Post by Cascade Meadows Farm - Kirk on Feb 21, 2013 15:18:30 GMT -5
Maybe some of you stayed at a holiday inn express last night but that is not good enough for me......As far as I know the ADCA has a fair amount of cash on hand, why not use it? Hire 3 independent animal genetic scientists (none from TA&M or UCD) to do a study comparing current existing testing procedures and making a recommendation on what direction would be best for the Dexter breed, not individual owners, labs or databases....Give them 120-180 days to complete their work, publish their work to the membership and give the members 60 days to review and comment THAN formulate the official testing plan, implement the plan.....So at worst you are looking at implementing the "plan" in less than 1 years time...There are plenty of scientists out there working for some of the greatest institutions who know tons more than ANY of us, find them and utilize them......JMHOThis is a smart scientific approach
However, since the Angus folks and Holstein folks and Jersey folks and Simmental folks and Hereford folks have already been through this (and all arrived at the same decision to convert to SNP), we might just check with them first.
Sometimes the large breeds will help a small breed by sharing some information. It could be that the Hereford folks or Angus folks did a study exactly as you suggest and they'd be willing to share it with us for free. The Hereford folks particularly struggled with this most recently (with lots of battles and controversy). Wouldn't hurt to talk to them.
If we did hire genetics consultants, we'd want them to have a good background in cattle dna.