Line 1 Herford type deal

[aj]

I always herd old Herford breeders say that line one Herfords weren't the best on their feet and legs. I assume this was because they weren't evaluated structuraly......just numbers.....and raising a calf every year. How important is structure? I would think that to straight a shoulder would be the main problem. If cattle can produce to age 10......how important is it to not be cow hocked? If they can travel 1 mile aday for ten years.....is there any need for over kill there? The corn stalk residue grazing......do some cattle handle foundering situations better. These are the things that keep me up at night. ;D

 

[oakview]

The family of my best friend in junior high, this was in the late 60's, had over 100 horned Hereford cows.  I remember Jimmy's dad commenting on some calving difficulties and "those darn square heads!"  Both of my grandfathers had Milking Shorthorns and Grandpa Nahnsen used a Polled Hereford bull.  We've got home movies of some of those calves, from the late 50's and early 60's, and they were pretty good cattle, but he noted the calves were a little larger at birth than he was used to.  My uncle used an Angus bull on his Holstein cows both to reduce birth size and improve market price.  The first Shorthorn heifer I bought with my own money was found lying in the creek, trying to calve.  We got her to the barn on the flat top trailer, but she never got up.  She was of straight Scotch Shorthorn breeding.  Sure wish I could find some of that breeding today.  Calving difficulties are as old as cattle production and affect ALL breeds.  There were very, very few births weights taken then that I know of.  We had almost 100 cows in those days and used some Simmental when they first came over.  Talk about big calves!  Fortunately, there were college professors to tell us that we needed to be concerned about calving ease and everything has been fine since.  We have EPDs!

 

[RyanChandler]

I have lots of pics of my grandads horned Herefords from the 60s - they weren't small by any means.  He tells me he pulled plenty of calves out of those straitbred cows so no, I don't think it's a new problem.  There's a reason angus bulls were coined heifer bulls of that time as- most had Hereford cows- and they realized breeding their hereford heifers back Hereford was a problem. 

 

[aj]

The first time I rememeber people weighing calves was the mid 70's. A simmental breeder was doing it along with performance testing idexes and such.

 

[justintime]

I remember pulling lots of calves when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s. I never kept records, but I would bet the farm that we pulled far more each year back then than we do now. In 2012, I assisted 1 calf born from the entire calf crop. In 2013, I assisted 6, of which 2 had legs back and 3 were backwards, and one was a heifer with mixed up twins trying to be born at the same time. We never used a calf puller ( only because we had never seen one) back then,but I remember my dad and I sitting side by side and pulling for all we were worth. That said I also never remember having a c-section either. My dad says that the first c-section  in the first 70 years on this farm was in 1975, when we bred a Simmental heifer to the wrong bull. We did weigh our calves back in the 70s, and I will have to see if I can find some of our calving records from that time. We were running 350-400 cows in the early 70s and we were breeding about 1/2 our Shorthorn cows to Maine and Simmental sires, and we weighed all the calves. I do remember many of these " exotic" calves weighing much more than our PB Shothorn calves, but we never had many vet assists during calving.  Our first registered Shorthorns arrived here in 1917, and we have had 3 c-sections since then. The first was a heifer with a twisted uterus, and two were backwards calves that we could not get up into the birth canal.

In regards to this discussion on Line 1 Herefords, this topic brings back some unpleasant memories for me. I used to have a herd of Herefords, that were rich in L1 genetics. I got this set of cows from a breeder who had used several sires from the L1 bloodline. One of the reasons I decided to get this set of cows was because there were 17 full sisters ( by ET) that were sired by a leading L1 sire at the time. Their dam was also sired  by a L1 sire. I had never seen a prolapsed uterus until these cattle arrived, and by the time they left, I was well acquainted with them. These cows did stay in shape year round, but only because they basically kept their calves company from June 1st until weaning. I think the average humming bird had as much milk as these cows did. It did not take much time to decide that we would disperse these cows when the opportunity presented itself!

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

If those cows were so bad why didn't you just cull them? Instead
Of dispersing and passing the buck on your bad decisiOn? Just curious. Obviously money is probably a big factor.

