"Straw Chasers" Good or bad for the industry?

[Herefords.US]

If you sell your calves at weaning, how could that be insignificant?
That would be right at the top on my list for epd #s if i was selling at weaning with maybe a 45 day precondition.

If you sell 50# more calf at weaning at $2.50 lb., yet it costs you $125 a year more per pair to run those cattle, what have you gained? Other than the right to brag how much heavier that your calves are?

EPDs ---- some folks just keep pushing the growth higher and higher --- because some folks seem to be unable to get it in their head that maximum doesn't equal optimum.

 

[bse]

My input costs are not costing me another $125, with the functional 1400 lb cow my costs actually become less, if the cow bred to a good bull cant produce she is no good to me.
I agree theres extremes in all these numbers, if you are selling bulls around here they had better have some performance numbers and preferably low BW.
Allforage my point is this if your selling a bull that doesnt produce good weaning weights for the commercial guy you wont have any repeat customers and you will not survive long without the commercial guy. You can obtain the heterosis you seem to speak of within a breed just by outcrossing your genetics, but if you dont believe in using someone elses prefix it cant be done.

 

[Herefords.US]

My input costs are not costing me another $125, with the functional 1400 lb cow my costs actually become less, if the cow bred to a good bull cant produce she is no good to me.
I agree theres extremes in all these numbers, if you are selling bulls around here they had better have some performance numbers and preferably low BW.
Allforage my point is this if your selling a bull that doesnt produce good weaning weights for the commercial guy you wont have any repeat customers and you will not survive long without the commercial guy. You can obtain the heterosis you seem to speak of within a breed just by outcrossing your genetics, but if you dont believe in using someone elses prefix it cant be done.

I keep comparing apples to apples, yet you want to try to compare them to oranges. I give up - some folks refuse to see the forest for all the trees.

Edited to add: Efficiency will be the coming trait that will be measured and quantified - and we will see then how many of these highest growth cattle will suddenly become very unpopular.

 

[Nesikep]

I think Allforage's point what when you keep 'outcrossing' within the purebreds, the heterosis available to the commercial guy is reduced. If someone has a good linebred herd, there will be consistency and better heterosis when outcrossed in the commercial sector
(correct me if I'm wrong)

 

[cow pollinater]

Edited to add: Efficiency will be the coming trait that will be measured and quantified - and we will see then how many of these highest growth cattle will suddenly become very unpopular.

There's already a move in that direction. Angus has been doing feed efficiency for a while and a few breeders of other breeds as well as a few bull tests have taken it on themselves to test.
The bulls that I consider to be diamonds in the rough are the ones that combine efficiency with growth similar to what "popular" cattle are doing. You have to pick carefully but there's a few...

 

[Nesikep]

The bull calf I kept this year comes from a line that (Unscientifically) seems to have good efficiency... Mother makes big calves, stays fat doing it, and in the winter when I'm feeding, is the one that always seems to be the least hungry.. she's the first to stop eating... It's as good as I can do with the technology I have.

I have seen some cows that are distinctly inefficient... I had a 4 year old cow (a small cow) that ate like a pig, was never fat, and never had a good calf.. That was unscientific as well, but that doesn't automatically mean I'm wrong in my assessment of them.

 

[bse]

This whole thread has gotten completly off course. I can only compare my apples to my apples, I like where im going and do believe that im running less cattle and selling more pounds than my dad did 10 years ago. With less number of cows some of my inputs are down. Less cows less vaccinations, less bulls to clean up.
Still gonns say straws are good.

 

[AllForage]

My input costs are not costing me another $125, with the functional 1400 lb cow my costs actually become less, if the cow bred to a good bull cant produce she is no good to me.
I agree theres extremes in all these numbers, if you are selling bulls around here they had better have some performance numbers and preferably low BW.
Allforage my point is this if your selling a bull that doesnt produce good weaning weights for the commercial guy you wont have any repeat customers and you will not survive long without the commercial guy. You can obtain the heterosis you seem to speak of within a breed just by outcrossing your genetics, but if you dont believe in using someone elses prefix it cant be done.

Bse, you are misreading me, I would like to see purebreds reduce their heterosis so we really can see what is there. Prefix means nothing if the cattle are from a linked or similar line. I market to people that care way beyond the weaning stage. A moderate maternal cow bred to a terminal bull will get big weaning weights it's pretty easy. We are talking about that maternal cow, at least I am.

