Parentage Verification/DNA Testing

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Wisteria Farms

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Hi all...
Sorry I haven't been around lately...my Murrays are doing great and we recently attended the NAILE (so I HAVE been doing cattle!haha). My question is.... tell me everything you know about Parentage Verification and other reasons for DNA testing.

My bull was verified so he could be placed in the herdbook but what good reasons are there for breed associations to DEMAND testing on registered bulls. Or do they even require it at all? Just tell me what you know...The reason I'm asking is that it was proposed for our association and I'm trying to get input... Thanks!
 
Hey there, glad to hear you are doing okay. Missed you at the NAILE, where the heck did they put the Murrays this year?
On the Parentage thing the Piedmontese are DNA for parentage and myostatin. I don't mind good verification that the animal is who it is supposed to be....JMO
 
Wisteria Farms":28tfjqv1 said:
Hi all...
Sorry I haven't been around lately...my Murrays are doing great and we recently attended the NAILE (so I HAVE been doing cattle!haha). My question is.... tell me everything you know about Parentage Verification and other reasons for DNA testing.

My bull was verified so he could be placed in the herdbook but what good reasons are there for breed associations to DEMAND testing on registered bulls. Or do they even require it at all? Just tell me what you know...The reason I'm asking is that it was proposed for our association and I'm trying to get input... Thanks!

The American Angus Association requires DNA testing before bulls can be used AI and cows that are to be flushed. The reasoning behind that is AI bulls and flushed cows have a larger impact on the breed because they'll produce more calves than a typical bull or cow. The Curley Calf Syndrome thing is going to require that all calves produced by a known carrier will have to be tested before they can be registered, but other than that there's no DNA requirement.

Which Murray Grey Assn are you talking about? Are you saying you'll have to DNA test every animal or just the bulls?
 
In Canada the Angus Assoc. requires all bulls to have DNA test before their offspring can be registered. So a bull who is going to be used commercially would not need to be tested but for use in a purebred herd he would. They also require it for donor dams and each embryo transfer calf must be DNA tested before they can be registered. It used to be one out of every single sire flush - now starting this year it is every calf.
On top of that every 250th calf born is randomly tested. Then the dam and the calf both must be done. In this case the association pays.

I think it is a great idea. When I was a kid we bred horses and the conversation came up about how do we know that we are getting what we think we are getting. One guy was cheating a bit. He bought a few mares with great genetics but who were unable to breed. He then got some partbred put them with a pure stallion and said that they were from the great mares. He was also taking animals that had great conformation and saying they were the ones with the great pedigrees. He did this for about 5 years before he was caught. A colour showed up in one of the offsprings offspring that was not allowed by the breed. He had sold these foals for quite a bit of money and they weren't even pure. One of them by that time was a stallion who was breeding and it just became a real mess.

I like the strict testing in the CAA. These kind of testing rules help to keep people honest. I wouldn't want to pay a lot of money for a purebred bull to find out later that his calves were unregisterable because some jerk who wanted to make a fast buck did some creative paperwork.
 
CKC1586":3pa263sv said:
Hey there, glad to hear you are doing okay. Missed you at the NAILE, where the heck did they put the Murrays this year?
On the Parentage thing the Piedmontese are DNA for parentage and myostatin. I don't mind good verification that the animal is who it is supposed to be....JMO
Hey there! Thanks! We were there on Thursday (I think you were gone by then) but they had us in Broadbent... we didn't show but was there to support and meet for the first time a lot of people we had only spoken with on the phone or email. I'm like you... I like to know everything checks out. Right now all sires for AI have to be DNA Parentage verified but I think what was proposed was that ALL bulls be verified and the opposition came from larger ranches that sell many bulls a year. It was voted down but I wondered if there are any associations out there doing it. It sounds like we're in line with everyone else at this point with only requiring the AI sires be done.
 
Frankie":1fy9vpt2 said:
Wisteria Farms":1fy9vpt2 said:
Hi all...
Sorry I haven't been around lately...my Murrays are doing great and we recently attended the NAILE (so I HAVE been doing cattle!haha). My question is.... tell me everything you know about Parentage Verification and other reasons for DNA testing.

My bull was verified so he could be placed in the herdbook but what good reasons are there for breed associations to DEMAND testing on registered bulls. Or do they even require it at all? Just tell me what you know...The reason I'm asking is that it was proposed for our association and I'm trying to get input... Thanks!

The American Angus Association requires DNA testing before bulls can be used AI and cows that are to be flushed. The reasoning behind that is AI bulls and flushed cows have a larger impact on the breed because they'll produce more calves than a typical bull or cow. The Curley Calf Syndrome thing is going to require that all calves produced by a known carrier will have to be tested before they can be registered, but other than that there's no DNA requirement.

Which Murray Grey Assn are you talking about? Are you saying you'll have to DNA test every animal or just the bulls?
Frankie.... NO NO NO... please... I don't want to spread any false rumors... I am with BOTH the AMGA and the MGIA but this particular question relates to something proposed at an AMGA meeting. It was voted down and after doing just this little bit of research it appears right now it would be excessive and pose undue hardship on the larger producers. As I said just a minute ago, it appears we do the same as all other organizations by requiring testing of AI bulls.
 
