Elite Bull Scheme - Does no one care!

[happy hollidays]

In my humble opinion, I feel that so many of these recent topics go hand in hand. I see so many of you tirelessly and lovingly taking the breed forward but without the rewards it should bring. How have the other breeds managed to "make it" and the Dexter seems to struggle so? The Dexter owners are very diverse and I guess this makes the progression a little harder. Could you not have "Elite" animals that are the very best of the breed as a part of a grading system. Thus it would allow all owners to fit in somewhere. But then how would you grade the beef?! I can see this is a frustrating matter for all, especially the larger herds and traders.

[Kirk- Cascade Herd US]

I have no conviction that inspection of a bull can give any enlightenment on the value of my bull’s breeding abilities

When we purchased our current herdsire we paid a lot of money (more than a lot) and selected him (with only a blurry photo and a pedigree to go by) because of his promising genotype and excellent pedigree, not his phenotype. When he arrived (at 8 months of age) we weren't thrilled at all with his looks. At 11 months of age he impregnated all 8 of our quality heifers in a 3 week period and last summer he had 8 fantastic calves (all polled, mostly red, and 6 out of 8 are females). They are all stunning and all are better looking / conforming than dad (although, he's getting much better looking with age). We're only parting with one calf (a bull that sold for a very nice price due to his excellent pedigree and stunning conformation).

This confirmed our belief that genotype can be more important than phenotype and that phenotype can fool you. We just had our first calf of this year (A red, polled heifer) and she's a beauty too (although it's too early to tell how she will turn out). We're expecting 7 more in the next month or two, and based on last year's results from the same bull, we expect more excellent calves this year. If we hadn't had such good results from this bull, we would have eaten some very expensive bull hamburger. I'm glad we didn't throw this bull out based on phenotype, before we confirmed his strong genotype.

Breeding out of a quality bull (quality cows too) is very satisfying. I can't imagine the disappointment of having sub-par calves from using less than excellent stock, why even bother? I'm surprised that this fact (the very nice feeling associated with producing top notch calves) wouldn't encourage folks to use the best stock available. Perhaps education would help?

[Woodmagic]

Many thanks for your endorsement Kirk. I t has always puzzled me that the breeder who is well aware that he is not the identity-kit of his parents clings to the idea that his bull is going to reproduce itself in its offspring.
If your bull and dam had identical pairs of genes for everything their offspring would be identical, in fact there are four genes involved, and even where one parent has an identical pair it is unlikely the mate will match them, so much in breeding depends on chance, and the calf may well inherit a desirable gene from one parent which is inhibited by the corresponding gene from the other parent. Most folks will have come across the demonstration of inheritance from a grandparent, where the inhibiting gene has been lost in the next generation.
I am not aiming for a herd of bulls, the sire’s appearance and performance cannot give me any clues on his daughters potential, even if he is a true breeder, which is why I put great emphasis on the sire’s dam. By following this through in each generation I should eventually start to collect what I am hoping for in my cow.
If you want to breed good stock take a good look, not at the bull but at as many close relatives as you can muster. I include qualities like temperament, milking ability, udder shape, long life and locomotion to name a few. The show bull will not necessarily breed well.

[Rob R]

This makes interesting reading for me as I have two bulls, one a home-bred 1998 by Cornahir Outlaw & the other a bought in 2001 by Aiskew Idle Idol. Neither are in the scheme, though I was considering it more closely now I am thinking about selecting a suitable son of the older bull. I have to say that hiring him out & having more progeny to assess makes this job easier, and the new online herdbook makes tracking progeny much easier too.

As far as the scheme goes, I am undecided yet as to its value, so reading the above comments is all helping.

I note from looking at the online herdbook that some breeders seem to register a large proportion of their bulls, whereas others register very few. We've only registered the one in eleven years, and will only register any more in the future where there is both a need to and a desirable animal to register. The most important consideration being; will the bull produce economically viable daughters to stay in the herd and will I be happy to sell his daughters, which will take our name with them?

[Broomcroft]

Mark/anyone

Would it be possible to have details of the Elite Scheme on the web somewhere. Where are details now?

[Woodmagic]

Details of the scheme are included regularly in the Bulletin, they can be found in the winter 2006 edition.
I believe it was an opportunity missed. If the scheme had set out to do what it claimed, and assessed the breeding ability, it could have put us in the forefront of all Dexter Societies. Instead it does little more than carry out a visual inspection of the sire and dam. The inspection is far too late to give an accurate picture of the rearing ability of the dam; my suggestion was to take it when the bull reached six months. It only requires the inspection of any six progeny, and most bulls can put up six satisfactory offspring, it should include all without exception, to provide a guide. Moreover my intention was to ascertain as far as is feasible, as many qualities as possible, not simply appearances, performance should be the main criteria.

[Inger]

I agree with you RobR, only a few bulls should be registered from a herd, because they need to be the very best that the herd can produce. Cows pass on their genetics to less than 20 calves in their lifetime, but a bull can pass his genetics onto thousands. The influence of a good cow, lies in her ability to produce an excellant bull (with a little help of course). :laugh: In that way, she could have an influence on the whole breed. But let's face it, we will always keep more heifer calves than entire bull calves, so its the quality of the heifers which will improve the breed. You can't produce an Elite bull, without an extremely good cow to calve him. :D

[Peter thornton]

I think that there are 2 kinds of pedigree inspection regimes. One is our Elite bull inspection and I bow to the experts re the inspection of progeny (although it all seems to make sense)

The other inspection is that designed to eliminate undesirable traits. This is the type of inspection that my sheep society undertakes. Every male is inspected and some fail to make it. Their progeny cannot be registered. It is a way of helping to raise the standards of the breed at the "bottom end" if I can describe it like that.

