Where dexters lead others follow!

[Saffy]

I was, of course, thinking of Francis Galton and the quote is about stamina and adaptation to local conditions not being linked to outward appearance with the "shabby-looking, sickly-looking and puny" having advantage over "the most shapely, biggest and much haler".This also works with Soay sheep, a paper published in 2008 showed that the "runts" with scurred horns had higher survivability in the periodic population crashes on Hirta.

I believe with longevity there are two things going on.

One that Louisa talks of here where if an animal is a big, upstanding, deep bodied, glowing, picture of an animal, it won't always be the one that will survive in severe conditions - as sometimes it is the smaller ones that can cope when food is scarce.

The other being the cow with the best legs and feet which don't break down and cause her to be culled, the best shaped udder, that doesn't drag the floor and give rise to mastitis, a good straight back which doesn't give rise to problems there etc. This cow will out last any that are born with inferior conformation in a well managed herd. Unless of course the owner culls them just for age.

I actually saw an example of this at Monmouth Show today. I was there with Richard Pilkington, who was judging Holstiens and all Dairy Breeds, he was generously giving me a few pointers. Today the champion was a Fresian cow that had had 11 calves, she was stunning for her age. Imagine how much better a herd like her will pay than a herd of cows that need replacing every 3 or 4 years?



Stephanie

[Rob R]

I was, of course, thinking of Francis Galton and the quote is about stamina and adaptation to local conditions not being linked to outward appearance with the "shabby-looking, sickly-looking and puny" having advantage over "the most shapely, biggest and much haler".This also works with Soay sheep, a paper published in 2008 showed that the "runts" with scurred horns had higher survivability in the periodic population crashes on Hirta.

I believe with longevity there are two things going on.

One that Louisa talks of here where if an animal is a big, upstanding, deep bodied, glowing, picture of an animal, it won't always be the one that will survive in severe conditions - as sometimes it is the smaller ones that can cope when food is scarce.

The other being the cow with the best legs and feet which don't break down and cause her to be culled, the best shaped udder, that doesn't drag the floor and give rise to mastitis, a good straight back which doesn't give rise to problems there etc. This cow will out last any that are born with inferior conformation in a well managed herd. Unless of course the owner culls them just for age.

I actually saw an example of this at Monmouth Show today. I was there with Richard Pilkington, who was judging Holstiens and all Dairy Breeds, he was generously giving me a few pointers. Today the champion was a Fresian cow that had had 11 calves, she was stunning for her age. Imagine how much better a herd like her will pay than a herd of cows that need replacing every 3 or 4 years?



Stephanie

I'm not the sure that there are two things going on; the latter is just like the former, with the assumption that the herd is well fed so there is no natural selection for feed thrift in the second scenario.

[Mark Bowles]

Wow, some heavy going debate here...
I just wanted to answer some points.
There are 12 HUK assessors, they do regular team days, they all score the same animal and all expect to be the same score within half a point, these boys are good!!!
A lot of your questions are sceptical, so why do all the dairy breeds and the beef shorthorns take up the scheme then? Its a long drawn out business, it takes years to classify a cow in full from her first calf as a heifer with a max score potential of 89 to a 5th calver when she can score a potential of 97 all the way to old age when... if she is fit and sound, the longevity kicks in and she can score better. I believe the oldest dexter to score so far was 17 years old.
The question of hard standing.... common sense has to prevail here, summer hard flat ground with short grass is good enough to see the locomotion and feet of an animal, obviously in the wet winter it may need to be concrete as ankle deep in mud does not really provide what the assessors need.
Substitutions can be made on the day as long as all the information can be provided ie herdbook number, tag and more to the point the number of registered calves the heifer/cow has had, this can then be checked afterwards.
The cost to a member for a minimum visit is £30 + vat, this is subsidised by the DCS as I think the proper fee is something like £65 + vat, don't quote me here!!
The best time to as for an assessor would be when the cow has calved a couple of weeks, they may then be out the next week or maybe 8 weeks, it does not make a difference, they will still assess when a cow has a 7/8 month calf on it, its all taken into consideration.
When you are given a linear score for your animal you are asked if you wish to accept it, if it is low or you don't think the score reflects the animal quality you can reject it, the assessor will tell you why the animal has scored different to what you may have thought.