 

[justintime]

If those cows were so bad why didn't you just cull them? Instead
Of dispersing and passing the buck on your bad decisiOn? Just curious. Obviously money is probably a big factor.

The guy who purchased them was well aware of these cows. He was a Hereford breeder who wanted these genetics. He was well aware of what I thought of them and he still wanted them. I sold them to him for basically market value and told him that he was to ship the ones that he did not like and if he did not get his money back on them, I would make up the difference.  I guess we all see these cattle differently. My culls don't even go through an auction market, but normally sell directly to a kill plant buyer. In this case, this person asked me if I would sell, and I was willing to sell.... but only after he was totally aware of what he was getting. He wanted the genetics and said he was willing to give them a try.

 

[aj]

JIT.....do you know that uterine prolaspse deal was a Line deal.....or is that antedotal? I has heard that 4 things brought the herfords in off the mountain. Prolaspes,pink eye, dwarfism, and the black hided craze. I was told once that prolaspe deal was set in genetica from a popular show ring line. I had never heard it was a Line 1 deal. It could have been I don't know. Did the pinkeye and prolapse deal occur because of lack of inbreeding......or did inbreeding cause it. I would think that a prolapse problem would have noticed in camp line 1 one maybe not. I would like to read a book on camp line 1 but all I have found is papers on it. Its kinda hard to detect a pink eye problem if show cattle stand in a barn all day 365 days out of the year. Fascinating stuff. I always thought of Herfords as New Mexico or Idaho cattle with moderate milk or los milk.

 

[justintime]

JIT.....do you know that uterine prolaspse deal was a Line deal.....or is that antedotal? I has heard that 4 things brought the herfords in off the mountain. Prolaspes,pink eye, dwarfism, and the black hided craze. I was told once that prolaspe deal was set in genetica from a popular show ring line. I had never heard it was a Line 1 deal. It could have been I don't know. Did the pinkeye and prolapse deal occur because of lack of inbreeding......or did inbreeding cause it. I would think that a prolapse problem would have noticed in camp line 1 one maybe not. I would like to read a book on camp line 1 but all I have found is papers on it. Its kinda hard to detect a pink eye problem if show cattle stand in a barn all day 365 days out of the year. Fascinating stuff. I always thought of Herfords as New Mexico or Idaho cattle with moderate milk or los milk.

I have no idea if the uterine prolapses I had with the Hereford cows and heifers I had, had anything to do with the L1 line. This may have been passed down to these females from other genetics in their background. One thing I should have pointed out was that during the time we had the Hereford herd, we had several years of severe drought, which did not help their milking ability and their calves weaning weights. Many of their calves were little fur balls at weaning, but they did gain pretty decent once they were put on feed. Some of them were stunted even after a few weeks of creep feed before weaning. Thinking back, I do remember quite a number of pink eye cases in the Herefords as well.... and a few cancer eyes.
I will also had that I have had lots of prolapses in some other breeds as well. The Charolais cows we had were as bad as the Herefords. We have also had some Angus and Simmental prolapse despite having small calves that were born easily. We have raised Shorthorn cows for almost 100 years now, and we have never had a prolapse in a Shorthorn cow. I suspect with the inclusion of other breeds in the make-up of appendix Shorthorns, that the incidence of prolapses will increase in these lines. I recently had a Shorthorn cow that  got cancer eye, and that is the only one we have ever had. She was a very light roan ( almost white) and I suspect her light pigment around her eyes may have been the cause. I have never heard of another Shorthorn cow get cancer eye either.

 

[knabe]

doctored four black calves with pinkeye today.

is this an angus thing?

 

[aj]

There are some people doing studies on cows and there ability to handle them. Kit is one of them. As I understood it.....there are differences in hair follicle density. Smaller cattle are usually denser. I have a red herd and dad has a black one. I have noticed the blacks bunch up about an hour earlier than the reds......and then vive versa when it cools off. We generally have low humidity. Fly activity I think is based on many things......temperature and humidity. I know last year there were a couple days.......10 % humidity......where cattle would bunch up and swing tail at say 80-100 degrees.......then once it hit say 104 degrees......cattle would spread out and just relax.......cause flys not biting? Then it would cool down.....cattle bunched up in the 100-80 degree deal then spread out again.

