Starting a herd

[Jogeephus]

Jogeephus, but.... that can't be true just look at the numbers. The most successful cattlemen I know run bulls with their cows, and for the most part they don't use test tube bulls either.

Are you saying I need to do a recount of the two remaining? You are probably right. Another one might have kicked the bucket too. Funny thing about numbers is when half of the one's you buy die the cost of the remainder doubles in price which is why I choose not to invest a lot in replacement heifers and prefer to grow my own. Not sure but that tattoo ink might just have poison in it. :lol2:

 

[RMCDUFFEE]

RMcDuffee,
There's no doubt in my mind that many beef seedstock operations 'acquired' Johne's Disease in the early days of embryo transfer, when cull dairy cows or dairy heifers of uncertain status were widely used as embryo recipients - and subsequently were determined to be infected with M.avium subsp. paratuberculosis, the organism that causes Johne's Disease.

Lucky_P
A very good point and another reason why ET is not in my foreseeable future. But then, I'm not in the Seedstock business. I just want to raise quality commercial beef and make money doing it.

 

[Cattleplanner]

I want to thank those who offered their opinions and I will consider them carefully. Those who made the wise cracks are not true cattlemen in my opinion, just wise arses with low self worth. The person who said they would not be doing cattle if they had money, I ask, what are you doing in a job that you don't like? I love working with cattle!
Happy new year to all the kind people!

 

[Jessica06]

Find a really good ET guy. Seems to me the really good ones don't advertise a whole lot. I wouldn't go to a more well-known place unless I absolutely had to, after the stories I've heard. We've been working with someone who's doing something a lot like what you have in mind, except on a Much larger scale. If you've got the money, pick your embryos wisely, and have a pretty good success rate, it could potentially put you many years ahead, genetically, of where you would have been otherwise. Potentially...anything in cattle is a crap shoot, ESPECIALLY genetics. Find embryos from animals that breed true.

 

[acefire]

I want to thank those who offered their opinions and I will consider them carefully. Those who made the wise cracks are not true cattlemen in my opinion, just wise arses with low self worth. The person who said they would not be doing cattle if they had money, I ask, what are you doing in a job that you don't like? I love working with cattle!
Happy new year to all the kind people!

Just wondering how you are doing, I am now going down the path you did in 2007.
Hope you are doing good.