Linear is long term, I don't know about anyone else but the dexters are one of my pensions, when I sell up...as we all will at some stage, I want the best return I can get. To do that I have to breed the best cattle I can to achieve the best prices I can get.When that final sale time comes I want people to be able to look at the pedigrees of my stock and read high scores that reflect the quality behind them, not look at a load of fancy names in a pedigree that have since passed away and no one knows how good they where, they will see VG this and EX that, surly it has to mean something, it does in other breeds, I think they appreciate it and understand it more. Will dexter breeders??
Time for bed!!

[Duncan MacIntyre]

I can only endorse what Mark has just said. Linear assessment is a world wide respected technique for evaluating pedigree cattle and has been adapted for many different breeds. It was discussed at length at the first Dexter World Congress at Cirencester in 1998, but fell by the wayside in the difficult years that followed. Mark had the courage to look into it again, grab it by the neck, get an adapted scheme for Dexters approved by council. Well done that man. We must recognise the long term nature of the value, and really encourage as many as possible in as many herds as possible to be assessed.

It is not a big deal on the day, the requirements for handling are not overly demanding, maybe the most difficult bit is the timing in relation to calving - easier in large herds to put a number together, but in small herds with tight calving patterns again not too difficult. There is quite a wide window of opportunity after calving when the udder is working full tilt and is at best for assessing. Last third of lactation or dry obviously not so good.

Last and possibly most important it will not change the breed into Holsteins. The scoring has been carefully adapted for Dexters, and cattle which get high scores are really well made. As long as the breed standard height is adhered to it will help recognition of Dexters of good breed character and conformation.

Yes Mark, these assessors are good.

Duncan

[Rob R]

I think you're both suffering terribly with the 'power of knowledge' phenomenon I mentioned earlier - there's little doubt that the linear scheme works for you, but other people aren't you, and therefore a different approach may be needed. The long term nature of the value needs defining as to what exactly the value is, and some sort of relevance about how that fits in with the small cow's big future. Most people aren't in the breed for the long term, unfortunately, so it's even more important that the value of what they buy and sell is a known value. I appreciate that, because of the relative infancy of the scheme in Dexters, the physical evidence may be limited, but perhaps the advantage to the Holstein could be presented, as the Holstein, on reputation alone, doesn't instill much confidence for a robust, long lived animal! A few things to consider; the value of assessed animals/herds against non-assessed ones, lifetime yields, lameness, fertility, longevity, etc. Dexter breeders are no different to other people, they all want something concrete, that they can relate to on which to base their decisions, even if they're not recording these factors themselves, it's reassuring.

Is there a time limit on the 'subsidised' rate? Assuming people know about it, perhaps the Shorthorn's 'free for the first 2 years' is a better incentive to get on with it & induce a nothing to lose attitude.

[Jac]

Mark says

When that final sale time comes I want people to be able to look at the pedigrees of my stock and read high scores that reflect the quality behind them, not look at a load of fancy names in a pedigree that have since passed away and no one knows how good they where, they will see VG this and EX that, surly it has to mean something, it does in other breeds, I think they appreciate it and understand it more.

As I have said before I am, given the right motivation a supporter of linear scoring. But feel that to get the maximum benefit we need to see all animals in the herd assessed and their offspring not people omitting scores or not having the bad ones assessed. To be of benefit we need to see the breakdown so that we can see the animals weakness as well as the good points.

Telling people that the motivation is that they are going to benefit financially is wrong. On historical data - many people do not stay with the breed for long and linear scoring is a long term process. If you are a novice it is important to get your stock assessed as it is a starting point. It is only a starting point if you have a breeding programme in place for improvement and know the fundamentals of livestock breeding and genetics. But improvement for what?

Why are the Holsteins etc doing it - because their animals have a commercial worth. I am not an expert on the Holstein breed or their motivation for linear scoring. If they improved milk performance then discovered the poor conformation of the animal meant a short herd life so they sought to improve it by linear scoring I can understand that. But with the Dexter it begs the question what exactly do they do in a commercial setting? Are we doing this the other way round and hope that they will turn into a commercial animal?

