Advertisement
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/.
https://www.boards.ie/group/1878-subscribers-forum

Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.
Hi all, please see this major site announcement: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058427594/boards-ie-2026

Pedigree breeding - value of maternal lines.

  • 07-03-2021 02:24PM
    #1
    patsy_mccabe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,047 ✭✭✭✭


    This is something I've been wondering about for a while. Are there genetics that can only be transferred down the maternal genetic line?
    You hear a lot of it in the pedigree game, but I thought it was the usual sales pitch, you get from certain breeders.

    I've a pedigree cow here and she's the descendant of a well known show cow in the limousin breed. Going back a few generations to this cow. The thing is the sire, grandsire etc are nothing special so I'm thinking its her material line thats doing it for her, as she's a nice cow and breeding well.

    For those of you at the pedigree breeding a good while, what do you think?


Comments

  • #2
    J.O. Farmer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,650 ✭✭✭J.O. Farmer


    patsy_mccabe wrote: »
    This is something I've been wondering about for a while. Are there genetics that can only be transferred down the maternal genetic line?
    You hear a lot of it in the pedigree game, but I thought it was the usual sales pitch, you get from certain breeders.

    I've a pedigree cow here and she's the descendant of a well known show cow in the limousin breed. Going back a few generations to this cow. The thing is the sire, grandsire etc are nothing special so I'm thinking its her material line thats doing it for her, as she's a nice cow and breeding well.

    For those of you at the pedigree breeding a good while, what do you think?

    Not a pedigree breeder but genetics could just as easily come down the maternal side than the paternal side as half comes from each side.

    The only difference is a cow can generally only have 1 calf per year while a bull could potentially sire thousands if in AI or at least all calves on a single farm where he's a stock bull so his genes get spread around more hence the traditional focus on the bull.


  • #3
    TooOldBoots
    Closed Accounts Posts: 602 ✭✭✭TooOldBoots


    Genetics can be very strange, some cows add nothing to the calf. One of the smallest cows I have breeds the best calves you'd ever see. In fact its kinda funny in autumn to see the calf nearly bigger than the cow suckling away


Advertisement
Advertisement