Hot Commodity & Evolution

[oakview]

Here's some "scientific" information for you.  In my younger days I AIed to about every bull imaginable.  From Leader 21 to Clark to Cunia to Double Stuff to Leader 18th and everything in between.  The only one that had a noticeable, and I mean noticeable, positive influence on performance, both weaning and and post weaning, was Jam's Uh-Huh.  I've mentioned it before, but you could actually see those calves grow.  There were several bulls that sired calves that were noticeably poorer performers.  These bulls were generally known as "club calf bulls."  Quite frankly, there will never be a perfect set of research in anything as long as it's run by humans.  Our family has been ASA members for nearly 70 years.  I can count the number of times anyone asked me about EPDs on my fingers.  I use them for myself, but there are too many variables to be relied on. 

 

[idalee]

EPD's are nothing more or less than another tool for making breeding decisions.    I have seen buyers come to a sale will extensive analysis of EPD's and never look at the animal.  Others never look at the numbers.  Both are wrong.  Secondly,  EPD's need to be evaluated by the accuracy numbers.  EPD's do not require a reference sire in the same herd.    Some information is better than no information and those who would fudge the numbers do little more than hurt themselves.    This is reminisent of the discussions surrounding Predicted Differences for Milk production in dairy cattle some 40 years ago.  Those with less than 10 cows and those with more than 1000 cows still contributed to the overall data base with the result that the efficiency of milk production has increased dramatically.  Use of these types of statistical predictions of genetic merit has resulted,  since 2007,    a 25% reduction in cows needed to produce the same amount of milk,  17% reduction in feed required,  21% less land,  30% less water and a 19% reduction in green house gas emissions.  If the beef industry expects to remain competitive in the economic arena,  they had better use EPD's in their proper perspective and quite nit picking about the various perceived short comings of this tool. 

 

[Weezie]

One thing I've always been fascinated with Hot Commodity is how relevant he is today in terms of the age of his genetics. It's 2019 and we are talking about HC's influence and how he is still being used. Allure was born in '02 and he is a Pretender 96th ('96) on a Ruby 177th ('92). Meg 270N born in '03 she's a Gold 002('00) on a Meg 6037 ('96). I'm sure a lot of these bulls and cows in his pedigree were ahead of their time but 3 of his 4 grandparents were born in the 90's and Hot Commodity was born in '08. Cattle now are a lot different now then they were back then yet a bull with so much 90's influence so close in his pedigree is still relevant in 2019. IMO it makes me wonder if there are a lot of bulls from the early 2000's and 90's that need to be used again. Maybe some bulls didn't get enough usage before or maybe they were just ahead of their time. I think it's something worth thinking about in terms of genetics and future breeding decisions.

 

[Medium Rare]

There's a lot of good bulls from that era that are worth using. The problem is no one has told the new kids they're "good" and it's easier to sell "new & exciting" than old and proven in today's overly refreshing/updating world. From what I've seen, I'd rather use Pretender than HC but you can sell a HC based on the name being in the cool club way faster than the Pretender despite it being a better calf.

The current semen price seems to keep these bulls out of below average herds, and cows, so it's tough to get a feel for just how many good cows are carrying them to the finish line. I can't seem to get daughters out of either bull, but HC has been very inconsistent for me. I did keep one back, but she doesn't look like she'll be the cow her mother is. Evolution has been much more consistent here. His bull calves all look the same and they come early. Compared notes with two other long time breeders and they both had the same experiences.

I was hoping you'd get some responses to your frame post Weezie as there are people who will be looking to add frame, spine length, and milk in the near future. The era you've been mentioning had plenty of all three and some good bulls carrying those traits. I've gone through the semen tanks and picked out a few to use on my own smaller framed shorter spined ground sows that have been trending the last few years.

Bloodstone put one in the winners circle yesterday at the Royal that carried some frame over a couple of very good females that just lacked the shear size and mass the winner had. One of those females in particular was very very hard to poke a hole in other than she was simply more moderate. It's hard to believe this is even a suggestion considering how line bred the current herd is to them, but I'm surprised a few breeders haven't started injecting Trump and Rodeo Drive directly back into a few matings as well. Today's pot bellied heavy muscled Jersey trend has more than enough guts to carry a lot of the older bull's in that aspect.

 

[oakview]

Interesting Pretender is brought up now.  I picked out a bull calf from Dale when he was a calf.  I opted for MTS Draft Pick instead, don't know if Dale would have priced Pretender to me anyway.  I wasn't really interested in him.  I will say he is a unique blend of genetics.  I did have a few calves out of Pretender, but they didn't come easy.  Yes I know half of the BW genetics comes from the cow.  Draft Pick did a great job for me.  His first bull calf was an All American nominee, Oakview Press Pass.  Check out his pedigree, just about everything imaginable in it.  Draft Pick was out of the old MTS Queen cow, a Rodeo Drive daughter out of a Maine influence female.  I've got a few Pretender embryos from her in my tanks somewhere.  What I like most about raising cattle is the difference in opinions of cattle producers.  I have great friends that swear by the Trump/Red Reward cattle, I've got friends that will go to absolutely extreme measures to locate and use bulls from the 60's and 70's.  Now I know folks that want those 90's cattle.  I bought GR Cop Top Trampas from Merle Welch in the mid 90's and he sired a group of calves that were about the most eye appealing group of calves I ever had.  The females made good cows, the bull calves looked like bulls, and the calves were moderate at birth.  Lots of good bulls from every era that could have a positive influence in the right situation.   

