old horned shorthorn bulls semen

[knabe]

what if dna analysis shows the older pure lines have other stuff in them?

didnt people lie or make mistakes back then too?

 

[r.n.reed]

Make sure there is no Cruikshank breeding in them,a chapter in the 1919 book,Kansas Shorthorns discusses that issue.Also one of the early herd books from the 1850's discusses the cloud over some of the first importations and other quote pure cattle in the early herd books.I have a couple of herd books from the Kentucky assoc.from the 1870's who started their own organisation because they felt their cattle were more pure than others.

 

[justintime]

Make sure there is no Cruikshank breeding in them,a chapter in the 1919 book,Kansas Shorthorns discusses that issue.Also one of the early herd books from the 1850's discusses the cloud over some of the first importations and other quote pure cattle in the early herd books.I have a couple of herd books from the Kentucky assoc.from the 1870's who started their own organisation because they felt their cattle were more pure than others.

I really wonder what can be considered to be true native lines. It is a matter of opinion and everyone seems to have one. When I look over some of the cattle that are classed as " native" I see cattle that I would never include on the list. For example, I see a number of Weston sires and we will probably never know exactly what bloodlines some of them were. There are many others. It is the same thing with non appendix and appendix cattle. There are lots and lots of non appendix pedigrees that I look at and have to just shake my head in disbelief. This is not only a Shorthorn issue. We have all heard the stories from other breeds of using unknown or fudged genetics. When the beef industry was still chasing the yard stick, I got a call from a well known Angus breeder in the US, asking me if I could source some semen from McKee's Matchless Dairyman ( a Milking Shorthorn bull). He said that he had found that this bull when used on black cows would sire all black calves. He also said that the calves from him also blood typed as being Angus(BTW, I never bothered looking for any semen for this guy!). I have no idea if this was correct, but I do remember having a discussion on some of these issues with the head of the blood testing lab  at Ohio State.This was in the early 70s and he told me that they had identified 9 full blood Maine bulls that blood typed as Purebred Shorthorns. He also said that there were some major blood typing issues in some other breeds as well. When we imported the Irish cattle we were told that some of them were not even close to being normal Shorthorn Blood types. Again, we will never know exactly what was in the background of some of these cattle. Because they were accepted into the herd books the breed associations decided to accept their blood types as being normal. I remember one Irish imported bull that the lab said had a totally different blood type to any bovine they had in their records.

I also remember a neighbour of mine, asking me if I would stop in and look at his calves from semen he had purchased from a recent Denver Champion Angus bull( of that era). When I stopped in to look at the calves, I was surprised to see 3 calves with big wide stars on their foreheads. This guy was fit to be tied as he would never use any bloodline he did not believe was pure. He sent every calf from that sire to the auction market.
One of the greatest visits I have ever had, was with Donald McGillvary when I visited Scotland three years ago. Donald owned the famed Calrossie stud in Scotland. At the time, I was trying to locate a female whose pedigree could be traced back to the pure Scottish lines, for a breeder in another country. I asked him if he knew of any of these females left in the UK?  He rely was " I sure the Hell hope not". I was a bit surprised by his answer, and he then went on to tell me about how wrong they had been to breed those cattle.He said that there was no thought put into the beef industry in those days, and that it was more hobby breeding than breeding to improve the cattle's worth to the industry. Then he said that maybe the only early bloodlines that were developed to help the industry were the Cruikshank cattle. I had heard and read  some of the same stuff r.n. reed refers to here. I asked Donald about this, and he said that he did not believe this and felt that it was rumour and stories developed against Cruikshank because he was developing better cattle than most others of that day. I don't know who is right, but we have many more recent examples of so called pure status cattle that have questionable heritage. Not too many breeders seem to be concerned with these cattle.
I will agree that the Irish strains should never be included as "native" Shorthorns, but they are probably as "native" as some on the list. I was involved in importing the second set of Irish cattle to North America, and it was never our intention to have them registered in the closed herd book, in fact we originally registered them as percentage cattle in the appendix book. Two years later, a motion was brought to the Canadian Annual Meeting to put the Irish in the closed herd book. My partners and myself travelled to this meeting to oppose this, and  we were the only opposing votes. I have always found that interesting!!!Now it is hard to find a so called purebred ( non asterisk) animal here that does not have Irish in it"s background. Some have Irish bloodlines 8 or 10 times in their genetic make-up. This is one of the main reasons I decided that the branch of the breed that an animal was from was not that important. There are numeros other examples.  I also feel that if so many animals hadn't been " conveniently "included in the closed herd books,over the years, that there would not be many so called purebred " non appendix" cattle left. I just wish more people would take the time to study their lessons.  

 

[justintime]

Back to the original topic, that being old horned Shorthorn bulls.  

