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Post by otf on Sept 4, 2013 17:17:48 GMT -5
Pretty much everyone agrees that PHA is NOT a desirable trait, but bitching about it here is not going to accomplish anything. With the exception of one or two people, the ADCA board members pay no attention to these "chat rooms," and I imagine the one or two who do will pass along critical topics to the rest of the board as they see fit. Those of us who value our PHA+ Dexters for their other wonderful traits will continue to breed to PHA- bulls and test any offspring to be used for breeding. My two cows happen to have superlative temperaments and I hope, one day, one or both of them will produce a PHA- calf suitable for more than the freezer. As Barbara Netti said, "The ADCA should be taking the high road and do what's best for the breed." It appears that the ADCA chooses to ignore it, but unless and until it becomes a financial liability to the ADCA, I doubt it will go any further. Perhaps 'outing' the person who's selling a PHA+ animal without proper notification and test results will accomplish something. Perhaps having the director of the region contact the owner of the bull will accomplish something. Perhaps filing an ethics complaint will accomplish something. Perhaps calling all regional directors' attention to this thread will accomplish something. Unfortunately, I believe that until there's NEGATIVE attention paid to this problem and it begins to affect pocketbooks (yours, mine, and the ADCA's) shysters will continue to wheel and deal and the Dexter breed will continue to suffer for it. As it exists now, the market supports unregistered Dexters, cross-bred Dexters, un-cared for Dexters, anything small enough to resemble a Dexter that doesn't require registration, testing, veterinary attention, or owner responsibility. If it doesn't thrive, dispose of it! Sorry reflection on our society in general and status of Dexters in particular. Read more: dextercattle.proboards.com/thread/3556/define-honesty?page=3#ixzz2dxnXQeSgut t
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Post by carragheendexters on Sept 4, 2013 17:53:37 GMT -5
I cannot really comment on how you guys in US deal with PHA, but just a little background of PHA in Australia and what breeders have done to control the spread. PHA came to Australia through ONE animal "Trillium Chabotte" when his semen was brought in. He was widely used, he threw good calves. It spread throughout the Australian Dexter herd, being passed from one generation to the next. Back in 2003, 3 calves were born with "Hydrops foetalis" (from what I remember from 2 different herds, different states) but both herd were from the same family, similarly bred. They were linbred (inbred) one calf was from a father/daughter mating. Julie Cavanagh became involved and isolated PHA and a designed a test for it. The DCAI encouraged breeders who had animals descended from "Trillium Chabotte" to test their animals. There was no head hunting or massive witch hunt at the time, I think the Australian Dexter breeders attitude was more of "We are all in this together" The lab that did the testing at the time only ran the test every 3 months. The waiting for results was agony for those involved. I remember reading on forums the heartbreaking stories when significant animals in breeders herds came back positive, and the jubilant, joyful stories when others came back negative. I particularly remember reading one story, one cow (a Trillium Chabotte daughter I think) came back positive, and then the unsavoury task of that breeder having to contact everyone who had purchased offspring and descendants of that cow. Then the waiting for all of the descendants test results to come back. It was heartbreaking to read, all my thoughts were that all of the breeders with PHA positive cattle were all brave and strong hearted in how they dealt with it.
We (my husband and I) were fortunate, only a few of animals were at risk, and they came back negative.
It was put to a vote to all Australian Dexter breeders (DCAI members) whether bulls should be PHA negative before being allowed registration. It was a majority "Yes" ( of those members who bothered to vote, from what I remember it was a low vote return). So, from a certain date ( 2 or 3 years ago now, can't remember the exact date) no bull will be registered without a PHA free status, either by test or inheritance. Also remember we PV all cattle before registration so no fudging results. The PHA test is done on the same hair sample as the DNA and PV is done on.
