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Post by cddexter on Nov 26, 2008 13:47:36 GMT -5
Well, where to start. There’s the background, how it all came down in England, the possible source for the gene in the breed in the first place, what happened in the U.S., how the U.S. learned they had dun, not red, what got us started on the path to enlightenment, how we learned what the gene really is, the advent of a test, and the aftermath. What do you want to hear about? Carol D.
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Post by dutchgirl on Nov 26, 2008 15:02:25 GMT -5
Everything Please!
I would also like to know if breeding Red to Dun will muddle up the colors/genetics? Is it better to only cross blacks on duns?
I heard your talk on genetics at Monica Dexter's home, and I remember you can only get Dun from Black, not Red.
What about a Dun bull that also carries Red? Would that affect the Dun color?
Thanks, Lucy
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Post by onthebit on Nov 26, 2008 15:59:11 GMT -5
Well, where to start. There’s the background, how it all came down in England, the possible source for the gene in the breed in the first place, what happened in the U.S., how the U.S. learned they had dun, not red, what got us started on the path to enlightenment, how we learned what the gene really is, the advent of a test, and the aftermath. What do you want to hear about? Carol D. Background and possible source please to start. You know...start at the beginning....short blocks....answer all our questions Then move on to the next block in history all the way to the present. If its not too much to ask....you might even be "Dun" by spring! ;D
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Post by tiffin on Nov 26, 2008 16:08:53 GMT -5
I'll help you out here, Carol, and give everyone the link to your great article on the dun gene (link below). www.dex-info.net/summbrowncowdavidson.htmMost people think that red is rare but according to your article it is actually dun that is rare, not red. In which case I have 4 dun Dexters. 3 blacks and no reds. So, I'm ahead of the game, lol. I read it somewhere else but can't find the link. I'll keep searching. Adrienne
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Post by cddexter on Nov 26, 2008 16:19:06 GMT -5
I knew I was asking for trouble.
You can't muddle things, they either are or they aren't when it comes to color.
Messy, but let's see: We'll call both reds simply red, because they act the same way. Black overrides red. Red overrides dun.
Like red at the base locus, Dun at the secondary locus has to be homozygous (both genes) to have it show, BUT it only shows if one or more of the basic locus genes is black. If both the base locus are any combo of red, you still get red even though you have homo dun.
In a nutshell, you need at least one black gene and two duns to get dun. No problem having red and dun together, but the dun won't show, regardless.
I don't think dun carrying red is affected. Not sure. From what I know, the various tones of dun are like the various tones of red: some other locus with some other modifier. Also, I think testosterone affects the darkness of the color which is why so many bulls seem to be the liver chestnut form rather than the honey, although dun does fade in the sun. Both cause a difference in the tone.
off to get the car fixed so I can get to work at 6. talk later. c.
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Post by legendrockranch on Nov 26, 2008 19:03:31 GMT -5
According to the ADCA pedigree site the numbers of colored stock both horned and polled are listed as:
Dun, 2135 animals bulls & cows Red, 954 animals bulls & cows
I'm not sure if that takes into affect red/dun listed animals. Also it does not count the PDCA registered stock. So there are still more dun animals than reds. But............ if you look at colored polled animals only, here are their numbers:
Reds, 211 animals bulls & cows Duns, 141 animals bulls & cows
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Post by rhonda on Nov 28, 2008 14:15:03 GMT -5
I am confused (as usuall!) If you have to have 1 black 2dun to get dun---is my bull red or dun??? His sire is red his dam black so how can he be dun??? I hope he is dun as I intend to have all dun someday!!!
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Post by cddexter on Nov 28, 2008 14:35:09 GMT -5
So, dun...everything's packed so I can't refer to my mid-1800's reference books, I'll just wing it. Info will be accurate, just not in direct quote form. I'll start by talking about perception, and work both forward and back from there.
In England, one used to get the occasional dexter born that was a "disgusting dirty oak table color" (direct quote from a now deceased influential old big breeder), not the usual red. Sometimes such animals were hidden in the manure pile, much like red Angus used to be; sometimes they were registered as red because they weren't black. When Beryl Rutherford started her line-breeding program using Mudstopper, she had both black and reds, but started to get quite a lot of this funny brown color. Beryl talked the society into widening the color standard to include the dun, as her animals were all bred pure, and as the gene was found occasionally throughout the national herd it must be part of the original gene pool, and should be recognized as such.
