Beef AI/Bulls MEGATHREAD

patsy_mccabe

Bigbird1 wrote: »

I thought Neymar was 15euro, looks a top bull

Kinda mad now, as I found out today that both bulls (Neymar and Elite LACETTE) are both carriers of the myostatin Q gene. Surely companies should be bound to disclose this. ICBF don't list it either.

I found it by chance on the UK limousin website.

charolais0153

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Kinda mad now, as I found out today that both bulls (Neymar and Elite LACETTE) are both carriers of the myostatin Q gene. Surely companies should be bound to disclose this. ICBF don't list it either.

I found it by chance on the UK limousin website.

Think of all the great calves youll have, keep em away from blue cows, be the finest

patsy_mccabe

charolais0153 wrote: »

Think of all the great calves youll have, keep em away from blue cows, be the finest

I wanted them for pedigree use. I'd prefer to keep the Q and nt myostatin away. I think there will be problems down the line with it.

Base price

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Kinda mad now, as I found out today that both bulls (Neymar and Elite LACETTE) are both carriers of the myostatin Q gene. Surely companies should be bound to disclose this. ICBF don't list it either.

I found it by chance on the UK limousin website.

In fairness to Progressive Genetics they publish which myostatin genes are present or not in their stud bull catalogue, they did in the 2019 catalogue but I don't know if they are shown in their 2020 catalogue.

Considering how important the presence or absence of the various myostatin genes are, I would have presumed that ICBF should include it in the bulls details and all the AI companies show it in their catalogues.
I'm using Eurogene and they don't show the myostatin status of any of their bulls.

charolais0153

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I wanted them for pedigree use. I'd prefer to keep the Q and nt myostatin away. I think there will be problems down the line with it.

With regard to milk and fertility most definitely, majority of bulls from elite are muscle machines, they have their place, have a heifer from tvr, has the squarest backend, will make some cow

Hard Knocks

Base price wrote: »

I'm using Eurogene and they don't show the myostatin status of any of their bulls.

Eurogene have some bulls
JSS is a good bull for replacements

Base price

Hard Knocks wrote: »

Eurogene have some bulls
JSS is a good bull for replacements

I’m looking through the Eurogene 2019/2020 catalogue and I can’t see the myostatin test/results for any of their bulls.

Base price

A pic of JSS from this years Eurogene catalogue and there is not mention of his myostatin status.

Sugarbowl

I’ve used JSS over the last few years. Easily calved in fairness. I’ve had a mix off calves off him. He didn’t suit one particular AU cow and she had 2 heifers who were both weedy and leggy. Bulls took a while to develop but I’d sell them as winter weanlings so never see how they eventually turn out. Has good stars but never kept a heifer for breeding.

Hard Knocks

Sugarbowl wrote: »

I’ve used JSS over the last few years. Easily calved in fairness. I’ve had a mix off calves off him. He didn’t suit one particular AU cow and she had 2 heifers who were both weedy and leggy. Bulls took a while to develop but I’d sell them as winter weanlings so never see how they eventually turn out. Has good stars but never kept a heifer for breeding.

Have a 2yo first calver off him, fierce milky & back in calf quick

patsy_mccabe

JSS only scores 4% for locomotion, which would put me off.

Lady Haywire

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

JSS only scores 4% for locomotion, which would put me off.

I can never see that word without thinking of Kylie Minogue.

Hard Knocks

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

JSS only scores 4% for locomotion, which would put me off.

I do wonder about the ICBF figures at times, and we’re suppose to use them to make breeding decisions

High bike

Lady Haywire wrote: »

I can never see that word without thinking of Kylie Minogue.

there was nothing wrong with Kylies locomotion:D

charolais0153

Hard Knocks wrote: »

I do wonder about the ICBF figures at times, and we’re suppose to use them to make breeding decisions

Have a cow here, back legs thrown out and suckled, calf is extremely stylish, with perfect legs, not just icnf figures that are misleading

Donegalforever

Hard Knocks wrote: »

I do wonder about the ICBF figures at times, and we’re suppose to use them to make breeding decisions

I agree.
I have experience of docile cow served with A.I bull that has 5 stars for docility and the calf was stone mad.
Hard to make sense of it.

charolais0153

Donegalforever wrote: »

I agree.
I have experience of docile cow served with A.I bull that has 5 stars for docility and the calf was stone mad.
Hard to make sense of it.

One swallow doesnt make a summer

ABitofsense

Donegalforever wrote: »

I agree.
I have experience of docile cow served with A.I bull that has 5 stars for docility and the calf was stone mad.
Hard to make sense of it.