So here in Australia I do believe that we are moving towards a PHA free herd , albeit slowly. Perhaps there other Australians on this forum who were more directly involved, or who have more information on the situation we had. Perhaps they might consider sharing their heartbreaking stories and how they dealt with it within their own herd. It may give "food for thought" for you US people on how to deal ethically but compassionately with PHA issue.
regards Louise
PS I found out about "Hydrops foetalis" in Dexters from my vet before DCAI announced it. He contacted me asking what it was all about. I had never heard of any problems, those not involved in the initial 3 calves were clueless. All Aust vets had received corresondance in their journal that there was another congenital disorder in Dexters other than chondro, and to contact Julie Cavanagh if they heard of any cases or been called out to any calvings with Dexters.
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Post by midhilldexters on Sept 4, 2013 19:21:41 GMT -5
If you are going to get rid of one lethal then why not both of them? How you can differentiate is strange. Of course PHA Carriers have something to offer, they can pass on every other attribute they have, just like your Chondro carriers do.
Carol K
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Post by midhilldexters on Sept 4, 2013 19:33:17 GMT -5
Mike are you directing this at me? What would make you think I was not in favor of testing for PHA?
Carol K
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Post by rezzfullacres on Sept 4, 2013 19:36:13 GMT -5
If you are going to get rid of one lethal then why not both of them? How you can differentiate is strange. Of course PHA Carriers have something to offer, they can pass on every other attribute they have, just like your Chondro carriers do. Carol K IMO there is a great difference in the 2..... I feel that the chondro + were part of the original breed, they were, IMO, the foundation of the Dexter as we know it. PHA is not on the same level, it has no tie to the foundation of the breed.,...... JMHO, feel free to provide any contrary evidence....
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Post by lakeportfarms on Sept 4, 2013 20:00:13 GMT -5
This bull in Tulsa is certainly not the only one out there. kalamazoo.craigslist.org/grd/4005765250.htmlOne red polled bull to be found here, I'll give you a hint: 016339 Maybe I'm wrong, but Sheril had a conversation about it with a very knowledgeable person in mid August. They were upset that the bull had not only been sold but was up for sale again. When is enough, enough? One progeny from the current owner, no PHA results posted for her. But she's polled so she must be a keeper. There's one progeny in the prior owner's name from him (a cow) that is also a carrier, one heifer calf registered to her, and no results. But they're both polled, so they must be keepers too. Carol, the debate here is about PHA, not Chondro. We've been through that enough so why keep dragging it up? PHA is also far more likely to be dangerous to the cow in the calving process, whereas many a chondro cow bred to a chondro bull has survived bulldog early terminations with a loss of the calf but not the cow. I can only hope that since he's probably a pretty big boy by now and reasonably cheap, that somebody will buy him and put him in the freezer.
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Post by Olga on Sept 4, 2013 21:25:44 GMT -5
Carol K, Hans is right, this is a discussion related to PHA, not chondro. Please, stop trying to hijack the thread. Thank you.
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Post by legendrockranch on Sept 4, 2013 22:09:45 GMT -5
Hans, I just did a quick check of the animals you own and have recently sold. Some of them do not have a status as to PHA or chondro. Maybe you have decided not to list this animals results for one reason or another. I know you have stated here on this forum that you inform prospective buyer of any genetic defects that an animal may carry. Here is my question to you. Hypothetically speaking let's say you sold and animal that carried a genetic defect, you informed the new buyer how to breed responsibly. Times have now changed, the cow has been resold, not once but twice.. Was any or all information past on about the genetic defects to the several other new owners? The best any of us can do in this case is to test all of our animals and have all the results posted
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Post by carragheendexters on Sept 4, 2013 23:34:40 GMT -5
Hi Everyone, No matter how ethical you are as a breeder, no matter how much testing that you do on your animals, no matter how much education that you give your prospective new owners, it can all be pointless. The nature of the beast of Dexter ownership is that the animal will be resold , and resold, and resold, as Barb has already mentioned. There are very few new Dexter owners who keep their animals for long, and a very few who would keep it till it's death of old age. There are not many people who go on to be passionate Dexter stud breeders, withstanding all the trials and tribulations of long term ownership. They find it all too hard and give up after a year or two. I have seen it happen over and over again.
