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Post by cascade on Apr 8, 2017 22:20:42 GMT
Lakeport, I love the fact that you're developing some true shorts.
Since you're saying your animals are already short enough, it seems like you could stop using chondro-bulls.
Now, back to Saltaire Platinum... He's just as pure as any other pure Dexters, and he has lots of true-short descendants.
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Post by bruff64 on Apr 9, 2017 11:23:42 GMT
I think I will continue on with the Chondros.
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Post by lakeportfarms on Apr 9, 2017 18:24:39 GMT
Me too Larry. This little 25 lb. heifer was born last evening and up, searching for mom's udder, and nursing within 5 minutes. Must have been those defective aggrecan genes, or joints, or something...
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Post by cascade on Apr 10, 2017 13:49:28 GMT
One broken aggrecan gene = poor cartilage, dwarfism, bad joints, early arthritis.
Two broken aggrecan genes = hideous boneless monster calf born dead, sometimes killing the mother too.
Seems a shame to purposefully infect an animal with a broken aggrecan gene when that gene is critical to form healthy long-lasting cartilage and bones.
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Post by bruff64 on Apr 10, 2017 15:56:37 GMT
For such a lethal calamity it seems funny that there are so many non-arthritic healthy Chondro positive Dexters around. I have never seen or known of any hapless Dexter s in my area as you describe them. For such an epidemic of the proportions which you promote the fields should be full of Dexter carnage. It is sunny here today and I can clearly see the sky has not fallen.
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Post by lakeportfarms on Apr 10, 2017 23:19:37 GMT
That photo I posted above of the little Dexter heifer is out of a 10 year old shortie cow. I can assure you she is anything but arthritic, and since she was bred by a non-chondro bull, there was zero chance of the "boneless monster calf". Enough with the histrionics.
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Post by cascade on Apr 11, 2017 19:04:08 GMT
Genes are a component of little protein factories within cells. The ACAN gene works to produce Aggrecan protein, an essential protein used to develop healthy cartilage with supreme cushioning power. Animals with one broken ACAN gene can only produce half as much Aggrecan as a normal healthy cow with two normal healthy ACAN genes.
Chondro-Dwarfs have a broken ACAN gene With only half the Aggrecan of a normal animal, a chondrodysplastic dwarf's joints will only last half as long as they would otherwise last.
A chondrodysplastic dwarf cow whose joints only last 13 years, might have had joints last to age 26, if it didn't have a broken ACAN gene.
Further, several Chondrodysplastic Dwarf Dexter Breeders recently reported that it is impossible to guarantee that one of your Chondrodysplasia bulls isn't breeding your Chondrodysplasia cows. They all had surprise breedings caught by parentage testing (too late if a chondrodysplastic bull is the sneaker). One breeder stated that the only way to guarantee it, is to not keep any Chondrodysplasia bulls.
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Post by lakeportfarms on Apr 11, 2017 20:59:02 GMT
So "sneaker bulls" happen only with chondro bulls, and not with let's say...Angus bulls (that could also carry red) from a neighbor's farm, or let's say the sire of Godstone Esmeralda or even ultimately Saltaire Platinum. Didn't you say that you don't steer any of your bulls?
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Post by cascade on Apr 12, 2017 5:00:53 GMT
DNA tests can tell us, after the fact, who the actual sire is. The tests can even tell us if the animal is likely purebred for many generations back. After-the-fact works fine in every case except with bulls with known serious lethal genes like BD1-Chondro.
Any bull on my farm, could breed any cow on my farm, with reasonable results. They're all purebred registered dexters with great genetics.
I suspect that excellent new little true-short bull of yours, will be able to breed any cow on your farm with reasonable results.
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Post by lakeportfarms on Apr 12, 2017 11:55:37 GMT
Hogwash, the breed purity test is nowhere near accurate enough for any kind of definitive answer. And with heavily linebred herds such as yours, it's going to take a whole lot of DNA markers, more than what are usually used, to give you an answer about the parentage of your calf.
