I find this discussion very interesting and informative. Can anyone tell me if monkey mouth is similar or the same as what used to be referred to as parrot mouthed? I remember many Simmental bulls in the 70s and 80s with what was referred to as being parrot mouthed. Some of these bulls bottom jaw was so short that they could not eat grass very well. I remember a fullblood Simmental bull that sold for $30,000 in a very prominent sale, that almost died on pasture breeding cows. He simply was starving to death as he stuggled to eat enough on shorter pastures. He was fine when he had a tub of corn in front of him.
Your comments about Cunia brought back many memories. I saw Cunia, probably a few hundred times as he was housed for several years near me. At that time, he was a much overlooked bull as most people who were interested in these European cattle were drawn to the bigger framed bulls. For many years, Cunia was stalled with Dollar II on one side of him and Covino III on the other side of him. Dollar II weighed 3300 lb as a mature bull and Covino III was just over 2800 lb. Cunia was in between these monsters and he weighed 2450 on a very good day. He did look like a runt between these bulls. I remember hearing that when Cunia was selected in France, the French officials were upset and did not want him to be exported to North America, because they felt he was not representative of Maine Anjou cattle in France. He was selected only because they had been searching for a bull to import that may possess some calving ease, that would be safe to use on heifers and smaller framed cows. It took a considerable amount of discussion, most of which was done through the use of translators, before the French finally agreed to test him for export.
I do not remember Cunia having any issues with monkey mouth himself, but I may have not noticed it either. I do remember several Simmental imports ( also a few Charolais) that had real bad cases of what we called parrot mouth at the time. Thinking back to how Cunia looked, I think he if he was imported today, he would make someone very rich. He was one of the smoothest muscled bulls I have ever seen. He was ultra clean fronted and had an excellent real quarter. He had excellent thickness in his lower quarter. His shoulder was laid very well and from what I remember, I do not recall him being too straight fronted. I remember him as being one of the soundest bulls on his feet and legs of the import bulls. He had great feet and I remember the workers at the stud saying that he had not had his feet trimmed, while several other bulls required work on their feet at least a couple times a year. I also remember him as having one of the best temperments of the Maine bulls of the time. Most of the Maine bulls were much easier to handle than some of the other European breeds. Some of the Simmental bulls had reputations of being "man killers". I believe Abricot killed 2 ( maybe 3) stud workers, and I remember him having 2 large rings in his nose. When he was collected, he was led to the collection room by a tractor with a logging chain through both rings. You could not have paid me enough money to collect that bull. I used Abricot quite a bit in my Simmentals, and found them to be very good cattle to work with.
Getting back to Cunia... I probably had over 100 direct Cunia calves in the 70s and 80s, and I do not remember having any calves with any mouth issues. This makes me wonder if monkey mouth is like some other defects and only shows up when it is is inherited from both sire and dam. I have nothing to go on but memory here and I do not recall any mouth issues at all.
After I sold my Maine cattle, I had 50- 60 doses of Cunia left in my semen tanks. It sat there for a few years and I finally offered it free of charge to a young neighbour that was starting to breed Maine cattle. He got himself into some financial trouble and after a few years of struggling on the farm, he sold out and moved away. You have no idea how many times I have wished that semen was still sitting in my tanks. Since that time, I have been very reluctant to dump any semen , which might explain the 7 semen tanks in the barn office, and the over one thousand doses I pay storage on every month.
