New Lautner Bulls

[DL]

I believe TH is a necessary evil.  The bulls that throw the good calves are carriers.  I personally think there is a link somewhere between TH and bone and hair.  If you know a calf's pedigree and look at him you can usually make a pretty good guess on whether or not he will be a carrier.  There will be people that use the carrier bulls because they make their living selling show calves.  There will even be people that flush a carrier cow to a carrier bull in hopes that the few good ones more than pay for the dead ones.

In TH, the defective gene has been shown to be aristaless-like homeobox 4 (ALX4) a major regulator of hindlimb formation. It also appears that by selection of the phenotype (straight hind limbs and lots of hair) breeders have been selecting for a phenotype that maintains this lethal allele at high frequency.

It would be interesting to get a bunch of experts together and have them assess the genotype based on  phenotype. Back in the 40s when dwarfism was such a problem for the Herefords, experts believed that the dwarf carrier had a phenotype that was desirable and that they could identify carriers based on phenotype alone. The experts were right 50% of the time and wrong 50% of the time. In Dexters the dwarf phenotype is desirable, yet the bulldog defect in this breed is lethal. Certainly the ability of humans to pick matings based on single trait selection has lead to a wide variety of defects in cattle, including Complex Vertebral Malformation, TH, PHA, various dwarf conditions, fawn calf etc.

It is also well known that carriers of various defect provide something to the organism - for example, while Sickle Cell Disease has a high morbidity and mortality, the sickle trait provides protection vs malaria (because of a shortened red cell life span). So it is not surprising that carriers would have certain attributes that some might find desirable.

RW - you bring up a very interesting point - with most genetic defects we want to eliminate them - (or in some instances hide them) but with TH we are managing it.

dusty - while I understand your point, and know people use and flush with carrier bulls (and as long as people are honest I really don't care) but I am not convinced that breeding carriers to carriers isn't really a welfare concern

 

[red]

i think the point was a tiny salute, not no salute.

Thank you Knabe! you are the one that got my point!

Red

 

[simtal]

Not to highjack the thread but is it possible to identify th-infected embryos?  I'm guessing its not.

 

[DL]

Not to highjack the thread but is it possible to identify th-infected embryos?  I'm guessing its not.

simtal - hijacking threads is what we do best!
technically yes, but practically no

actually red I think knabe was referring to my post - you gave a big Steer Planet salute, I said better late than never (tiny salute not no salute)

dusty - yup that could be true too

 

[red]

whatever floats your boat.

 

[knabe]

just for grins, a homeobox is a relatively well studied group of proteins.    we sequenced a lot of these genes in a lot of organisms, including coelocanth in hopes of finding developmental branch points in evolution.  from a basic research perspective, these are really interesting genes.  it's a short gene, and some might not even call it a gene.  to me, a gene is anything that is transcribed from genomic dna, hence, the 30,000 genes in human is a low number, to me at least, but not the community in general.

here's a link to some information

http://www.cbt.ki.se/groups/tbu/homeo.html

suffice it to say, the PHA gene could be just as interesting, if not more so as it might not be as broad in it's effect, so we'll know more about it.

 

[knabe]

anyone ever use cowtown?

 

[red]

20/unit

Sire: Heat Wave
Dam: Maine-Anjou
DOB: February 12, 2006
BW: 86 pounds
TH Carrier • PHA Carrier


Cowtown is a clone to one of the most dominant steers to ever show in Texas. The steer was Grand Champion at the Fall Classic in Waco, TX in November of 2004. Then went on to win Grand Champion at the Wichita Mountains Classic in Lawton, OK in December 2004. Concluding in  February of 2005 when he was dominant in winning the Southwestern International Livestock Show in Fort Worth, TX. A show that has over 2,600 entries annually. Congratulations to Brittany Behrend on exhibiting this great steer. Here is your opportunity to breed to his genetics.

 

[knabe]

i've seen him before in the flesh.  there is more space between his shoulders as a proportion to his size of any animal i have ever seen other than say something like a pig. he's a hairball too.  he's got that whole cubey hip action going on too.  i swear i could have just picked him up and thrown him in a pickup he's so small.  from a historical perpsective, he kinda reminds me of the cattle from the 50's if someone means to use him other than a terminal animal.  i guess i'm just shocked about the size of bulls these days.

 

[red]

hard to believe that w/ the cost of cloning that would be one they'd clone.

Red

 

[Dusty]

i've seen him before in the flesh.  there is more space between his shoulders as a proportion to his size of any animal i have ever seen other than say something like a pig. he's a hairball too.  he's got that whole cubey hip action going on too.  i swear i could have just picked him up and thrown him in a pickup he's so small.  from a historical perpsective, he kinda reminds me of the cattle from the 50's if someone means to use him other than a terminal animal.  i guess i'm just shocked about the size of bulls these days.

So after seeing him in the flesh would you use him to try and make some club calves?? What were some of his faults other than size?  Who Made Who was a pud too and threw some damn good calves and some damn good cows clubby or commercial.  Being a double carrier I bet he would throw some pretty sweet calves on the right females.  If you bred him to a double carrier female what would the odds be a getting a totally clean calf, free of both???

 

[red]

either that Dusty or a TH/PHA double dead calf! Not sure I'd ever want to take the chance on that disaster!  ???
That will get some fired up for sure!
Red

 

[Dusty]

either that Dusty or a TH/PHA double dead calf! Not sure I'd ever want to take the chance on that disaster!  ???
That will get some fired up for sure!
Red

I'm seriously trying to figure this out.  Knabe where ya at?? You're good at this stuff...

 

[red]

well, you have a 50- 50 chance of a carrier & a 25% chance of a dead calf. I lost my marbles so I am running blind here. Now w/ 2 double carriers I'm not sure how much the odds would go up.

Red

 

[Dusty]

Clean-12.5%
Single Carrier-12.5%
Double Carrier-25%
Dead-50%

Is that right?????

 

[shortyisqueen]

I think...(don't quote me) the chances of it being double-clean are 1 in 16 or 6.25%...

 

[red]

agh.. w/ those % I sure wouldn't take a chance!
I'll take your word dusty & shorty, makes my head hurt just thinking about it!

Red

 

[Dusty]

Got it....I think...I'm not a geneticist, but I did stay at a holiday inn express. 

Clean-                6.25%
TH Carrier-        12.5%
PHA Carrier-      12.5%
Double Carrier-  25%
PHA Dead-          18.75%
TH Dead-          18.75%
Dead by both-    6.25%
(that would be ugly)

Under this scenario 56.25% of the calves would be born alive at least.

 

[CAB]

Dusty, we'll have to wait for Knabe to check your homework first, but until then, I'm impressed. You're smarter than I thought.

 

[chambero]

They left out the part of the ad that his "brother" that dominated everything down here was the subject of a lawsuit filed by the stock show against its owner.  The Fort Worth Star Telegram found out about it, otherwise nobody would have ever known.  That's the Texas version of how the National Western does it.

I saw the calf up close at Fort Worth.  He was massive and very good - and not little at all.  In fact, he was one of the most massive steers for his weight.  Which was reportedly part of the "issue".  The next year is when Fort Worth went to the weighback.  That was our only show that didn't have it.

If good steers make good bulls (how's that logic), then this one might be good.  But I haven't used him.