You can't tell us with DNA who the sire (or for that matter the dam) of Godstone Esmeralda was. You can't tell us with DNA who the sire (or for that matter the dam) of Saltaire Platinum was. So now you're relying on the "rules" of the day, and that a polled bull, in a horned breed, a "novel mutation" was in fact the descendant of the horned Dexter parents and grandparents, etc... And at the same time that there was wishful thinking among some breeders that if only the Dexter breed had polled, the popularity of them would soar. And "VIOLA!" one spontaneous mutation just happened to appear at that time! How convenient!
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Post by cascade on Apr 14, 2017 4:48:05 GMT
1. DNA Breed Purity Tests are 1000 times more accurate than flawed pedigree records.
2. Breed Purity tests can't tell you who a particular parent was back in time, but neither can a pedigree that wasn't parentage verified.
3. If you have two bulls that are so closely related that their DNA profiles match, then it really doesn't matter much, which one is which.
4. Dexters had already been converted into a substantially hornless breed by dehorners, long before the polled gene came along.
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Post by jamshundred on Apr 14, 2017 12:21:06 GMT
There is NOTHING you can type that will legitimize the TRANSFORMATION of a rare, heritage, minor breed, into a generic copy of modern breeds.
It is no different than crossing a heirloom tomato with a modern hybrid. The antiquity and heritage and the value of the genetics of the heirloom is eradicated.
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Post by lonecowhand on Apr 14, 2017 23:10:16 GMT
Cascade:
1. Hogwash. 2. Hogwash. 3. Hogwash. 4. Hogwash.
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Post by cascade on Apr 16, 2017 1:02:01 GMT
There is NOTHING you can type that will legitimize the TRANSFORMATION of a rare, heritage, minor breed, into a generic copy of modern breeds. It is no different than crossing a heirloom tomato with a modern hybrid. The antiquity and heritage and the value of the genetics of the heirloom is eradicated. I agree that it would be sinful to transform a heritage breed into a generic modern breed. We save lots of heritage genetics on our heritage farm for very practical reasons. Heritage genetics are hardy, and simple, and easy and diseasee resistant, and friendly and efficient and flavorful. The ONLY way to preserve those genetics is via constant selection toward those traits, year after year after year. Pedigrees won't guarantee that you don't drift away from those important traits. True smart seed savers don't just save seed from any plant, instead, each year they only save seed from the plants that best exhibit the useful characteristics of the particular variety. If you want to preserve the most useful characteristics of heritage Dexters, you've got to select for those characteristics generation after generation. Pedigrees have their place, but pedigrees won't help much with this process.
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Post by jamshundred on Apr 17, 2017 12:32:54 GMT
Back to an old point then. WHY and WHAT is the purpose of a pedigree if it means NOTHING to those of your particular philosophy. Breeds are changed by man not by nature. (i.e. Chillingham herd-now 700 years isolated behind castle walls). The pedigree IS important. Especially in the preservation effort. There is no value in preserving a heirloom seed that is not a heirloom seed, one that has been crossed by a hybrid.
You blather on and on . . . . in your constant quest to insist your hybrids are the same as heirloom. YOU are part of the problem, not part of the solution. They did not save the Eagle by crossing it with a buzzard, a falcon or a hawk. The magnificent Eagle was saved by breeding eagle to eagle and preserving their genetics. It is so simple. . . . yet none are so blind as those who cannot see.
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Post by cascade on Apr 17, 2017 22:01:28 GMT
Heirloom plants are constantly subject to having outside pollen coming in via wind and insects. A small amount of outside genetics coming in from time to time can be good for the heirloom plants. The ONLY thing that keeps those heirloom plants true to their heirloom features, is continual selection of important heirloom traits by the seed savers.
Same thing with purebred animals. Sneaker bulls have always occasionally brought in outside genetics. The only way to maintain their heritage features is via selection toward those heritage features, generation after generation.
