was 179 days; avg 205 day adjusted weight would be 496 lbs (don't know what were heifers/steers/bulls) without giving any adjustments for cow age. Avg cow weight was 1248 for 40% of cow weight weaned (adjusted calf weight).

Now I don't know exactly how the cows are fed/pastured/managed, but depending on those things the cows could actually be very profitable with these numbers. Also don't know much about grazing in the Miles City area, but in my few travels through the area it wasn't what I considered prime grazing land. I would think cows would have to do some travelling to get a belly full. Also don't know the frame of the calves; were they small and fat, or framier with some ability to grow if the groceries were there? Depending on the management system again, maybe it is better to have lighter calves, and get the cows bred? The calves can always be fed later and will experience compensatory gain to recover some of the weight they didn't gain on pasture.

Maybe someone else can elaborate on these questions?

 

[alexfarms]

A few on here seem to want to pick out the poorest calves and comment on them. I don't know about anyone else but always get a few that get sick, injured, mothers don't milk or just seem to be poor dooers each year.

Most of the weights actually didn't look that bad to me considering the cow weights and age of the calves. Just for fun I went through the first page of weights and did some calcs. Avg calf age when the weaning weight was taken was 179 days; avg 205 day adjusted weight would be 496 lbs (don't know what were heifers/steers/bulls) without giving any adjustments for cow age. Avg cow weight was 1248 for 40% of cow weight weaned (adjusted calf weight).

Now I don't know exactly how the cows are fed/pastured/managed, but depending on those things the cows could actually be very profitable with these numbers. Also don't know much about grazing in the Miles City area, but in my few travels through the area it wasn't what I considered prime grazing land. I would think cows would have to do some travelling to get a belly full. Also don't know the frame of the calves; were they small and fat, or framier with some ability to grow if the groceries were there? Depending on the management system again, maybe it is better to have lighter calves, and get the cows bred? The calves can always be fed later and will experience compensatory gain to recover some of the weight they didn't gain on pasture.

Maybe someone else can elaborate on these questions?

The cows are range cows, probably 20-25 acres per cow, hill ground. The calves probably would average just over 5 frame. Top out low 6, bottom probably under 4. The calves are dry lot fed after weaning and they are green coming off the cows. The poor ones have caught a lot of readers eyes here. If you pick through them there are some pretty good calves in the crop. They had a good year in 2013, good rain and the calves look better than in a few years...so I was told by staff at the station. Also remember, they probably carry about a 30% inbreeding coefficient after 80 years as a closed herd.

 

[Beef Man]

A few on here seem to want to pick out the poorest calves and comment on them. I don't know about anyone else but always get a few that get sick, injured, mothers don't milk or just seem to be poor dooers each year.

Most of the weights actually didn't look that bad to me considering the cow weights and age of the calves. Just for fun I went through the first page of weights and did some calcs. Avg calf age when the weaning weight was taken was 179 days; avg 205 day adjusted weight would be 496 lbs (don't know what were heifers/steers/bulls) without giving any adjustments for cow age. Avg cow weight was 1248 for 40% of cow weight weaned (adjusted calf weight).

Now I don't know exactly how the cows are fed/pastured/managed, but depending on those things the cows could actually be very profitable with these numbers. Also don't know much about grazing in the Miles City area, but in my few travels through the area it wasn't what I considered prime grazing land. I would think cows would have to do some travelling to get a belly full. Also don't know the frame of the calves; were they small and fat, or framier with some ability to grow if the groceries were there? Depending on the management system again, maybe it is better to have lighter calves, and get the cows bred? The calves can always be fed later and will experience compensatory gain to recover some of the weight they didn't gain on pasture.

Maybe someone else can elaborate on these questions?

The cows are range cows, probably 20-25 acres per cow, hill ground. The calves probably would average just over 5 frame. Top out low 6, bottom probably under 4. The calves are dry lot fed after weaning and they are green coming off the cows. The poor ones have caught a lot of readers eyes here. If you pick through them there are some pretty good calves in the crop. They had a good year in 2013, good rain and the calves look better than in a few years...so I was told by staff at the station. Also remember, they probably carry about a 30% inbreeding coefficient after 80 years as a closed herd.

Liveing fairly close to the station and running a beef breeding herd on similar range there is a lot of truth to your observations. They,I don't think, much care if the cattle get any extra care or feed unless its some experementell project. A lot of things have been proven at Miles City and it has been some things that has been of real importance to the industry. I guess I'm still wondering if there cattle has made enough progress to justify their postion in the Hereford breed??