Voila! Dun became a new approved third Dexter coat color, can't check but I think it was early '70s.
But, like humans everywhere, some argued against any change, with claims of 'dirty dealing''; dun must come from some sort of misregistered cross being introduced to the breed (the preferred source was Jersey). There was even a paper presented at the first Dexter Congress (1998) in which the writer proved to his own satisfaction that dun was due to 'Channel Islands influence'. TO THIS DAY IN ENGLAND some owners argue dun isn't a true Dexter color (either they don't know about all those early duns in the U.S. or if they do, that's just a bit of inconvenient info best ignored).
As Edgar Rice Burroughs would say, 'meanwhile, back in the jungle', in the U.S., no one was paying much attention to what was happening in another country. To the US Dexter breeders of the time, there were still just the two original colors: black and red. From the very beginnings of the American registry, if it was a non-black animal, it must be red, and so all non-blacks were registered in the ADCA as red.
It wasn't until Doris Crowe and her investor friends brought 10 heifers and a bull from the Woodmagic herd into Canada in the late '70s that Americans were confronted with a eyeopener: Doris' non-blacks were the same color as U.S. registered reds, but these import cattle were registered in England as dun....
It turned out that in reality, almost all non-black American Dexters were actually dun. Shock, dismay, denial. Few wanted to acknowledge they had duns, not red: the change was too abrupt and hard to accept. With no color test and a whole lot of owners who couldn't tell the difference (even if they wanted to) it was a registration mess. I put out a description which allowed owners to figure the difference out, but it didn't stop the bickering. In the end, one influential Board member said Webster defines dun as a shade of red (as though the color spectrum was related to genetics!) and so the ADCA hedged it's bets, and any non-black was registered as red/dun or red or dun: that got them off the hook. If it mattered to the buyer, he'd better do his own homework.
There was one story about a well-off newbie who thought they'd corner the market on red and bought cows from all over, only to find they were all dun but had old red registrations back to when dun wasn't recognized.
Isn't it all such fun! Carol D.
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Post by rhonda on Nov 28, 2008 19:34:20 GMT -5
Yes, it is fun!!! How in the world do you know all this?? How long have you had Dexters and where do you find all this info?? I found a website out of New Zealand (I think) that was saying that the ancient Irish Dexters had brown... dundexters I think it was.. when I found it dun was my least favorite or of the ones I had seen. Then I found my Elsie and changed to liking that color best!!
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Post by cddexter on Nov 28, 2008 20:11:41 GMT -5
so, where does the dun come from? No one knows for sure. However, there is one likely candidate, but to prove it would be difficult.
In 1997/8 when I did the first color study, I tested several different lines of red, and proved that both the little e and E+ (the wild gene) were red in Dexters. That meant we still didn't know where the dun came in, genetically. Mind you, it did prove that Dexter dun was NOT from Channel Islands influence, no matter how convinced others wanted to be.
I spoke with Dr. Sheila Schmutz, the color research guru, but had a really hard sell to convince her our E+ was red, as at the time Dexters were the only breed to show that physical color for that allele. During the discussions, I told her about our recessive dun, but because I wasn't breeding for dun, I didn't have the necessary paperwork and supporting photos to prove my case, nor did I have a degree to give myself credibility, just herd records for others. Apparently dilute genes aren't recessive (the way our dun worked), and the other option, a brown gene, was impossible as brown was not known in cattle. It wasn't until a year later when she was working on finding the brown gene in dogs, and John Potter talked with her, that his combination of a MSc, breeding records, photos and hair samples proved we did indeed have something not yet identified and worth checking. Sheila was working on finding the brown gene in dogs, so John's dun hair samples were run through her dog DNA project, and --ohm'god -- Dexters turned out to have a brown gene. This was a scientific FIRST, and resulted in a published paper. It was an honor that I was allowed to present their findings at the 2002 Congress in AU (neither Sheila nor John could get away for it). Thus a test for the brown allele was made available, first through the Canadian government lab in Saskatchewan, and then later through other labs elsewhere.
That's all well and good, but if not Jersey, then where else should we look for the source of the brown gene? Sheila tested every known breed that showed dun/brown coloration, and all tested negative for our gene (well, not our gene, the brown dog gene, and since she was working on Dachshunds, and little Dexters have short legs too, maybe that really is the source.....
My personal bet is on a scandinavian breed, polled and dun, that was found in England until around 1905. Popular, small by the standards of the day, very beefy, big milker, true dual purpose, deliberately merged with Lincoln Red and Red Poll.
