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Post by Cascade Meadows Farm - Kirk on Oct 31, 2014 13:03:20 GMT -5
While the "true short" dexters as we have started calling them recently are truly wonderful animals, they are essentially small longlegs. They are small in size but to say they are the same or replacements for carriers is incorrect. They are very different. Breeders who are familiar with both (having experience in their own fields, not from a book) have explained this repeatedly. To market them as such is misleading. To say that chondro has nothing to do with Dexters is an incorrect statement because as we know carriers were/are a very important part of the breed history. To ignore this fact is to ignore a basic truth of the breed. Take some time and look into the early Dexters and look at the photos. You will see carrier after carrier, prizewinners. Our Foundation Animals Dexters are a concept breed. The concept was to develop a small, friendly, un-intimidating dual-purpose breed of cattle, that would be easy to raise on small properties and would produce well, on less inputs. In the dark ages of animal breeding (before DNA was understood) breeders who were interested in small friendly cattle, simply kept any calves that were smaller and got rid of the taller animals. They didn't understand that in many cases they were selecting for a lethal dwarfing gene (chondro)... They didn't necessarily understand that the aborted deformed calves they would get 25% of the time, were a result of a lethal dwarfing gene. You can bet that if any of the folks raising these small cattle had figured out how to have 100% small cattle without the 25% deaths and without the 25% "long legs", they would have done so, but that was very hard to do without understanding the genes and with no testing available. In the 1950's Beryl Rutherford started to figure it out, and she successfully developed a herd of true-short dexters without the lethal chondro gene. Anyone can do it, but it takes a little time and patience, and if you start with true-shorts, you can get there very quickly. Yes, the Chondro lethal gene is embedded in the history of dexters, but true-shorts (without chondro) are also embedded in the history of dexters. Since the Chondro-dwarfing gene can be applied to any breed of cattle to get instant short cattle, that gene isn't what makes, dexters "dexters"... If that gene did make dexters "Dexters", then 50% of the calves born in chondro herds would be NON-Dexters, since you can't have more than 50% chondro-calves due to the nature of the lethal chondro gene. I believe that if most people who want shorter dexters are educated to understand that they can have 100% short friendly productive dexters without lethal genes, they would say no thanks to the lethal gene. PS. When I hear the term "Long Legs" being applied to dexters, it's like hearing fingernails on chalkboards. In my opinion, legs that are too long (in a breed that is supposed to be compact) are a defect to be corrected by ongoing selection for naturally shorter legs... the Chondro gene masks those long legged genes and interferes with selection for naturally shorter legs.
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Post by lakeportfarms on Oct 31, 2014 13:45:33 GMT -5
Two questions, RedRidge: 1) What is a "terminal sire"? 2) And why butcher a healthy 8-year old cow? I'll answer why this is still commonly done at the end... Our background in raising separate animals for dairy and beef is likely what has led to a lot of exposure of this practice. However I know dexter owners who follow business plans that are a spin off of this old, but still very common, philosophy. I think the ideology of a sweet backyard pet who lives forever is something dexter people like the warm and fuzzy notion of... But practice does not always follow the warm and fuzzy rainbow. A terminal sire is a male chosen to put over females to maximize hybrid vigor. All offspring of both sex are destined for the freezer - thus the term terminal. Normally you are looking for prolific, easy keeping females. In selecting heavily for maternal traits an animal will give up growth and muscling. Please note this is very common in the dairy industry. We, dexter owners, attempt to balance those traits as opposed to attempting to maximize one extreme or the other. Consequently many would see this practice as taboo. I suspect more people still use this form culling (in some form or fashion) but it is rarely openly discussed. But the result of what i suspect are many people using this model (or something similar) still today is that you get misleading longevity numbers because many healthy cattle are taken off the radar, if not eliminated all together. Why not put them in the freezer at $4/lb while still healthy rather than roll the dice? Any given farm can only support X number of animals and when the bottom line is at stake the least potentially profitable animals are the ones to go. As to why? Again this practice became common in the dairy industry. If you look at an annual lactation chart of a dairy cow or dairy sheep you will notice (all things being equal in management for that same animal year after year) that lactation peaks in the third lactation, drops of only slightly for the next several years, and then begins a more rapid decline following the 7th lactation. Now while you ponder that, consider this... If a breeder is doing their job correctly, their up coming stock should experience better average lactations than their older stock - in other words your breeding program should be providing you with heavier lactating animals each year. Combine those two assumptions and what you have is a 2 year old animal who is far more valuable than the 7 year old animal. Consequently many 8 yr old animals end up in the freezer (or more common in recent years, retiring to homestead environment) instead of a commercial one. Why is this still done even in the meat industry? Three reasons... 1) Because of the bottom line. Pushing and animal, over feeding to create fast growth and/or high output, simply breaks down the animal thereby decreasing their longevity. 2) The increase in the demand for meat. Think about it... The average dairy farmer barely scrapes by. A very large part of their income is meat. Not just because of demand and revenue, but because darnit no matter how hard you try you simply can't get milk out of a bull - so those bull calves are useless on the dairy. Let's turn them into something profitable. If you breed your oldest cows each year to a very meaty bull, then sell all those calves (heifers and bulls) for meat, you are maximizing your annual income. 3) And... ya can't teach an old dog new tricks. It's what these old dairy farmers have always done. Well put Sheri. The canard that is being put forth that chondro positive Dexters have a shorter than average lifespan masks the truth that most or all non-carriers would live a healthy life well into their late teens. I'd venture that fewer than 5-10% of them make it that long, because they are being pushed to produce, kept heavier than what is healthy for them, along with the other factors you have described. Here's a simple test to give you an idea. Go to the online pedigree sort by birthdate, and then pick around page 460 or around 14 years old now. Go down the list a bit and select some cows that have progeny. Click the progeny link and see if any of them have produced registered calves in the past two or three years. I bet you'll spend some time and click a lot of links to find any. It's possible that if you do, that the cow wasn't tested or reported for chondrodysplasia and she's a carrier!