The docility thing I can't understand. Knell is supposed to be one star but my maddest calves are the anguses "5 star" docility! They run through the place where the knell calves are nice and quiet easy handled too.

Lady Haywire

Personally think the docility stars is a lot of bull. More to do with the cow who's rearing it, how they react to human contact.
Monkey see, monkey do.

charolais0153

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Personally think the docility stars is a lot of bull. More to do with the cow who's rearing it, how they react to human contact.
Monkey see, monkey do.

Its all relative tho, if one bull is breeding wilder than an other, the figure will represent this

Lady Haywire

charolais0153 wrote: »

Its all relative tho, if one bull is breeding wilder than an other, the figure will represent this

There's no scale for rating how loud or rough a farmer is either on ICBF :pac:
Just my own opinion, it's one set of figures I never look at when picking a bull.

charolais0153

Lady Haywire wrote: »

There's no scale for rating how loud or rough a farmer is either on ICBF :pac:
Just my own opinion, it's one set of figures I never look at when picking a bull.

Well its consistent in that herd, if all the limousin calfs are climbing walls and the charolais are quiet with the same treatment?

Lady Haywire

charolais0153 wrote: »

Well its consistent in that herd, if all the limousin calfs are climbing walls and the charolais are quiet with the same treatment?

I would still look to the cows. If you have a crackers cow, most of the time she's going to have a wild calf, regardless of what bull you use.
We all know limousin tend to be flightier, as are Salers, I'm not disputing that. But expecting a quiet calf off a certain bull when the cow won't let you within 30ft of her is wishful thinking.

patsy_mccabe

The info that ICBF have on docility is coming from farmers anyway, so they'll see the trends over large numbers.

Lady Haywire

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

The info that ICBF have on docility is coming from farmers anyway, so they'll the trends over large numbers.

True, it's much easier to blame a bull than yourself though :P
In my experience here the cow is a massive influence, along with the first few days of life etc. Have five calves off our own lad this year, all quiet, bar one off a salers cow which we couldn't get near after calving. So the calf was over a week before it even got touched by me, compared to a few others which I could walk into & scratch the following day after birth.
Anyway I'll shut up!

annubis

Lady Haywire wrote: »

True, it's much easier to blame a bull than yourself though :P
In my experience here the cow is a massive influence, along with the first few days of life etc. Have five calves off our own lad this year, all quiet, bar one off a salers cow which we couldn't get near after calving. So the calf was over a week before it even got touched by me, compared to a few others which I could walk into & scratch the following day after birth.
Anyway I'll shut up!

true i find the calves born indoors over the winter are much quieter, they are used to you from the word go, the autumn calvers that are born outside are nutters, scary at a month old when it comes to dehorning! but again once they go in for the winter and get used to being fed meal etc they usually quieten down, the odd one will stay a nutter though

RD10

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Personally think the docility stars is a lot of bull. More to do with the cow who's rearing it, how they react to human contact.
Monkey see, monkey do.

Agreed

patsy_mccabe

What ye are saying about handling and human contact is all true. We'd all agree on that. The docility values on ICBF are only concerned with the effect of genetics on behaviour.
From what I've seen here with cattle, I think they are worth looking at. Try breeding with 2 generations of poor docility scored bulls and see what you end up with.

squinn2912

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

What ye are saying about handling and human contact us all true. We'd all agree on that. The docility values on ICBF are only concerned with the effect of genetics on behaviour.
From what I've seen here with cattle, I think they are worth looking at. Try breeding with 2 generations of poor docility scored bulls and see what you end up with.

I agree. A well handled animal that’s fairly biddable can breed lunatics we had an oul cow that wouldn’t walk out of your way and every calf she had was insane, requiring all sorts of stealth tactics to get them into a yard. Then today we were just looking at a cow with her calf and comparing to last years. Better calf and very quiet and gentle. Same cow, same bull, same treatment from us. It’s similar with people. Often you’d know a family for being very wicked or stupid or wild. Sometimes there’s a mixture in the one house or one stark exception.

Donegalforever

Lady Haywire wrote: »

I would still look to the cows. If you have a crackers cow, most of the time she's going to have a wild calf, regardless of what bull you use.
We all know limousin tend to be flightier, as are Salers, I'm not disputing that. But expecting a quiet calf off a certain bull when the cow won't let you within 30ft of her is wishful thinking.

The point I was making was it is hard to square where 5 stars Docility is shown on ICBF site for a particular Bull and when his straws are used on a very quiet cow but her calf is half mad.
It would suggest that, (at least some of), the Docility figures are questionable.