[Rob R]

I'd just like to second all the points made by Jac above, especially the selective nature of assessment. It has been said before that that showing is selective, but this seems equally selective if you are able to reject your scores and pick & choose which cows are put forward. I would say that the biggest benefit for breeding is in scoring the lower animals as there is little room for improvement in a VG87, whereas a P60. Unless, of course, it is more of a verification tool, but it isn't being sold as such so the messages are very much mixed.

If we look again to the Shorthorn example - they have identified a key goal from the outset in improving maternal traits across the breed by classifying all first calf heifers in the herd, with older cows being optional.

I'm not trying to be sceptical about it's value, but the way it has been packaged and presented is not selling it well, as evidenced by the uptake. The Dexter breed itself is a hard sell in many respects, but the way it has been sold since it's critical bottleneck has influenced the audience we now have to sell future breed improvements to. You can't sell a breed as a passtime and then expect members to have a strong commercial mindset. Equally, I feel that the most important question to answer is still how linear assessment is aiming to achieve the breed's big future (I asked this on page 1, and the lack of any attempt to answer it suggests to me that noone really knows - but I'd be delighted to be proven wrong). As has been said, LA is not going to turn Dexters into Holsteins, so what is it going to turn them into that is more in demand?

The goals need defining, if they are to be achieved. What the the goals for uptake of the scheme in Dexters?

[Louisa Gidney]

I'm going off at a bit of a tangent here, but talking to archaeologists working on cattle genome projects, the Holstein genome, despite the huge numbers of animals, only represents about 100 discrete, unrelated animals. As others have mentioned, such an effect represents the last 200+ years of using inbreeding and line breeding to fix types. What is of concern to conservationists is to retain the breadth of genetic diversity within breeds. This gives the choice to take a breed in the next direction that economic pressures dictate.
I am currently unclear whether a big roll out of LA is going to result in standardisation and so loss of genetic variation for qualities which cannot be quantified by eye, friendliness, hardiness etc.

[Jac]

I'm going off at a bit of a tangent here, but talking to archaeologists working on cattle genome projects, the Holstein genome, despite the huge numbers of animals, only represents about 100 discrete, unrelated animals. As others have mentioned, such an effect represents the last 200+ years of using inbreeding and line breeding to fix types. What is of concern to conservationists is to retain the breadth of genetic diversity within breeds. This gives the choice to take a breed in the next direction that economic pressures dictate.
I am currently unclear whether a big roll out of LA is going to result in standardisation and so loss of genetic variation for qualities which cannot be quantified by eye, friendliness, hardiness etc.

I think that someone does need to go off on a tangent because genetic diversity is something to be concerned about.

[Rob R]

I'm going off at a bit of a tangent here, but talking to archaeologists working on cattle genome projects, the Holstein genome, despite the huge numbers of animals, only represents about 100 discrete, unrelated animals. As others have mentioned, such an effect represents the last 200+ years of using inbreeding and line breeding to fix types. What is of concern to conservationists is to retain the breadth of genetic diversity within breeds. This gives the choice to take a breed in the next direction that economic pressures dictate.
I am currently unclear whether a big roll out of LA is going to result in standardisation and so loss of genetic variation for qualities which cannot be quantified by eye, friendliness, hardiness etc.

I think that someone does need to go off on a tangent because genetic diversity is something to be concerned about.

I would think that a genetic assessment is as valid, if not more so, than a visual one.

[Jac]

Rob says

I would think that a genetic assessment is as valid, if not more so, than a visual one.

Have you had any done?

[Rob R]

Not recently, both bulls were sampled a few years ago but at the moment I consider it a result if I manage to get all the pedigrees applied for, such is life.

[Louisa Gidney]

To clarify, I'm not thinking of genotyping individual animals but the Ped e Web analysis that was done for my breed of sheep (Manx Loaghtan) showing founder effect and inbreeding co-efficients from analysis of pedigrees. This was very helpful for understanding how animals that appeared visually different and with little recent common ancestry were in fact sharing a high proportion of only a few of the foundation lines. Since this service is run by Grassroots & our on line registrations use the Grassroots system, it should not be difficult to implement for Dexters.

[Mark Bowles]

We now have 8 EX cows in the national herd, there was a stage when I thought we would not get one. All these 8 are from 8 different breeders. Anyone wanting to study the pedigrees, just go onto grassroots on the society site and type in EX90 in the animals name, this will bring up all the cattle that have been classified EX90, male and female. Or of course type in EX91,EX92 etc.