Clearly a good bull can produce bad progeny and vice versa but a bad looking bull must always be more likely to produce problems.

So, should we be inspecting all bulls for minimum standards as an addition to the elite bull scheme?

[Broomcroft]

I think I agree with Peter. My sheep society has to inspect every tup and if the don't pass the inspection, and a large proportion don't even though they have been selected, then they cannot be registered as tups. You know when you buy one that you are getting expert opinion by default, even though there is still clearly a range of quality within the ones that get through. It isn't "Elite", that would make the scheme far too selective and expensive, it's just saying these are good tups without obvious faults. The scheme isn't perfect but it does work and I believe is held in high regard by the members of the society.

[Rob R]

I think I agree with Peter. My sheep society has to inspect every tup and if the don't pass the inspection, and a large proportion don't even though they have been selected, then they cannot be registered as tups. You know when you buy one that you are getting expert opinion by default, even though there is still clearly a range of quality within the ones that get through. It isn't "Elite", that would make the scheme far too selective and expensive, it's just saying these are good tups without obvious faults. The scheme isn't perfect but it does work and I believe is held in high regard by the members of the society.

I would feel more confident in this scheme, as so few bulls should be registered the cost burden is not going to be prohibitive. I have seen registered bulls out there that clearly should never have been kept for breeding, and when there are so many new keepers with only a few cows, they are looking to get their cows in calf which, with a combination of inexperience can leave them vulnerable to the 'nearest available' bull, and the scheme mentioned above would provide that safety net (providing they made sure it was a registered bull) of a minimum standard, as I believe it is the bottom line that does need rasing.

[Woodmagic]

Firstly Clive, may I compliment you on the excellent job you are doing for Dexter beef, the publicity must be good for the breed, and you have done marvels in the time. However when it comes to improving the standard of bulls I have to take issue with you. Our grandfathers relied on visual judgement; today we know that it will not give an accurate picture on what they will breed. The owner of the highest yielding cow for years admitted she had pretty well every show fault a cow could carry. During the last half-century milk yields have about doubled, because today breeders rely on the records of the animals they breed from and not their looks. An attempt to assess beef animals in the same way has not had quite the same effect because to date the only weighing records have laid themselves open to abuse. In future it will be done more and more on genetic evaluation.
To continue to insist that appearance can give a guide for breeding purposes is to hide your head in the sand. The most important thing I ever learnt was that undesirable genes are nearly always recessive. The much wanted gene your bull flaunts might hide one you would run a mile to avoid. Your bull may look well fleshed in the right places, but even if he is capable of passing it on, you might not like the flavour on your plate. As I have pointed out before, a cross Holstein – Hereford may look an excellent beef animal, but if you mated it to another there is little guarantee the progeny would provide much beef. The future has to be in genetic evaluation, meanwhile, I am suggesting we advance beyond insisting we have second sight, and use our knowledge of genetics to make a reasonable assessment of the genes the bull has to endow. If the scheme is to provide ‘elite’ bulls they should live up to the title, and not simply a sub standard of bulls with good show points.

[Broomcroft]

Hi Woodmagic

Thanks for the compliments. However, you are not half as impressed with my work as I am with your knowledge of breeding and Dexters. You are lightyears ahead of me, I know it and am listening hard. I appreciate what you are saying and when I say inspect, I mean inspect, test whatever it is that you experts agree needs doing. I just want good beef animals and will listen, learn and take advice to get what I need.

[wagra dexters]

Gene testing projects have a way to go just yet, and we would be a bit premature to breed specifically for commercially relevant beef genes, without paying attention to type and pedigree. Single parameter selection could possibly affect milking genes, disease resistance genes, flavour genes, temperament, etc. I would prefer to play around with current tests, but keep all our options open, for fear of throwing out the baby, etc.
I certainly would not want a 'Technical Committee' telling me which bull I could or could not keep, unless it was a scheme much like our AI accreditation, which is done by the vet, usually no vested interest, and based solely on fitness, and general soundness & structural correctness. It is not a linear classification, or showring assessment.

[Woodmagic]

One thing I do know about livestock Clive, is that one never finishes learning. I agree with Margaret that genetic testing at the moment is by no means the answer, there is long way to go, although I think we should be picking up on the various tests as they come along, and I suspect the next twenty years will see big progress. Meanwhile I repeat, looking at the performance of enough of the bull’s relatives, is a reasonable short cut, compared to the ideal of laying him of for five years, and proving him via his stock. In the past, stock may have been sold mainly on appearance, in future it is likely to be on performance, few folks can keep an animal the size of a cow just as a hobby.
One of the brightest of verdicts that has come from the Cardiff experiment to date is the high level of genetic variability within the breed compared with other breeds. This I would attribute to many smallholders rearing and using their own bulls, which could possibly have been condemned by an inspectorate. The few progeny from these bulls would have been rejected over time if quality was poor, damage to the breed overall is likely to be minimum, and is outweighed by the advantages. In my own case, I would echo Margaret, I would not agree to a technical Committee telling me which bull I could or could not keep, especially since I believe their standards to be way below my own. In today’s economic climate, poor quality livestock is unlikely to flourish; the purse will govern their survival.

[Broomcroft]

Talking about genetics. Did you see the illuminous pigs on the TV (UK) last night? If we could have illuminous Dexter that would save on electricity. Grass-fed illuminous of course. Joking apart, it really is scary stuff.