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Post by cascade on Feb 14, 2015 7:25:52 GMT
Here's what Beryl Rutherford (of the Woodmagic Herd) had to say about the lethal Chondrodysplasia genetic bone disease... Her words are still online for everyone to see:
"Anyone who has watched a cow mourning over a dead bulldog calf, (accidents can happen so long as short leg bulls are retained to produce short legs from long leg cows); or watched a lame cow crawl across the meadow while her stable-mates galloped with gay abandon, has a right to say we should provide a breeding programme to avoid it."
"Today, few folks with a glimmering of genetics will contemplate a breed that relies on a lethal recessive to produce the desired effect. Moreover, those that do may well be pitch-forked out of the breed if one of the two lovely little cows that they recently acquired, produces a monstrosity, instead of the miniature calf that they had been eagerly anticipating. Their recounted experiences can put others off before they even own a Dexter.
Serious livestock breeders recognise that to qualify as a breed means ‘like breeds like’. Many vets would steer folks away from the breed for the same reasons. It is essential that the Society informs newcomers of the problem, and how to avoid it but even then, it is not a good advertisement. Established breeders will cling to their ‘short leg’ [chondro-dwarf], but eventually I believe the trend is going to be towards a small genetically sound Dexter that provides straightforward breeding, and I believe is much closer to the Celtic cow from which it is descended."
"I am sure the dwarf syndrome can be found in early cattle, and the farmer would have had no idea of how to prevent it. Early in the last century, man encouraged it in most beef breeds, but only the Dexter retained it, all the other breeds have done their best to eliminate it. The [Chrondro] craze in America is doomed eventually, the E.U. is now teetering on banning all lethal abnormalities, if we don’t do it first, it will be forced on us. Some northern countries have gone ahead already. "
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Post by lakeportfarms on Feb 14, 2015 12:07:10 GMT
What was Beryl Rutherford's opinion doesn't make it the only one out there. I suspect those words were written at a time when there was no test available for chondrodysplasia, and there are some dwarf Dexters that do not express the gene very prominently. Today, just as with many other traits, it can be selected for with nearly 100% accuracy.
You advocate selecting for size, and many other traits. Explain to me again what "selecting for" entails? Is it selling those you've not selected to others? Is it butchering them? How DO you isolate heifers for two plus years that don't exhibit the traits you desire, so they are not bred and pass on their traits to future generations before you butcher them? Or if you don't butcher them, who do you sell them to? Aren't you then just putting less desirable Dexters out into the general population, that will help define what you produce as a farm and also define the particular traits that a (in your case) red polled Dexter possesses?
While you work on taking a trait that is so important to you (polled, homozygous polled, red, in that order I presume)you've started out with a limited pool of animals to work with. You mentioned in another thread you have a number of homozygous polled bull calves that will be available this year. Do you really expect us to believe you're going to only select the very best and steer the others, rather than selling them on? You've never answered the question I had about the Steer/Bull that had the halter rub mark, and you have removed the photo. Was that really a bull worthy of preservation? Would you like me to post the photo again to refresh your memory?
Aren't those of us who breed and prefer the dwarf Dexter also selecting for a particular trait? If I want my herd of dwarf Dexter cows only, my customers for breeding stock have the ability to pick out the most exceptional long leg Dexter heifer that I produce in a given year don't they? They also have the ability to pick out the most exceptional Dexter dwarf bull that I produce in a given year don't they? No worries that I'm keeping them for myself. It would take a bit more effort to pry one of the dwarf heifers out of my hands though...and the same applies for the long legged bull every couple of years.
As I think Gene has mentioned, why do you spend so much time obsessing over what you refer to as a small subset of the Dexter breed? Perhaps you should be spending your time trying to preach your drivel to the masses of newbies out there who are so crazed with the idea of the possibility of not having to de-horn that they overlook ALL of the other important traits that they should be looking at. Most of us here already select for this and more successfully than you, based on the photos of some of your Cascade named Dexters out there in the general population (perhaps you should find and contact them and tell them to remove the unflattering photos, like you did with yours here). From what I've seen, there is a much larger problem with the quality of animals in your subset than with ours.
