Hot Commodity & Evolution

[Willow Springs]

When looking through sale catalogues and watching videos these cattle appeal to me more than the other show type genetics. They seem to have a bit more depth of body and cowiness while still having eye appeal. They have been around a few years so there should be a bunch of daughters around. How are they working as cows and what are udders/teats and milk flow like?

 

[Doc]

The HC daughters I have seen and been involved with as cows, I've been very pleased with. As any, you can have some outliers, but as a whole I think they are doing good.

 

[idalee]

Does anybody have a "real" picture of Hot Commodity?  That is,  a picture in working clothes out in a pasture.    I understand this is a show cattle discussion group,  but real pictures of real cattle are more useful when making breeding decisions.  Also,  I would like to see pictures of Hot Commodity daughters in pasture conditions. 

 

[Medium Rare]

Sull uses this picture of Hot Commodity somewhat regularly.

 

[Dale]

When I saw Hot Commodity on pasture, maybe in 2017 in Iowa (so he was old), he looked quite good--HC has no holes in him.  Denny Jordan used to have 40 HC daughters, and that was several years after the bull left Jordan Acres; they get the job done.  We have had a couple first calf HC daughters calve this fall, both unassisted.  Our 3 HC daughters in production, with another due later on, all have acceptable udders and their teats are no problem.  Milk production is sufficient and could be above average according to HC's EPD's. 

 

[mark tenenbaum]

I personally think that although they are very good looking show cattle-Bulls like Evolution are touted as calving ease when his dam is the farthest thing from it-He has all the Solution et al genetics right there-Hot Commodity is really a good bull-But he is not going to change cattle like that in one generation from 4-6 plus bws to 1 or below JMO-the two bulls I know of that should continue his basic traits are: Dales bull-Homeplace Hot Commodity FORGOT DOCS BULL-he has sired some good ones-and Cagwins Onward bull-who I dont think Onward is available to the teaming masses, Schrag has one too-but his dam-although a beautiful cow is a Swagger on top of something like Maxum or whatever-hes a cool looking bull-But cows only JMO-with that kind of breeding on the bottom I would never try him on a heifer O0

 

[idalee]

Thanks for the picture.  If I had seen both pictures without identification,  I would not have suspected that they were the same bull.    It is a sad comment that Hot Commodity has 1528 registered calves,  889 had birth weights,  277 had weaning weights and only 98 with yearling weights.  There is a lot of chatter on here about how Shorthorn Association doesn't do enough for the breeders.  Well,  those who live in glass  houses shouldn't cast stones!    The Association can't be faulted when breeders won't do the basics for themselves!

 

[mark tenenbaum]

Most of the show "popular cattle" breeders could care less-they seem to be most concerned about Birth WTS or was that BIRTH DATES O0

 

[idalee]

" or was that BIRTH DATES"  Amen,  brother!

 

[Doc]

Here are 2 cows and 1 bull that are dtrs and a son of Hot Commodity in pasture condition. The spotted cow is the Reserve Grand Female at the 2017 Jr Natl's and is nursing a May Hotwire heifer and the roan won the 2017 IN State Fair.
The bull is triple bred calving ease with better numbers than his sire.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

I forgot to ad him-slipped my mind Good and useful females-Find one more CE bull with the quality you want and have the best of both worlds You really should put the red bull on SEK or something-Its too much of a pain for some people in distant locales to try and find a shipper somewhere etc and buy 2 or three different bulls in small volumes to try O0

 

[RyanChandler]

Thanks for the picture.  If I had seen both pictures without identification,  I would not have suspected that they were the same bull.    It is a sad comment that Hot Commodity has 1528 registered calves,  889 had birth weights,  277 had weaning weights and only 98 with yearling weights.  There is a lot of chatter on here about how Shorthorn Association doesn't do enough for the breeders.  Well,  those who live in glass  houses shouldn't cast stones!    The Association can't be faulted when breeders won't do the basics for themselves!

Zero value in submitting data UNLESS you have calves sired by high accuracy reference sires WITHIN THE SAME CONTEMPORARY GROUP.  Without relevant sample sizes, much of what the ASA is trying to accomplish with EPDs is useless.  Even look at sire test.  They’re doing as much bad as they are good by having contemporary groups with such minimal sample sizes and references.  They need to limit the number of bulls to about 5 so that enough calves can be born from each to produce relevant sample sizes.  Using 1 offspring within a contemporary group as a ‘reference’ will result in misleading results every time.  Reality is few breeders have the ability to produce relevant sample sizes.

Additionally, I’m not sure measuring terminal metrics has any benefit to those breeding shorthorns who most purposefully serve as a component of the momma cow, not the terminal sire. 