 

[aj]

Don't really hear much about the prolapse problem any more. Was it a problem? Has it been cleaned up?

 

[bart]

Heatwave blood cleared up all those problems AJ.

 

[justintime]

Don't really hear much about the prolapse problem any more. Was it a problem? Has it been cleaned up?

I think there are lots of prolapses out there yet. One of my local vets told me this spring that they do lots of them, and I think some producers either try to fix them themselves or put the cow down.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

quote author=bart link=topic=45665.msg386182#msg386182 date=1374670302]
Heatwave blood cleared up all those problems AJ.
[/quote]


(lol) (clapping)

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

There are some people doing studies on cows and there ability to handle them. Kit is one of them. As I understood it.....there are differences in hair follicle density. Smaller cattle are usually denser. I have a red herd and dad has a black one. I have noticed the blacks bunch up about an hour earlier than the reds......and then vive versa when it cools off. We generally have low humidity. Fly activity I think is based on many things......temperature and humidity. I know last year there were a couple days.......10 % humidity......where cattle would bunch up and swing tail at say 80-100 degrees.......then once it hit say 104 degrees......cattle would spread out and just relax.......cause flys not biting? Then it would cool down.....cattle bunched up in the 100-80 degree deal then spread out again.

That's pretty interesting. The humidity in Ohio in the summer is normally around Guam levels so the flies are always biting. But I wonder what causes what you saw? You may have just saved some college big bucks but they will spend it anyway to do a study.

 

[aj]

At the 105 degree level............I don't know......seems almost like flies quit biting.....laid in the shade of the cows or something. That again was with low humiditity.

 

[RyanChandler]

Some thoughts:
When you have brangus cows running with strait bred British, at least to me, it becomes obvious which trait is responsible for having flies.  Without question, more hair = more flies.  The slicked off brangus and even the really slick hided- more angular type shorthorns I have are much more fly resistant. 

Pinkeye: is less about pigment and more about eye set.  In the past 12-15 years, I might have had 1 or 2 cases of pinkeye with my commercial cows. And those cows might have just poked their eye at some point.
This year, with the shorthorns, I've had 3 cows that have had continuously reoccurring pinkeye. They are sired by the same bull that passes on that bulging eye set- a dairy cattle look- and likewise, those three cows, their calves, and 2 other calves sired by the same bull have ongoing pinkeye.  When unaffected, you could have a child walk through my herd and point out the cows whose eyes protrude the most.  Coincidentally, those are the cattle with the ongoing problem.  I haven't had 1 case with the shorthorns outside of that bloodline.

Prolapse: I had 4 or 5 prolapse while calving over the years. ALL were half brahma.  It's much more common in brahma influenced cattle, but still- a rarity 

 

[garybob]

There are some people doing studies on cows and there ability to handle them. Kit is one of them. As I understood it.....there are differences in hair follicle density. Smaller cattle are usually denser. I have a red herd and dad has a black one. I have noticed the blacks bunch up about an hour earlier than the reds......and then vive versa when it cools off. We generally have low humidity. Fly activity I think is based on many things......temperature and humidity. I know last year there were a couple days.......10 % humidity......where cattle would bunch up and swing tail at say 80-100 degrees.......then once it hit say 104 degrees......cattle would spread out and just relax.......cause flys not biting? Then it would cool down.....cattle bunched up in the 100-80 degree deal then spread out again.

Guys, there was an Entomologist at the University of Arkansas. C. Dayton Steelman. He, along with Dr. A. Hayden Brown, Jr.,from the ANSC Dept, cooperatively did a study involving about 5 breeds of cattle. Their theory was, it was also a genetic resistance to Horn Flies, as to why some individuals, as well as entire herds, were less likely to suffer from them.

GB

 

[aj]

Gary.....the deal I read......it said.......they were watching cows in the same pasture. They attempted to kind of a fly count. There were flys on all cows but some of them appeared to to have twice as many on them.......day after day. So I'm not sure what the difference would be......an oil on the hide? Hair follicle density? Would some cows have bos indicus way back in their pedigree or something........a throw back?