Now, the problem arises, once you sell an animal you have lost all control over the destiny of that animal. The new owners can do whatever takes their fancy with that animal, they can mistreat it, starve it, breed it to anything and everything, sell it, breed a PHA carrier to a PHA carrier etc and you can't do a thing about it. You can talk and advise the new owner till you're blue in the face, and they will still do what ever they want to.
However, you can take control of the outcome of your animal. By slaughtering instead of selling a PHA carrier you are eliminating it from the gene pool forever, never to pass that gene on to another animal. You are stopping it from being sold on, you are possibly saving it from being mistreated, you are not forever wondering what ever happened to it. There are worse things than a humane death in an animal's life, and there are more important things than money.
regards Louise
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Post by carragheendexters on Sept 4, 2013 23:40:38 GMT -5
Interesting statistics on this second bull posted. He has 14 registered progeny, 2 are PHA carriers, 2 aren't tested, (can't include these) and that leaves 10 as non-carriers. This is only a small test group but that means a 1 in 6 (1 to 5) ratio of PHA to non-PHA, unusual statistics when you would expect a 1 in 2 (1 to 1 ) ratio result. regards Louise
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Post by marion on Sept 5, 2013 1:14:48 GMT -5
Hi Everyone, No matter how ethical you are as a breeder, no matter how much testing that you do on your animals, no matter how much education that you give your prospective new owners, it can all be pointless. The nature of the beast of Dexter ownership is that the animal will be resold , and resold, and resold, as Barb has already mentioned. There are very few new Dexter owners who keep their animals for long, and a very few who would keep it till it's death of old age. There are not many people who go on to be passionate Dexter stud breeders, withstanding all the trials and tribulations of long term ownership. They find it all too hard and give up after a year or two. I have seen it happen over and over again. Now, the problem arises, once you sell an animal you have lost all control over the destiny of that animal. The new owners can do whatever takes their fancy with that animal, they can mistreat it, starve it, breed it to anything and everything, sell it, breed a PHA carrier to a PHA carrier etc and you can't do a thing about it. You can talk and advise the new owner till you're blue in the face, and they will still do what ever they want to. However, you can take control of the outcome of your animal. By slaughtering instead of selling a PHA carrier you are eliminating it from the gene pool forever, never to pass that gene on to another animal. You are stopping it from being sold on, you are possibly saving it from being mistreated, you are not forever wondering what ever happened to it. There are worse things than a humane death in an animal's life, and there are more important things than money. regards Louise Well said Louise! ..marion
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Post by lakeportfarms on Sept 5, 2013 5:15:44 GMT -5
Hans, I just did a quick check of the animals you own and have recently sold. Some of them do not have a status as to PHA or chondro. Maybe you have decided not to list this animals results for one reason or another. I know you have stated here on this forum that you inform prospective buyer of any genetic defects that an animal may carry. Here is my question to you. Hypothetically speaking let's say you sold and animal that carried a genetic defect, you informed the new buyer how to breed responsibly. Times have now changed, the cow has been resold, not once but twice.. Was any or all information past on about the genetic defects to the several other new owners? The best any of us can do in this case is to test all of our animals and have all the results postedBarb, it takes a bit of time to have 50 plus Dexters (I'm not sure of what we have right now) recorded for both PHA and chondro, plus genotyping. It's also a pretty big expense. I don't even have all of our Dexters registered right now so shame on me. This is supposed to be a hobby for us after all. Most all of them have been tested, but it also takes a while to have them recorded in the online pedigree. I've clicked on the UC Davis link to report the results, and even e mailed some to Jill Delany, and perhaps more will show up sometime. ALL of our herd is tested for PHA, without exception. ALL of our possible chondro carriers are tested and reported on. We have a number of non-chondro carriers that may not have been tested but it's clearly obvious that they are not carriers. ALL test results (including the many not showing up in the pedigree right now) are sent with the owner, with a full explanation of the genetics behind them. I'd dare say that we're one of the most represented breeders with chondro carriers in the country, and the majority of our tests were done with a $35 test before the lower cost bundling came about for chondro and PHA. Perhaps that will start to change and more people will test now that the cost is cheaper. I could have waited and tested even our most obvious non-carriers plus genotyped all of them with the lower cost now. It sucks to be responsible and diligent sometimes. Perhaps you should pick on somebody else that hasn't been responsible about their testing, rather than trying to shame me for putting in a great effort to have our large herd tested at great expense, many of whom were untested when we purchased them. Hans