I saw HC in 2012 or so.  I don’t remember him looking too much like that mature pic posted above.  I thought he more similar design wise to JPJ- but better structured.  Haven’t seen many offspring but the ones I have appeared to have enough capacity be to be useful.  Frequently this is the common fault with the showier lines- they’re gutless and super flat sided. You can see Evolution take on more of this form.  I’d pay somebody to AI my cows to HC— I wouldn’t use Evo if it were free. There is no possible upside great enough to offset the birthweight risk inherent in the genetics seen on the bottom side of his pedigree.  A HC son that is solid that doc mentioned is Hotwire.  The calves I’ve seen from JsF and Waukaru were all nice with that extra touch of middle SHs (as a breed) so desperately need.

 

[764wdchev]

Is JSF Hot Wire semen available?

 

[mark tenenbaum]

The other "most documented" HC is Dales Homeplace Hot Commodity-who has been on here in another thread Homeplace is one of the oldest "performance tested" Shorthorn herds " in the breed-and the bull sure looks the part His semen is available on Cattle Visions Anyone who has ever conversed with Dale Allison can see his strict adherence to those tenents back MANY years and an academic understanding of genetics in general  O0O0

 

[idalee]

Zero value in submitting data UNLESS you have calves sired by high accuracy reference sires WITHIN THE SAME CONTEMPORARY GROUP.  Without relevant sample sizes, much of what the ASA is trying to accomplish with EPDs is useless.  Even look at sire test.  They’re doing as much bad as they are good by having contemporary groups with such minimal sample sizes and references.  They need to limit the number of bulls to about 5 so that enough calves can be born from each to produce relevant sample sizes.  Using 1 offspring within a contemporary group as a ‘reference’ will result in misleading results every time.  Reality is few breeders have the ability to produce relevant sample sizes.

Once again the,  the profundity of Mark Twain's remark is validated!

 

[RyanChandler]

I’m thinking an author other than Twain might help you out a little more here-

“The minimum sample size for using a parametric statistical test varies among texts. For example, Pett (1997) and Salkind (2004) noted that most researchers suggest n>30. Warner (2008) encouraged considering n>20 as a minimum and n> 10 per group as an absolute minimum”

 

[wiseguy]

When the sire test started each bull was used on 20 cows through timed A.I.
If 50% conception was achieved then each bull would have a minimum of 10 offspring. The problem then becomes that 1/2 are bulls and 1/2 heifers. Therefore, 5 in each group. Then the problem becomes that some bulls have less than 50% conception and some much greater.
Although I believe the sire test is the best move the ASA has taken in many years I would agree that the test needs to be limited to less sires. I would like to see 50 cows mated to each bull.
The reality is we need to find large commercial herds that are willing to sample 3-5 bulls and retain ownership through a feedlot. Currently there are a few producers in the Midwest doing this and turning in all the data to the ASA. I believe the bulls uses where JSF Gauge, Waukaru Optimus, and  Byland Top Gun.

 

[oakview]

When I participated in the ASA sire test in the late 70's, we sent 50 units of semen to be used in the Padlock Ranch herd, I believe in Wyoming.  The cow/heifer herd was black white face.  The steers were evaluated at weaning and sent to a commercial feedlot near Brule, Nebraska.  All performance and carcass data was gathered.  If I remember correctly, the bulls entered in the test generally had 15 or more steer calves on test.  The owners of the bulls bought the calves and received the income from them when sold minus expenses.  Sometime I need to look up the data in my old magazines.  I know Merle Welch used the information on some of his bulls, such as 3W Payoff, for some time in his advertising.  Since there is semen around on many of the bulls that were used in the old ASA sire test, I think it would be interesting to use some of it to compare the bulls of today with those of 40+ years ago.  Good luck finding a commercial herd large enough and willing to AI 50 females of similar breeding to 20 or more different bulls, though. Sometimes we have to realize the information we gather may not be perfect, but it's the best we have.   

 

[RyanChandler]

It being the best we have is unfortunately not good enough as sample sizes must be of a minimum size in order to generate ‘statistically significant results.’

Performing a ‘statistical power analysis’ has to be the first step in determining how big a sample size must be.  And with the nature of our test being what it is, this numbers would have to be adjusted upwards in order to account for potential reductions in conception so that even if a particular sire were to have a low rate, he would still have the minimum number of offspring needed in order for the results to be statistically significant.

”A study on a small sample is quite tempting for obvious reasons, but it is a waste of time and money as the result will be invariably inconclusive. Very often, a small sample size is decided arbitrarily based on the researchers’ convenience, available time, and resources, resulting in a null trial due to insufficient number of subjects studied. “

 

[mark tenenbaum]

The alternative is a couple calves here a few there all over the map with little documentation beyond BWS from a lot of registrations O0