We know because of John Potter's excellent work on trying all the combinations of reds and dun and then testing the results, that brown (dun) is hidden by red of either type. Both LR and RP are homo red. If the scandinavian 'dun' gene is still present in those breeds, it would never be expressed. We'd have to randomly blind test perhaps scores of animals, and cross our fingers the gene was still around. Between two major foot and mouth epidemics, and BSE, huge portions of both breed populations have been eliminated.
According to the first Dexter Herd Book, the very early Dexters imported into the U.S were either registered or 'eligible for registration'. In other words, some of them didn't have 'papers', they were simply animals that looked like a Dexter should, and would have been eligible for registration, had it been applied for in England or Ireland. This was pretty standard for the day, with registration by inspection, as the registry was just getting started. The Cardiff study shows Dexters are a Joseph's coat of many backgrounds, so it's quite probable that along with all the other genes in common with other breeds, brown came along for the ride.
Because the English deliberately bred away from 'dun' until quite recently, and the U.S. encouraged it thinking they were breeding red, we probably do have the edge on the gene, and you could say, 'we've dun it up brown'.
Carol D.
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Post by rhonda on Nov 29, 2008 6:18:08 GMT -5
Well, I feel stupid--I just figured out who cddexters is!!! I have read the articles on dex-info!! Anyway--I plan on having my little ones dna'd as soon as I can. If I am following correctly the cattle in Shaggy's background registered as red/dun were probably dun?? I do see Ms. Fermoy there and she is red but she is in a different line from the red/dun ones. Now--my little Elsie has both parents dun, Shaggy has one black one red but he is dun so it will be interesting to see what I get!! I thought I would only get a dun from 2 duns but who knows!!
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Post by rhonda on Nov 29, 2008 7:10:08 GMT -5
Another stupid question--I'm sorry!!! When I get my bull genotyped, what is that?? Do I do color testing separate or is that what genotyping is?? What about chondro?? Do they do that or is it separate? I guess that is more than 1 question!! Oh boy I have a lot to learn!!!! I looked Shaggy's dad up on ADCA and he is red carries dun, so that answers that question.
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Post by onthebit on Nov 29, 2008 10:49:38 GMT -5
Another stupid question--I'm sorry!!! When I get my bull genotyped, what is that?? Do I do color testing separate or is that what genotyping is?? What about chondro?? Do they do that or is it separate? I guess that is more than 1 question!! Oh boy I have a lot to learn!!!! I looked Shaggy's dad up on ADCA and he is red carries dun, so that answers that question. I don't think it is a stupid question since I would like to know also. This calf is Dun but he looks red to me which is probably what caused the confusion in the first place.
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Post by liz on Nov 29, 2008 11:21:09 GMT -5
Genotype testing is for parentage testing, your bull's genotype will be on record so that his calves can be tested against it if their is ever any question. The chondro and colour tests are all separate tests but all are done with the tail hairs. L
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Post by cddexter on Nov 29, 2008 11:36:52 GMT -5
I THINK, but you'd need to check with Chuck, if you do several tests you get a discount. You can send in one hair sample and they can test for whatever all from the one.
Rhonda, you feel stupid? Never. (speaking of stupid, I can't figure out how to get those smilies into the text, I just get a bunch of letters and symbols)
I think you've figured it out...if you have two duns, and both carry red, and those red alleles are chosen over the black ones, and that egg and that sperm get together, you'll get homo red, homo dun, and a red animal on the ground.
When I was a lot younger, I worked for this really neat guy, who always thought outside the box, and I learned a lot from him. We were just chatting one day about work and knowledge in general, and he said there are two ways of thinking....one way is you can hoard everything you know so you are safe in your job, and I thought hey, that's a good idea, it would be hard to replace me, and that would give me job security. Then he said, or you can tell everyone what you know, and when the time comes, you are free to move on to something even better. Well, I guess you can figure out where that took me.
I've carried this philosophy with me through life. But, it has it's good and bad sides. It's fun to see peoples' eyes widen as they 'get it' and even better to see them pass the knowledge on (after all, the more you know the better armed you are to make decisions and that makes you better at what you do). What's not fun is dealing with people who subscribe to the former style, and watching their eyes narrow because they think their power base is being threatened. The next thing you know, you're under attack (often from behind) because they need to protect their position.
Regards, Carol. PS: how do you get those smilies to work?
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