 

[Doc]

I've been very pleased with my HC's and Evolutions. They are seeming to milk very good, haven't had any issues with calving and for them to be easy calving the calves are not throwaways like some calving ease bulls out there sire. For what I do and try to accomplish with my herd, both of these bulls have worked very well for me. I was fortunate this month to partner with AJ Cattle on 2 good HC daughters. 1 was Reserve Grand at the 2017 Jr Natl's and the other won the 2017 IN State Fair. Both won their divisions at NAILE also. I'm excited about the future for these 2 females.
As far as Pretender goes, IMO he was too inconsistent for me. There has been some good cattle by him, but I've seen a lot of bad ones also.
Like Lonnie said, that's the good thing with having different likes and dislikes. If you don't like the cattle I raise, then you don't have to buy them but also at a sale then you and I probably won't be competing for the same animal which is good for both us.

 

[Medium Rare]

Oakview, your Draft Pick and Trampas bulls sent me down the bw epd rabbit hole.

Did Draft Pick throw calves anywhere near what his 7.9 bw epd says he should have? Guessing the two shots of Dreamboat, who is now an 11, made the epd calculator start to smoke.

On the other hand, would you consider Trampas to be calving ease? I see he's double bred Payoff, who is a 4 for bw, with two extra shots of Irish making him have at least 5 shots of Dividend/Leader. I've always been told Payoff was often used as a calving ease bull and even on cows that weren't exactly low bw animals. I've also generally been told he threw calves with smaller bone and an easy calving profile, but his 7 ced number doesn't really carve out that line of thought either. The epds on Trampas himself would tend to lead one toward that line of thought though.

I've watched the bw epd move around on some of my own bulls, especially right after turning in some interesting bw data, and often wondered if the system is overcompensating for things it can't begin to comprehend with some rather large assumptions.

 

[shortybreeder]

The EPD algorithm is based around numerous assumptions. One such assumption, coming from one of the individuals responsible for maintaining the algorithm themselves, is that breeds improve over time--which we can all agree is debatable. An EPD is simply a comparative tool, and the values only have meaning when compared to other EPD values from the same dataset. So, as a result of the assumption above, as genetics get older (ie Draft Pick, Pretender, etc.) they progressively slide down the scale to the bottom. I'm not saying there isn't any merit in that 7.9 EPD, I'd just take it with a grain of salt when comparing it to the yearlings/2 yr olds who have much "better" EPDs--and not just on BW.

 

[oakview]

Draft Pick's calves were absolutely not large at birth, just average for us.  I don't remember helping any of them.  Trampas was used very successfully on heifers.  One of the reasons I liked him, other than he was a very good bull, was his Una family dam.  Lazy D Deerpark Una was a full sister to the full Irish bull I bought from Lazy D as a calf, Lazy D Ultimate Type.  He was a "balanced trait leader" for several years.  Payoff has been a sure fire calving ease bull for me.  I have only had one calf in the past 20 years or so, but it was easily born from a first calf Sull Cyclone daughter.  One of the top 5 cows I ever had was a Payoff daughter out of a first calf Dollar II female from my Roseleaf line.  I used Dreamboat and Exclusive shortly after they came out.  I synchronized 7 three year old females and got 7 bull calves.  The first one, a Dreamboat out of a Prairie RR Babe Ruth daughter, came about 5 or 6 days early.  The last, an Exclusive out of an Ultimate Type daughter, was about 14 days late.  The other 5 were born at or about their due date and were no problem.  I had a few Seville descendants, however, that were quite large at birth.  I had a Jam's Uh-Huh bull calf out of a Seville daughter that was very large.  All the Uh-Huh calves were that way for me.  The Dollar II cow mentioned above had an Uh-Huh bull calf that was the largest I ever had at birth.  Quite different than her Payoff calf.  The Uh-Huh's did grow, however, and I never lost one. 

 

[Weezie]

There's a lot of good bulls from that era that are worth using. The problem is no one has told the new kids they're "good" and it's easier to sell "new & exciting" than old and proven in today's overly refreshing/updating world. From what I've seen, I'd rather use Pretender than HC but you can sell a HC based on the name being in the cool club way faster than the Pretender despite it being a better calf.

The current semen price seems to keep these bulls out of below average herds, and cows, so it's tough to get a feel for just how many good cows are carrying them to the finish line. I can't seem to get daughters out of either bull, but HC has been very inconsistent for me. I did keep one back, but she doesn't look like she'll be the cow her mother is. Evolution has been much more consistent here. His bull calves all look the same and they come early. Compared notes with two other long time breeders and they both had the same experiences.

I was hoping you'd get some responses to your frame post Weezie as there are people who will be looking to add frame, spine length, and milk in the near future. The era you've been mentioning had plenty of all three and some good bulls carrying those traits. I've gone through the semen tanks and picked out a few to use on my own smaller framed shorter spined ground sows that have been trending the last few years.

Bloodstone put one in the winners circle yesterday at the Royal that carried some frame over a couple of very good females that just lacked the shear size and mass the winner had. One of those females in particular was very very hard to poke a hole in other than she was simply more moderate. It's hard to believe this is even a suggestion considering how line bred the current herd is to them, but I'm surprised a few breeders haven't started injecting Trump and Rodeo Drive directly back into a few matings as well. Today's pot bellied heavy muscled Jersey trend has more than enough guts to carry a lot of the older bull's in that aspect.

I started getting into shorthorns in the mid 2000's so my knowledge of the type of cattle older bulls produced is limited. I look at certain bulls and have to research what they were used on and who used them. It's tough because I didn't see what the calves looked like. That being said, I like breeding a little different and don't mind experimenting. I think you have to in order to create unique genetic combinations that could be good for the breed and/or your program. When it comes to the show industry I think you've got to have some frame to compete. How do we get shorthorns to the point where they can beat the other breeds in top 5 placings regularly? Is going backwards in the genetic pool to go forwards a possible solution? Seems like HC worked, maybe other bulls similar to him can do the same.