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Post by cascade on Feb 14, 2015 23:11:44 GMT
What was Beryl Rutherford's opinion doesn't make it the only one out there. I suspect those words were written at a time when there was no test available for chondrodysplasia. You advocate selecting for size, and many other traits. Explain to me again what "selecting for" entails? Is it selling those you've not selected to others? Is it butchering them? How DO you isolate heifers for two plus years that don't exhibit the traits you desire, so they are not bred and pass on their traits to future generations before you butcher them? 1. Beryl Rutherford made all those comments several years AFTER the Chondro Test was widely available (2004-2008). Her comments are factual. The chondro test does nothing to prevent breeding accidents. Parentage testing doesn't help because parentage testing occurs AFTER a calf is born dead. Chondro can never breed true more than 50% of the time, so they don't even qualify as a "breed". True breeds, breed true. Chondro's are problematic hybrids that don't breed true. The lethal Chondro gene is DAMAGING to the Dexter Breed (that's why it has a secret code name of "Short-legged"). 2. My key point is that some misinformed people are being told that they only have two choices: Choice 1: Tall, long-legged dexters Choice 2: "Cute" Short legged dexters infected with the lethal chondrodysplasia bone disease gene (they don't breed true) But there is a third choice: Choice 3: NORMAL Short legged dexters (True-Shorts) without known lethal genes (these true-shorts can be selected to breed true) 3. It doesn't matter what I'm doing on my farm... I'm not here on this board to sell my animals (they sell themselves). I'm selling a concept that if someone wants short friendly excellent dexters, they can do it without using a the defective lethal chondrodysplasia disease gene. If you like friendly, short, horned dexters with very particular pedigrees, you can select for an entire herd of them, in true-breeding versions, without lethal genes. Meanwhile, it's impossible to select for chondro's more than 50% of the time because they don't breed true. 4. Heifers with serious flaws (including lethal genes, or unacceptably bad behavior) should be culled sooner than later... no need to wait till age two. Also, not everyone wants dexters at the short end of the scale. If you are selecting for disease-free shorter dexters, there are still buyers for quality, disease-free dexters at the other end of the acceptable range. |
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Post by nicosteintjesholland on Feb 14, 2015 23:53:47 GMT
When we started with Dexters in Holland we had a non-short bull and 2 short cows and 1 non-short cow. The result was very disappointing. The progeny was very different in height. Except from that one non-short cow. Meanwhile I read more about Dexters and came to the conclusion that the hight of a short Dexter doesn't tell you something about what it gives thru to her progeny (genetic height).
The effect of the bulldog-gene is bigger and differs from cow to cow.
We heard about Woodmagic, and we like the filosofie from Beryl, but I found these animals to dairy type. And we hate inbreeding.
When we went to England in 2010 we visited many farms. The most beautiful herd (as a whole) whas the Harron herd. All mature cows were between 39-41 inch. Veronica (the owner) wouldn't breed them smaller, because of the risk of health and calving problems. She told us about her breeding programm the last decades. Only breeding with non-shorts and using the smaller animals. Not the smallest and not losing other important issues like legs and type.
We decided if whe have the chance we would import some cattle from the Harron Herd. We succeed in that last year and are very happy with these animals.
Meanwhile we have only used non-short bulls and sold a few short cows. We see that the calves grow out to a height we can predict.
Our next goal is getting them all around the 40 inch without losing exterieur qualitys. Good legs are more important than 1 inch in height. And character is also very important because working with Dexters must be fun!
BTW We still like the shorties we see at my collegeas farms. They just don't fit in our breeding filosofie.
greetings from Holland, Nico
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Post by lakeportfarms on Feb 15, 2015 21:00:39 GMT
What was Beryl Rutherford's opinion doesn't make it the only one out there. I suspect those words were written at a time when there was no test available for chondrodysplasia. You advocate selecting for size, and many other traits. Explain to me again what "selecting for" entails? Is it selling those you've not selected to others? Is it butchering them? How DO you isolate heifers for two plus years that don't exhibit the traits you desire, so they are not bred and pass on their traits to future generations before you butcher them? 1. Beryl Rutherford made all those comments several years AFTER the Chondro Test was widely available (2004-2008). Ok, perhaps I should have phrased that better: Beryl Rutherford's OPINION was formed long prior to the chondrodysplasia test being available. Beryl Rutherford spent the better part of her life working towards completely eliminating the possibility of a bulldog calf in her herd at a time when there WAS NO test available. Her herd was her legacy. Now, a simple test becomes available so anybody can now have the very short little Dexter without anyrisk of a bulldog at all. Since eliminating the chance for a bulldog gene for certain was was so much of her legacy, what would we expect her to say? If I had been in her shoes I'd probably have stuck to my guns as well rather than acknowledge that it was now a simple process to select for the very short Dexter and have zero losses with the test. I won't say it rendered her work useless. Far from it because she worked very hard to select for excellent traits and it has certainly helped keep the Dexter size in check. Especially now since there seem to be certain segments of the Dexter population that are getting quite large. You've said so yourself after all. The inputs and the outputs of a chondro carrier have a much greater spread between the two. With chondro carriers, it's like putting in a nickle and getting a quarter back half of the time when they have a larger long leg, and putting in a nickle and getting a dime back the other half when they produce a shortie, because the inputs to feed, etc. are lower, and the shorties sell for as much as if not more than a comparable long leg Dexter. With your "true shorts", you're putting in a dime and getting a dime back, and as you've said many times they reproduce themselves, but that's it. If somebody chose to have larger Dexters, you're putting in a quarter and getting back a quarter every time because they'll reproduce themselves too. |
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