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Post by RedRidge on Oct 31, 2014 13:46:36 GMT -5
Kirk, I'll tell you what... You quit using the term lethal and I'll quit calling non-chondro long legged. ;-)
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Post by legendrockranch on Oct 31, 2014 17:38:16 GMT -5
Easier yet, go to the online pedigree site click on chondro carrier than go to the year 1999. How many carriers do you see now? My goodness in all the years we've been testing for chondro we still have only 510 chondro animals listed. The only way to be 100% sure if an animal is a carrier is to have it tested and reported. That also goes for PHA.
Barb
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Post by lakeportfarms on Oct 31, 2014 18:48:38 GMT -5
Easier yet, go to the online pedigree site click on chondro carrier than go to the year 1999. How many carriers do you see now? My goodness in all the years we've been testing for chondro we still have only 510 chondro animals listed. The only way to be 100% sure if an animal is a carrier is to have it tested and reported. That also goes for PHA. Barb Not really true for PHA, if the animal does not descend from Woodmagic Wheatear there is a negligible chance they have it. My point Barb was that VERY few Dexters from that era have any recent progeny. Where did all these old cows go? Surely they can't all be having steers that aren't registered. I suspect they are no longer alive, and have not been reported as deceased to the registrar. When you do the search for chondro carriers and organize it by year, you'll notice that the first page is filled with animals that have pictures posted, and the subsequent pages are not far behind in the numbers of photos posted. Perhaps the owners of these chondro Dexters are very proud of their animals and their place in the Dexter breed, and since carriers are relatively scarce and difficult to come by, are retained in their respective herds for a much longer period of time than the more common and available non-carriers are. If these chondro cows are kept into old age more so than the non-carriers, it stands to reason that you will see more age related issues with them such as arthritis than you will with the less common and more easily replaced with a young non-chondro carrier cow. That is certainly the case with us.
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Post by legendrockranch on Oct 31, 2014 19:28:55 GMT -5
Not really true for PHA, if the animal does not descend from Woodmagic Wheatear there is a negligible chance they have it. Well I guess you believe that all Dexters are out of the correct sire and dam. IF carriers are scarce and hard to come by as you suggest, why don't more people test and report their results so folks will know who to contact when looking for these animals? I am having a hard time believing your last paragraph. Exactly what is considered on average an old age for a chondro carrier. Since you also have non-carriers what is consider old age for a non carrier on average? Anyone who feels they know this please feel free to chime in. Barb Added a few more comments
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Post by lakeportfarms on Nov 1, 2014 5:45:45 GMT -5
Not really true for PHA, if the animal does not descend from Woodmagic Wheatear there is a negligible chance they have it. Well I guess you believe that all Dexters are out of the correct sire and dam. IF carriers are scarce and hard to come by as you suggest, why don't more people test and report their results so folks will know who to contact when looking for these animals? I am having a hard time believing your last paragraph. Exactly what is considered on average an old age for a chondro carrier. Since you also have non-carriers what is consider old age for a non carrier on average? Anyone who feels they know this please feel free to chime in. Barb Added a few more comments And I guess if you believe red polled is most certainly a fresh mutation out of the correct sire and dam and not an outcrossing from another breed??? Really Barb, I'm tired of discussing this. Why can't you come to grips with the fact that Dexter owners who have chondrodysplasia in their herds love their little short cows (and bulls) and are more than willing to take the simple steps of breeding around the chondrodysplasia so they can have the best of both worlds. And I do have people contacting me for them, so I guess the other folks not testing and reporting are missing out. I don't have any for sale other than bulls, and only two of those left now, I steered quite a few pretty nice ones a while back. In the past two months, I've sold three of our top picks to people just starting out in Dexters, who will be breeding them to the long legged Dexters I have which I'm now almost sold out of (I'm with Sheri, I'm going to call them that until Kirk stops using the word "lethal" all the time). And Kirk, I have no problems managing our two herds, all it takes is a little good hi-tensile fencing. We have 5- 12.5 gauge wires, with a hot well grounded charger, but in the mind of the herd that is impenetrable considering they are contained by a single polywire at 30" for the summer. Two bulls across the fence from each other, with one breeding, and the other won't touch it. I'd dare say it's easier than trying to select bulls at an early age for the desirable traits that you claim to be doing. And if you're waiting for them to mature before you make the decision who has more compact frames and shorter legs, guess what? You're now managing an additional group of bulls aren't you? After all there isn't a DNA test you can perform in the first week like I have to determine which of them has shorter legs.
