What to expect from a breed association?

[nkotb]

Our ASA is awesome. They advertise in a ton of magazines and catalogs about benefits of the breed, they send out weekly emails updating us on current research going on with the breed, they track down DNA on older Bulls for testing of new genetic disorders that exist, and they send out field reps to most, if not all, of the sales. When I email or call, I get an immediate response to my questions. And they have two magazines; one for the commercial breeder and free to anyone who asks(Simm Talk) and a monthly one, The Register.

I would disagree with the ASA being great. As someone who is looking at getting into the breed, the website is hard to navigate, the email response is slow/non-existent, and it's nearly impossible to find contact information on field reps. We are still considering getting a couple heifers, but it will be in spite of the association, not due to it.

 

[AllForage]

The AHA keeps record of my pedigree and that is all I expect. Except for the $100 fee for the right to pay for the first calf, it's not that bad. I am out on the fringes so could care less about them and up to now they care less about my line of herfs.

So basically they are irrelevant to me.

 

[MO_cows]

The assn is only as good as the members. Do people step up and run for the BOD? What percentage of the membership shows up for the annual meeting or votes? Do people cherry pick for registration and never bother to report data on the rest? Complete contemporary groups are important for data analysis.

As far as the ASA specifically, they do a side business running other registries, Lowline and probably others, maybe it's taking away from their attention to the Salers business. I think Hereford does mini-Herefords too but that shouldn't be much of a drain.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Our ASA is awesome. They advertise in a ton of magazines and catalogs about benefits of the breed, they send out weekly emails updating us on current research going on with the breed, they track down DNA on older Bulls for testing of new genetic disorders that exist, and they send out field reps to most, if not all, of the sales. When I email or call, I get an immediate response to my questions. And they have two magazines; one for the commercial breeder and free to anyone who asks(Simm Talk) and a monthly one, The Register.

I would disagree with the ASA being great. As someone who is looking at getting into the breed, the website is hard to navigate, the email response is slow/non-existent, and it's nearly impossible to find contact information on field reps. We are still considering getting a couple heifers, but it will be in spite of the association, not due to it.

Gee, sorry you feel that way. I get an immediate response to my emails, but typically it registration questions on embryo calves I DNA. I found the field reps in under 20 seconds by going to the main page (simmental.org), then clicking contacts on the far right upper corner, which took me here (http://www.simmental.org/site/index.php ... ontact-asa\), then clicked on ASA Reps on the big blue bar in the middle of the page, below the pictures, which took me here (http://www.simmental.org/site/index.php/repmap\). Now you can easily find a rep.
I like the page, as I use it to find junior information, or EPD data, or anything I need to get data for my cattle or in general.

 

[Nesikep]

MO_Cows.. I am talking about the Canadian Salers association.. but ASA... well, is the S for Simmental or Salers?

I just have the bad luck of not having a breeder in within about 700 miles.. I will start sending out emails to those breeders already and see what I can come up with.

 

[MO_cows]

Salers. The Canadian breed registries are all run thru the govt aren't they? All the Canadian reg papers I have seen all had the same logo and name on them, different breeds.

 

[Nesikep]

I don't *think* so... I'll have to take a look at the Limousin association's reg papers for our bull..

 

[MO_cows]

Finally remembered it - Canadian Livestock Records Corporation http://www.clrc.ca

I saw Canadian registration papers for several different breeds, all had the CLRC stamp on them. The individual breeds have their associations, but there seems to be some kind of centralized data processing up in Canada for the pedigrees/performance data??