Three or four generation pedigrees have some use, but beyond 4 generations it's mostly not useful except in a few specific cases.
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Post by Donlin Stud on Apr 18, 2017 3:45:55 GMT
Heirloom plants are constantly subject to having outside pollen coming in via wind and insects. A small amount of outside genetics coming in from time to time can be good for the heirloom plants. Is the above an agreement / acceptance that SP is NOT pure. Is not a mutant but is the resulting offspring of an outcross?
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Post by cascade on Apr 18, 2017 6:08:15 GMT
It's an understanding that all Dexter pedigrees are peppered with errors over the past 130 years as occasional off-breed wandering bulls have jumped fences.
If you think the hundreds of animals listed as ancestors on your pedigrees are all accurate, you're fooling yourself.
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Post by bruff64 on Apr 18, 2017 10:46:35 GMT
Maybe, no doubt there may have been the occasional mistake. Hard to prove one way or another. However, most reasonable thinking folks would not accept that scenario as a general occurrence as you seem to imply above. In fact if I were to believe that most Dexters or any other breed are a regular mis match of wandering bulls progeny then why have pedigrees at all? On the other hand, purposefully using an outcross bull to intentionally defraud other breeders is another matter entirely. Trying to justify an intentional deception with a 130 year old hypothetical wandering bull story that has no factual basis is quite frankly BS.
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Post by cascade on Apr 18, 2017 17:46:27 GMT
In 130 years of registry record keeping, some of today's Dexters could have 50 generations behind them. That's well over 1 million slots on a pedigree, but there would be lots and lots of duplicated animals on the pedigree, because many of the older animals would appear repeatedly in lots of lines.
If you eliminated all the duplicates, you might find that one of today's Dexters has 2000 or more unique registered ancestors.
I've found studies that show the error rate in registered cattle parentage to be 4%-10%.... An animal with 1000 ancestors, would have 40-100 of those ancestors with a wrong parent listed.
This essentially means that EVERY pedigree is peppered with many errors, and that's why many registries now require dna parentage verification.
The value of a registry along with a breed standard, is that it helps put pressure on breeders to do their best to keep good records and do their best to keep 50% crossed Dexters from being registered as near 100% pure Dexters. Also, the breed standard helps put pressure on breeders to make selection decisions to maintain key breed traits.
A 4-10% error rate wasn't that big of a problem, as long as breeders are closely following a detailed standard. If an occasional off-breed bull jumps a fence, you can weed those off-breed genetics out by culling calves that have questionable features.
Without a registry and without a breed standard, there would be zero controls and you'd have a mess.
Of course, now that parentage testing is being implemented, we will see the error rate drop to near zero, in coming years.
Now, to address your myth about a deceit taking place. There was no deceit. Deceit requires that someone is knowingly telling a lie. That did NOT occur.
When Saltaire Platinum was brought in, his pedigree looked to be in order. His import was the most public event in Dexter history. He was a registered purebred Dexter in the UK, and his pedigree looked fine. Anyone and everyone could have challenged his pedigree, but NOBODY could find any problems with it. So NOBODY challenged it, not even Judy challenged it. In fact even 10 years later, Judy still hadn't found any pedigree problems.
It took Judy over 15 years of intense research to find old holes in SP's distant pedigree and those holes were no different from the holes in Parndon Bullfinch's pedigree. If you want to go back in time, you'll find problems in the pedigree-records of ALL Dexters.
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Post by bruff64 on Apr 18, 2017 18:41:37 GMT
Well there you have it. Judy's fine work 15 years in the making corrected a serious mistake in the 4-10% category and like minded breeders are taking action to make things right. Traditional Breeders that is. With such obvious holes in Saltaire's pedigree exposed why are you "putting pressure" on those whom are making selection decisions to maintain key breed traits. Of course now that we have parentage testing and the verification of pedigree holes in Saltaire's lineage/origins we can correct some of the historical errors enroute to a error rate of zero! With Saltaire's pedigree showing up in near 80% of new registrations that 4-10% margin looks a little skewed in todays herd. Some of your arguments are more pertinent to the Traditional viewpoint than polled. Maybe you should divest your current herd and work on the real deal.