I have been racking my brain as to what horned bulls from the past that could be available yet. Most of the ones I can think of were dual purpose bulls, but they were great bulls in their own right in every regard. I still have a couple canes of Seagrave Royal Imperial in my tanks. Royal Imperial was a dual Purpose bull with tremendous thickness and muscling. His mother was one of the greatest cows I have ever seen  and she was Seagrave Royal Sylvia 2nd. She was the highest classified dual cow in Canada for many years ( the breed association used to have fieldmen who went across the country and graded cows on the type. An A classification was consider an average cow. AA was considered above average, and AAA was an elite cow in the breed) Royal Sylvia 2nd was the highest scoring cow in the country and I think I would have to agree with this classification. I had a full sister and a couple daughters in our herd back in the 70s and while they were purchased from a dairy herd, they worked great as beef cows. Royal Imperial was born in 1969, was solid red, and super correct. His daughters were thick and had flawless udders. I have been tempted to pull some Royal Imperial out of the semen tank and use it in a flush, but haven't done it yet.

There were some great horned bulls back in this era that never had semen collected. One bull I remember was named Scotsdale Nordic. He was simply massive! Probably weighed 2500 lbs on a poor day. Super easy fleshing and I can still remember the great daughters he sired. They were roomy, thick and very easy fleshing. I can't remember seeing a bad calf from him, of either sex. I would give my eye teeth to use this bull today, but unfortunately no semen was ever collected and I don't think there ever was any from his sons. There was a couple other Scotsdale bulls in this era that were also great sires. I find it interesting that even though these bulls were from small framed Scottish bloodlines, some bigger bulls came out of these genetics. My dad had a Louada bull named Louada Clachan by Bapton Constructor who was also a big bull. Clachan weighed over 2300 lbs as an old bull when he was sold. He was thick with tremendous length, and again, super easy fleshing. I do not remember my dad ever feeding him grain, yet he always looked like he could walk into a show ring.


There was semen collected from a couple Brandon Researh and Lacombe research bulls but I have not run into any of it for some time.  The Brandon, Lacombe and Indian Head research farms all had closed Shorthorn herds and no new genetcis was ever added since the early 50s. These cattle were intensly line bred, but there were some excellent cattle developed.

 

[Grousepark]

Justintime and everyone,
    I kindly thank you all for these responses.  I'm learning volumes from this thread.  Now, I am extremely interested in semen from the Seagrave bull.  It is always a draw when a bull is known to have come from a fantastic cow.  The same is true, I'm told, for Nelco Mcleod and Kenmar President 26A.  IPS Canadian Image of USA's dame came from th Jibbskot herd that was closely associated with the Brandon/Indian head group, I believe.  As for the beef bulls, I've picked up a few leads: one is Cruachan Max Leader, and I've got a lead on ONE amp from a bull called Spring Canyon Prince.  I appreciate the input about Native shorthorns.
    What does it mean to register an animal?  What does it mean to say purebred?  I guess it goes along the line that "there are no guarantees".  If an animal is Native certified there is no guarantee that it is 100% (whatever that even means).  But this is the road I choose.  In fact, I'm personally pleased that the ASA did include the Appendix admission status.  If the ASA hadn't, forgery of pedigress would have been ever-so much-more so...This give me the opportunity to pursue the Native (unless shown otherwise) shorthorns. I can only imagine how much "less than true" genes are in the black breeds.  Bottom line.....to each their own.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and Good Cattle Are Good Cattle.

 

[knabe]

Save hair, verify parentage and when things change to get what you want registered, do it..  All that's really need is verified pedigree.  You can always go route of keeney if you want with angus and no longer registering.

 

[JPS]

You have all brought up very valid points.  If you read some of the books on the history of the breed, the same questions on pedigree occurred back when the coates herd book started.  Errors in pedigrees have occurred both intentionall and by accident.  Without DNA and blood tests, you wouldn't know unless a phenotype was drastically different.  A Maine breeder told me that under the old blood testing program, 50% of the time a Maine would blood type as a shorthorn.  And the fact that the different associations had different rules makes it further confusing.  The Irish cattle and Illawara were accepted in Canada as asterisk free, but not in the US.

Raise the kind of cattle you like and can market.  If I had some lines that qualified as "Native", I would try to keep them that way as a marketing tool.  You could always bring in some non-native females also.  Enjoy your Shorthorns!

 

[r.n.reed]

Grousepark,your search is over!You will not find a better horned native bull with more beef production credentials than Spring Canyon Prince.Spare no expense to get the maximum from that amp!
I respect the native program but do not like the fact that it has the potential to change the discussion of what a valuable beef animal is.In a lot of cases we are talking about 255/256ths difference or less in the degree of purity providing the native pedigrees are all correct.The fashionable pedigree craze has sidetracked this breed many times in the past,lets be careful to not let this happen again.