Kinda fitting how there is s new topic board for AI. Says using the best Bulls of the industry. Now how does anyone know that for a fact? I am sure there are Bulls walking that are better than semen bulls. Just like there is always someone out there that can whoop you. How does one promote moderate and predictable? How do you hype middle of the road? Is this something people want?

 

[Brand]

The bull of the month depending on which promotion breeder is involved some times bull of the week
that semen never seems to settle any cattle for me. After money is in the bank or a lower level promoter runs out the money those bulls are forgotten by the time the few if any calves are born by then the high level promoters all ready have a group of new awaiting photos
even if those new ones are good these same promoters make sure that bull will be bashed for there new ones. Marketing not cattle breeders

as for proven bulls does anyone really want a stranger working for a AI Company to select bulls for us. Does anyone these days go to the time and effort to want to breed just average cattle.
No real answer this issue keep going around while our own bulls really breed the cattle..Except those that have 100 per cent AI Conception.....

 

[dun]

With some exceptions, once an AI bull has gained significant accuracy it would indicate that he has something worth looking at. If he is one of those that always has low accuracy that pretty well would mean he is in that bull of the month category.
This country unlike some of tyhe europeon conyrys don;y haver high standards for bull to be placed in an AI stud. When I started AIing, back when ampules was pretty high tech having moved from the magic wand state, the bulls being imported via embryos/semen were very carfeully screened for the traits that were deemed desireable.
An old friend of mine was on the tam that first started importing Gelbvieh. It took dozens of junkets and several years to come up with the bulls that satisfied the selection group. It was the same with Simmenthals when they first started coming in. I assume, maybe wrongly, that the same kind of due dilegence was given to the other europeon breeds. With the cost of importing bulls and cows, I would imagine that when the first angus and Herefords were brought in the same kind of deal took place.

 

[mrvictordomino]

I think Allforage's point what when you keep 'outcrossing' within the purebreds, the heterosis available to the commercial guy is reduced. If someone has a good linebred herd, there will be consistency and better heterosis when outcrossed in the commercial sector
(correct me if I'm wrong)

You are correct Nesikep. In reading through this thread, George and Dun stress the use of proven bulls with high accuracies. This is necessary due to the fact the way the cattle are bred. Not uncommon at all to see four different bloodlines (or more) in a three generation pedigree.
How will that individual breed?? A good example would be the fire and ice mating's to get better calving ease/birth weight EPD's. A cross of a high BW individual to a lighter BW individual will look better on paper, but actually what will be your results be? You can have light or heavy calves due to inconsistency. Thus the need for proven bulls with the high accuracies. The most heterosis and consistency available to the commercial cattlemen will be through the use of line bred lines of cattle.

 

[Nesikep]

I'd like to know more about how the accuracy is calculated...

There's a bell curve for everything in genetics...
If a bull has a EPD for a 80 lb birthweight, and a 95% accuracy, what does that really mean? Could it be the average of 1,000,000 offspring from a bull with a large spread (60-120 lbs)? Could it equally be from a bull with 1,000 offspring with a spread of only 5 lbs?

 

[dun]

For starters there is no EPD that specifys an amount.
The link has a table that shows what the possible change is for EPDs based on accuracy
http://assets.redangus.org/media/Docume ... racies.pdf

 

[Nesikep]

I had read that once before, and thanks for posting it again, it was a needed refresher...

So here's the point.. a high accuracy bull based on EPD's tells you nothing about the variation on that trait you may find in his offspring...

I know the bull is only half the equation, but I know I can probably breed a couple of my cows to the lowest BW bull in the world and they'll still find a way to make a 120 lb calf out of the deal.
Just a thought that came to me, but perhaps if you had a very prepotent bull (coming from line breeding most likely) for a low BW, that could change what my cows would do.

 

[dun]

I had read that once before, and thanks for posting it again, it was a needed refresher...

So here's the point.. a high accuracy bull based on EPD's tells you nothing about the variation on that trait you may find in his offspring...