4C.. yes, I know what you're talking about.. most of what I could dig up online regarding DNA testing had to do with the current curly calf syndrome. Thanks for the article.
 
The Canadian Murray Grey Association requires that the sire of all registered calves have a DNA profile on record with the association. All AI sires must be parentage verified by DNA. All ET calves must be DNA parentage verified as well. Cost for the DNA profile is about C$40.
 
KEW":scm4gyke said:
The Canadian Murray Grey Association requires that the sire of all registered calves have a DNA profile on record with the association. All AI sires must be parentage verified by DNA. All ET calves must be DNA parentage verified as well. Cost for the DNA profile is about C$40.

Well, you've confused me. Are you saying every MG bull used natural service or AI to produce registerable MG calves must be DNA tested? That's going to get pretty expensive for producers.
 
ET registered Simmentals are required to have parental verification, and donor cows as well. AI sires I believe are also required, which I think they DEFINATELY should be!

Before last year I would have suggested that seems excessive, but I'm now a firm believer that bulls should be tested. If you're going to sell registered bulls for breeding, I think the breeder should as a matter of course. You know, accidents happen, and you sure wouldn't want that phone call from a client!

DNA testing is easy and inexpensive.. just another good marketing tool!
 
Frankie":fhh0io53 said:
KEW":fhh0io53 said:
The Canadian Murray Grey Association requires that the sire of all registered calves have a DNA profile on record with the association. All AI sires must be parentage verified by DNA. All ET calves must be DNA parentage verified as well. Cost for the DNA profile is about C$40.

Well, you've confused me. Are you saying every MG bull used natural service or AI to produce registerable MG calves must be DNA tested? That's going to get pretty expensive for producers.


It is no different with the CGA ,if you use a bull and want to register any offspring from him he must be on file NIA'sOB's. Natural or AI. I will not even buy semen unless there is at the minimum DNA on file from both parents..

It is expensive 40 bucks a pop plus extras, but now a days you have to, it's a given..

Embryos of course you will need dna from dam and sire but that is withe every association I hope.
 
I like the idea of dna testing. I want to know for certain that I am getting the genectics I am paying for. The more information the better. I have always been concerned about the people who use AI then wait a couple of weeks and add a cleanup bull. They say they can tell who the calf belongs to because of the born on date. I am skeptical. I have calf born late or early all the time and they do to.
 
denoginnizer":1x5cjer5 said:
I like the idea of dna testing. I want to know for certain that I am getting the genectics I am paying for. The more information the better. I have always been concerned about the people who use AI then wait a couple of weeks and add a cleanup bull. They say they can tell who the calf belongs to because of the born on date. I am skeptical. I have calf born late or early all the time and they do to.
I know of alot of angus breeders that use herf bulls for cleanup bulls for that reason
 
Frankie":30mmg93f said:
KEW":30mmg93f said:
The Canadian Murray Grey Association requires that the sire of all registered calves have a DNA profile on record with the association. All AI sires must be parentage verified by DNA. All ET calves must be DNA parentage verified as well. Cost for the DNA profile is about C$40.

Well, you've confused me. Are you saying every MG bull used natural service or AI to produce registerable MG calves must be DNA tested? That's going to get pretty expensive for producers.

Yes, The sire of every registered calf must have a DNA profile on record. Why do you think it would be expensive? It is a one time cost. How many new homegrown sires get introduced to a herd in a year? When buying a hers sire from elsewhere insist on the DNA profile.
 
The American Lowline Registry requires DNA parent verification for registration of fullblood Lowline cattle. It costs the producer an extra $25. It reveals a lot of errors that would otherwise have gone into the herd book undetected.
 
The American Galloway Association requires DNA testing before bulls will be registered. It's fairly simple, pull a few tail hairs and mail it in, I think it's like $20, maybe less. It keeps things "pure". If it wasn't required, it would be easy to start crossbreeding and saying they were pure.
 
Just verifying the bull isn't really going to stop the input of other than pure genetics. EX. I have a cow (pure) and breed her to another breed.....I can register a heifer from her (as pure)....then when she has a bull calf from a registered and DNAd bull, I can have the calf registered as pure because they only check the bull dna.

If you want a registered herd then I think DNA testing should be done on both the dam and sire.

Quarter horses were not the only one they played the paper game with...It happened with standardbreds also until it became manditory to DNA both parents...Once a database gets enough data then the discrepancies become more apparent.
 
I'm not trying to be rude here, but you're not looking at the numbers. The American Angus Assn shows over 14,000 registered Angus bulls were sold and papers transferred in FY '08. If only a third, or say 4,000, of them produce registerable calves, that's $80,000 out of pocket for Angus breeders. Yeah, I think $80,000 is pretty big bucks.

Yes, people can cheat, or even make honest mistakes. But how many calves will a bull produce in his lifetime? Say you use him natural service for seven years: 7 X 80 (40 cows, two breeding seasons) = 560 calves. That's not a drop in the bucket to a breed that registered over 300,000 calves the last few years. To make a dent in the breed, an animal has to be flushed or used AI and then their parentage will be found out.
 

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