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Post by lakeportfarms on Sept 5, 2013 5:35:33 GMT -5
Interesting statistics on this second bull posted. He has 14 registered progeny, 2 are PHA carriers, 2 aren't tested, (can't include these) and that leaves 10 as non-carriers. This is only a small test group but that means a 1 in 6 (1 to 5) ratio of PHA to non-PHA, unusual statistics when you would expect a 1 in 2 (1 to 1 ) ratio result. regards Louise Louise, I would hypothesize that a number of his calves were never registered and probably butchered, more than likely the horned ones because they didn't have the "value" that polled animals did. My point in posting this is that although there are breeders out there that will be responsible and test and report, there exists the possibility that the animal will be moved on to another owner who doesn't take the precautions. With respect to chondro (since it's going to be mentioned again no doubt) if you're purchasing a chondro Dexter there is a good likelihood that you value what it brings to your herd, and will promote it to and sell it to others who equally value it.
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Post by midhilldexters on Sept 5, 2013 6:29:30 GMT -5
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Post by lakeportfarms on Sept 5, 2013 7:50:18 GMT -5
Carol, it's not "which we like to keep and play with", it's which we searched out and wanted when we bought into the breed. I'm going to give you a little of our history...Sheril and I have raised cattle since 2004. We started out with 5 Angus cows, that were presumably bred. But 9 months later only one ended up being bred. Now comes the issue of how do we breed them? Sheril did some research and discovered the Dexter breed, and we decided it would be a good choice if we were going to get a bull. We found Mike along with one other Dexter cow in 2005. Both were chondro carriers but we didn't know anything about it at the time. Mike and Cedar had been sold by the widow of the Fisher Creek farm a year earlier, but their registrations had never been transferred to the owner we purchased them from and we didn't bother with joining or registering them right away either.
I was amazed at how small he was, and how easy he was to handle. The farm also had some Highlands, and we fell in love with the look of them. Sheril and I did NOT want a hulking Angus bull on the property with 5 kids. We brought them all back and Mike immediately went to work and bred the open Angus cows along with the Highlands. At the time, we were just going to raise the Dangus and Hi-Dex for ourselves and a few customers, and not get into the whole registered Dexter thing. Two or three bulldogs later out of Mike and Cedar, we finally got a small dun carrier heifer. It was time to register her, Mike, and Cedar and join the ADCA.
Then we got the phone call from somebody who saw us as Mike's new owner pop up on the ADCA registry again. That's when we found out that Mike had sired Wieringa's Paula, who I think had won at the AGM a few times by then. At that point we decided to ditch the Angus (we couldn't bear to part with the Highlands) and dove into the Dexter breed and expanded our herd. But it was the size of Mike as a chondro carrier that attracted us to Dexters in the first place, otherwise I'd probably be on cattletoday.com and I would be registering our Lowline Angus calves every year.
Chondrodysplasia is what brought us (and others) to Dexters. The Dexter breed as a whole BENEFITS from the publicity that chondro positive Dexters bring to the breed because of their diminutive size. We had two registered lowline Angus cows as recently as a couple of years ago. They were polled. They were also smaller than several of our non-chondro carrier Dexter cows of similar age. But they were nowhere near as small as Cedar, or some of the other chondro positive cows that we have.
I could probably be comfortable now with a Lowline or even full size Angus bull, but I'd rather not. Our investment is into our Dexter herd, and we promote the very things that brought us to the breed to new owners who have similar concerns as we did. Unlike Chondro, PHA does NOT offer any level of comfort and DOES NOT bring prospective new members to the Dexter community. So they are NOT the same. I don't know how many times it's going to take repeating this before you and a few others here get it. We are not "stupid".
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