I know the bull is only half the equation, but I know I can probably breed a couple of my cows to the lowest BW bull in the world and they'll still find a way to make a 120 lb calf out of the deal.
Just a thought that came to me, but perhaps if you had a very prepotent bull (coming from line breeding most likely) for a low BW, that could change what my cows would do.

I doubt if it would chnage it anymore the the normal variability. Lincoln Red bulls used to be very tightly bred becuse there were so few of them. I bred a cusotmers cows to them. The cows ranged all the way from straight bred angus Hereford to about eveyr imaginable combination including some dairy. All but 1 of the calves were dinky little things just as expected. One cow had a 120 lb boomer. At weaning you couln;t pick that calf our of all the others and the weaning weights didn;t have all that much variation. The next year we bred them all to a Gert bull, the calves were within about 10 pounds of each other , with the same kind of variation at weaning as the previous year. We figured the monster calf was a fluke and since the calves weaned so heavy and really sold well at the salebarn, the third year I again bred everything to the Lincoln Red. All the calves but 1 were tiny little things but the same cow had another 120 pound boomer.
We had a F1 Gelbvieh Red Angus that we bred 5 years running to the same Red Angus bull. The first 4 calves turned out to be dandys. The 5th year she had a runty little thing that didn;t grow worth spit. The next year bred to a different bull (semen waqsn;t available any more) and her calf fit right in with all of the other calves sired by that bull. How genes line up is a real crap shoot. With more homozyous animals the odds are in favor of consistancy, but all it takes is a little different shuffle and you get different results.

 

[gizmom]

I am glad I now know what a straw chaser is. I do have a question are you a straw chaser if you use any straws or just the hot bull of the month :roll:

Gizmom

 

[AllForage]

I am glad I now know what a straw chaser is. I do have a question are you a straw chaser if you use any straws or just the hot bull of the month :roll:

Gizmom

I think it is pretty clear through this thread. This is just me talking, if you are a "seed stock" producer that has been in business for a while, then use your own Bulls. If your Bulls are good enough for others then prove they are. Reduce the hybrid vigor. You never know, you might start to see through the cattle matrix.

 

[gizmom]

AllForage,

http://www.angus.org/Animal/EpdPedDtl.a ... V58Q%3d%3d

We actually do use bulls bred in our program, however I am not going to quit using straws of bulls that I think will improve my herd. If that makes me a straw chaser so be it, I have said before we don't chase numbers I look for the genetic link that will work with our herd, I think that is called breeding. We have line bred we currently have line bred calves on the ground, breeding takes time, just because a cow has another farm prefix doesn't mean she hasn't been in our herd for 10 to 12 years. Should I throw her out because she wasn't bred on our farm? I understand what you are saying some parts I agree with some I don't but I enjoy hearing what you have to say.

Gizmom

 

[AllForage]

AllForage,

http://www.angus.org/Animal/EpdPedDtl.a ... V58Q%3d%3d

We actually do use bulls bred in our program, however I am not going to quit using straws of bulls that I think will improve my herd. If that makes me a straw chaser so be it, I have said before we don't chase numbers I look for the genetic link that will work with our herd, I think that is called breeding. We have line bred we currently have line bred calves on the ground, breeding takes time, just because a cow has another farm prefix doesn't mean she hasn't been in our herd for 10 to 12 years. Should I throw her out because she wasn't bred on our farm? I understand what you are saying some parts I agree with some I don't but I enjoy hearing what you have to say.

Gizmom

Hey I just stated what I meant when I used the term. If you don't think the shoe fits, then no need to justify anything to me. Just remember line breeding is not an event, it's a process. And yes it's takes a lifetime. In the case of my cattle they have been kept straight by 3 families since 1881.

Besides actual pedigree breeding, I think we would all be better served by programs with more specific goals and adapted cattle to environments. Therefore giving commercial folks REAL choices in stock to combine and use as they see fit. "Improvement" as it is currently understood requires more and more inputs. Some have outpaced what the environment can provide. I think that's foolish.

 

[cow pollinater]

Gizmom, You absolutely DO NOT qualify as a straw chaser. I am pretty conservative in what I try to sell my customers(which works very rarely...most of them want to chase straws) and am even more conservative with my own cattle and from the genetics you pick you make me look like I'm chasing fads. :lol: AI was invented to help programs like yours be even better at strict discipline. From what I've seen you've used the tool well.