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Post by lakeportfarms on Apr 18, 2017 20:23:26 GMT
I tend to think that the main driving force for female genotyping and parent verification is because it adds the appearance of legitimacy to the polled Dexter. Who cares if there was some crossbreeding a few animals back in the pedigree when you can state that your calf out of two genotyped parents is pure 100% Dexter! When Legacy Dexters were being genotyped and parent verified the ADCA was left with a decision to institute genotype and parent verification, or be left behind.
I'd like to know why so many are so secretive about their DNA markers? Afraid that there may be some funky numbers lurking in there somewhere?
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Post by cascade on Apr 18, 2017 22:19:43 GMT
99.9% of all of today's Dexters have Round Chimneys Roly Poly on their pedigrees. He's a 1950's bull with tons of blank spots on his pedigree. He's on a lot more pedigrees than Saltaire Platinum. With Round Chimney Roly Poly on 99.9% of traditional pedigrees, you "traditional" folks are not fixing anything. He has 18 holes on the first page of his pedigree. legacydextercattleregistry.com/pedigree.php?registry=D®no=EM1633
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Post by bruff64 on Apr 19, 2017 0:17:46 GMT
Yes we are. We are fixing a deliberate attempt to change a genetically horned breed into a genetically polled breed. Those 18 holes in Round Chimney Roly Poly were certainly genetically horned cattle. But your right, us "Traditional Folks" are not fixing anything because we have the unbroken real deal Dexter. Ain't broke no need to fix anything.
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Post by Donlin Stud on Apr 19, 2017 2:16:50 GMT
I've found studies that show the error rate in registered cattle parentage to be 4%-10%.... An animal with 1000 ancestors, would have 40-100 of those ancestors with a wrong parent listed. Australian Dexters have been DNA parent verified since the early 1990s as part of the eligibility criteria for registration. The percentage error rate of 4 – 10% in pedigrees was documented when in a research / controlled environment where the younger bull sired more calves than first thought possible, where steers were not actually steers (quite common if you ask an abattoir worker) and where two dams had swapped calves. The expected error rate of pedigrees in a paddock environment is deemed to be much higher. And this is only in respect to recent management practices and the expectation of tight calving patterns for commercial reasons. Dexter breeders of yesterday lived in a different era so really how many of these owners would have been able to afford or have say more than around 10 Dexters, and more than one bull at any given time? And really how many of them would have had tight calving patterns? Lower numbers located closer to the farm house would have significantly reduced the potential for such errors.
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Post by cascade on Apr 19, 2017 14:20:15 GMT
1. DNA markers of Saltaire Platinum were analyzed by the experts... He's pure Dexter. "Traditionalists" have a copy of the test and are hiding it.
2. Pedigrees of "traditional" Dexters have always been unknowingly peppered with polled cattle. They didn't track horned vs polled in the herd books and pedigree systems until relatively recently. Judy simply plugged the word "horned" into old records in her pedigree system without having any records saying whether the animal was horned or not.
3. In past times, people who kept Dexters and other breeds had VERY poor fencing. Prior to AI technology, there were a lot more bulls kept by small herds. Bulls wandered a lot more in the past due to poor fencing. The lady with 5 Dexters on 3 acres, likely lived in an area with many other breeds of cattle, and MANY wandering bulls, many of which would have been polled.
4. A surprisingly high number of Dexter owners kept other breeds of cattle. John Logsdon of the Peerless Herd in America, had countless Shorthorn bulls on his farm. He also was quoted as saying that he thought Dexters should be like miniature shorthorns. You can bet that his 10% pedigree error rate, included Shorthorn bulls breeding his Dexters.
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