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Post by RedRidge on Nov 1, 2014 7:41:16 GMT -5
There is quite the demand for chondro breeding stock here. I have tried to buy back some I have sold and recently sold a weaned chondro bull that my husband was hoping would be beef - we simply can't raise enough beef to fill the demand here. So I took the money from the chondro bull calf and bought 4 weaned dexter steers. Hubby is now happy. As is the new owner. Now if that silly cow would PLEASE give me a chondro girl! Lol
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Post by RedRidge on Nov 1, 2014 8:09:24 GMT -5
To address Barbs comment about testing in general... I think it's great that we can have these discussions from across the country and around the globe with the advent of Internet. But we need to remember that this makes it all too easy to forget that we are preaching to the choir. We are just a handful of dexter owners. I have served on several National boards for various breed organizations and can make some generalities that I'm betting apply to Dexters as well... You have 3 groups of owners, those few people who run the show, those few who wish they had a say but not enough to run the show, and the remaining 95% who don't want to know what's going on and just want an address to get their registration papers from.
Most breed organizations have a hot button issue that creates divisiveness. Unfortunately in the dexter world we have several hot buttons... Chondro and polled being the most obvious. But the non testers far out number the testers.
But what we who communicate and become involved need to remember is that "most people don't care". Sad but true. The majority of dexter owners I know do not, and will not, test. It doesn't matter how we explain the necessity of testing, or how easy it is, or how beneficial it can be to them specifically. Those of us who do test are few in the overall scheme of things. And many of the animals we have sold (after testing) are sold to people who do not practice testing for further generations. It is simply not a priority for them. The non testers usually don't own huge herds, they are happy with what they have and see no need to test and stir the pot as they call it - looking for skeletons in a closet. The only time they even think about genetic testing is when they need a new bull. And because testing is irrelevant to them, they buy a weaned bull calf with no testing because it's cheaper that way. Thus, perpetuating the cycle. This now creates more divisiveness among the breed because those of us who test tend to buy future genetics from each other. We rarely, if ever, consider an untested bull. Therefore we are limiting the gene pool to what we consider the elite. Those who don't test, in our opinion, potentially have less than adequate stock and they continue to perpetuate those genetics among themselves. Now you have yet another split. Again, sad but true. And I have no answer for how to solve the problem.
We all think our way is the right way. If all of this sounds all too familiar that's because it is. We are just a smaller version of a similar organization - but let's avoid politics here since I for one am more passionate about that than my Dexters. ;-)
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Post by legendrockranch on Nov 1, 2014 12:21:57 GMT -5
Sheri, while I understand what you are saying about most people not testing, here is the problem the Dexter breed runs into. With the majority of cattle breeds you can not even register an animal if it carriers a genetic defect. If they are able to be registered those animals must be listed as such. Other breeds do not have the same problems for the most part with problematic or dead calves unless it is a fresh mutation, again basically because carriers can not be registered. That is not the case with Dexters. We have 2 L_______ defects that we except in our breed, yet we have nothing in place for notification of such besides a voluntary notification. I have posted this article many times, it bears repeating again. I once again copied the last paragraph for all to read. www.iowabeefcenter.org/Beef%20Cattle%20Handbook/Congenital_Defects_Cattle.pdfEthical and Legal Considerations Serious ethical and legal problems are involved in selling known carrier cattle or progeny of known carriers. A seedstock producer in this position should be completely honest with the buyer. It is doubtful that he should sell possible carriers, under any circumstances, to a youngster or to someone who is just getting started in business and may not have the knowledge to understand the consequences of using offspring from known carriers. Selling carriers without informing the buyer will ultimately reduce the confidence that buyers have in the breeder and may eventually reflect negatively on the entire breed. Barb edited to add: I'm talking cattle here, not dogs, cats etc.
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Post by Cascade Meadows Farm - Kirk on Nov 1, 2014 12:38:47 GMT -5
And Kirk, I have no problems managing our two herds, all it takes is a little good hi-tensile fencing. We have 5- 12.5 gauge wires, with a hot well grounded charger, but in the mind of the herd that is impenetrable considering they are contained by a single polywire at 30" for the summer. Two bulls across the fence from each other, with one breeding, and the other won't touch it. I'd dare say it's easier than trying to select bulls at an early age for the desirable traits that you claim to be doing. And if you're waiting for them to mature before you make the decision who has more compact frames and shorter legs, guess what? You're now managing an additional group of bulls aren't you? After all there isn't a DNA test you can perform in the first week like I have to determine which of them has shorter legs. Like most breeders, I do need to keep bulls separate from females at various times of the year. So I do often have the primary herd plus another smaller group of dexters (plus Icelandic sheep and grazing American Guinea Hogs too). I use regular field fence (some in shabby condition), plus a temporary single hotwire on fiberglass posts about 30 inches away from the regular fence. The hotwire is only needed as extra security when there are girls in heat on the other side of the fence from bulls. Sometimes I keep all the bulls and pregnant girls together, and separate off the young heifers that are too young to be bred. But it sounds like if you're dealing with Chondro, you might need to have 4 groups of cattle at times to keep bulls separate from females and to keep chondro separated from non-chondro (so the chondro's don't get too fat and crippled and die at age 9). It IS hard to judge a good bull at too young of an age, but if you have a group of young non-chondro normal bulls all the same age, it's pretty easy to spot the shorter, thicker ones fairly early on (like spotting shorter kids and taller kids in a 3rd grade classroom - the shortest boy in the 3rd grade usually doesn't end up being the tallest boy in college). In a mixed chondro herd, these true-short bulls wouldn't stand out so easily. I do understand that some folks like the "shorties" but you can have shorties without the lethal chondro gene. In fact, on this discussion board, there are regular photo postings saying "Guess if this is a Chondro or non-Chondro" and many people can't tell the difference. My key point is that unless people have a strong desire for the lethal chondro gene for some specific beef-production purpose, why not select "shorties" that don't have the lethal gene. PS. The longest legs I've ever seen on Dexters, were in Chondro herds, because most chondro breeders use the chondro gene to give the illusion of shorter legs on half of their calves, while 50% of their calves have VERY long legs. I've gasped out loud at some photos of VERY LONG-legged heifers in some Chondro herds.
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Post by lonecowhand on Nov 18, 2014 18:37:08 GMT -5
(whew!) How many of you all have had a bull dog calf? Why is it so important for some of you to point out the potential problem you haven't experienced? The folks who breed Dwarfs, love them, and extoll their virtues. Isn't that enough? How many years have you been chatting about this? What's clear to me is, the breed was STARTED with the horned dwarfs of Kerries. If you want to change the breed to something else, do so and name them something else. This all reminds me of the Star Trek Episode where the Black and White could not abide the White and Black. Or for the literary types, the Lilliputian Wars of Bigenders vs. Smallenders. I suppose it has entertainment value, but it does the breed no favors. It's time to split the breed into Traditional Horned and Modern Dexters, and give up the arguement.
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Post by kansasdexters on Nov 18, 2014 19:46:20 GMT -5
lonecowhand, It does the Dexter breed no favors to split into fractions. This is a minor breed and the numbers just aren't there to support multiple registries or labels or fractions. United we stand, and divided we fail. There is room at the table for all. Just go sit with your friends at one end of the table, if you don't like the people on the other end of the table. Here are two yearling, purebred, registered Dexter steers, both are sons of Ace of Clove Brook (they are half-brothers), both are dehorned, both have "traditional pedigrees"; one is a chondro-carrier and one is a non-carrier: The chondro-carrier is Wakarusa ACB O'Grady, ADCA No. 033770; the chondro non-carrier is Wakarusa ACB Martin, ADCA No. 033774. Both are purebred, both are registered with the ADCA, both are very nice yearling steers. Patti
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Post by midhilldexters on Nov 19, 2014 6:44:33 GMT -5
(whew!) How many of you all have had a bull dog calf? Why is it so important for some of you to point out the potential problem you haven't experienced? I've certainly never had a bulldog calf, It's something I never wanted me or my cows to experience. However should we all stay quiet and not let people know what possibly could happen? NO. It's called educating people. Carol K
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Post by legendrockranch on Nov 19, 2014 11:37:11 GMT -5
No we have never had a bulldog calf I breed non-carriers only but have heard all the stories. We were at one of the ADCAs AGMs where a girl (new owner) got up in front of the whole group of over 100 people and explained that their first Dexter calf born was a bulldog. She was crying the whole time. Testing all animals for genetic defects could have prevented this, along with as Carol said education. Lonecowhand have you seen a bulldog calf born?
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