 

[NHR]

Roy Lovaas has some pretty good info and photos of Natvie stock.

http://www.rlshorthorns.com/native_shorthorns.htm

 

[jaimiediamond]

Roy Lovaas has some pretty good info and photos of Natvie stock.

http://www.rlshorthorns.com/native_shorthorns.htm

They really do ave some interesting genetics! Some of those bulls are impressive in any days standards

 

[oakview]

I looked up Spring Canyon Prince on the ASA's website since he is one of the few bulls I have seen mentioned that I hadn't heard of.  If I was looking at the correct bull, I noticed he was a grandson of Acadia Napoleon 66th.  We purchased a Napoleon 66th son, I believe Colomeadow Silver Cloud was his name, from John Shuman in Colorado in the late 60's and he was very, very small.  Our early herd bulls (1963 and later) included sons of Louada Caesar, Acadia Napoleon 66th, Louada Keynote, and Aberfeldy Hostage (dam was sired by Aberfeldy Drum Major).  We had daughters of Bapton Crusader, Meadowview Constructor, Lewisfield Rival, Louada Aristocrat, Louada Rothes Prince, etc.  I assume these would be included in the list of 'native horned shorthorn bulls' you are looking for semen on.  If you are looking for small framed, 350 pound weaned calves, assuming you can get the square headed calves out, then you are on the right track.  I would add that we could not afford the elite, high selling cattle of the day, so our purchases were a little larger framed than average.  They were not the extreme box type of the day.  As an added bonus to the small framed, slow growing, wasty calves we produced, some of the females kept for replacements had the much desired ground hugging udder and bottle teats.  I will also mention that our cattle were more productive than their Angus and Hereford counterparts in the area.  The family of my best friend in grade school had about 100 Hereford cows.  Every time I visited I was amazed at the number of dwarfs, one eyed cattle, and calves being raised by bottle because their mothers gave no milk.  The Angus cattle in the vicinity were small beyond belief.  Why anyone would try to revisit that era is beyond me, but to each his own.

 

[r.n.reed]

Mr.Summers called me last night and gave me some more info on Spring Canyon Prince.He weighed a 1000#s at a year raised on the range with no creep or grain feeding.At 6 yrs after breeding cows on the range he weighed 2165.One of his more notable achievements was siring a pen of purebred Shorthorn steers that won reserve champion pen at the Great Western Beef expo.This is not a beauty contest but a feedout where the cattle are rated on rate of gain, efficiency and carcass. I might add that these were purebreds without the advantage of hybrid vigor and they whipped all but one other pen of calves that included English and the monster exotics.Mr.Summers relayed the fact that it was pretty tense at the awards banquet as a lot of big exotic promoters got their toes stepped on and their were even some protests made.I think we could use some of that old money making stuff again.

 

[oakview]

Do you have any information on the female side of Spring Canyon Prince?  The ASA website only shows the dam's name, no other pedigree information.  The only sire information I see is the Colomeadow/Acadia/Kinellar Napoleon line and they were definitely not the growthy, lean, muscular type.  I do know, however, that Colomeadow Sting Ray was a certified meat sire of that time and was bred by the Shuman herd.  He was not of Napoleon breeding and had to sire performance cattle with some carcass quality to meet the certified meat sire standards.  The Petty family of Iowa owned him and Dale told me a year ago or so that he had some semen left.  I would think that he would qualify as a native horned shorthorn bull.  The Petty's also bred Mar Da D's Bill.  I think Curtiss handled his semen and if I remember correctly he also met certified meat sire standards.  There were a few bulls back then that sired some performance and carcass quality, just not very many.  I wonder if they would compare favorably to the cattle of today that have been selected for performance and carcass merit.  I think that the Waukaru bulls, among others, would surpass the old bulls in that arena.

 

[r.n.reed]

Oakview, we covered a lot of ground and Ed did talk a little about the cow side but I didn't ask enough about that in particular so I can't tell you much.I know his dam was a Nonpareil which is the same cow family that produced Leader 21.
I agree that a lot of the cattle from that era were throw aways just as some of the cattle from the 80's and 90' were to the other extreme.Thankfully there were a few cattlemen who kept their feet on the ground and continued to breed some practical cattle and better yet  the fact that we can still access some of those genetics.I don't argue the fact that the cattle today would probably out perform most of these older bulls as I am sure some of those exotics in that Great Western feedout may have had a higher adg but you can have high performance and loose your shirt especially with today's feed costs.Optimum is the new old byword and some of these ''antiques'' may contribute a part of the puzzle of profitability and they may play a bigger part in some production scenarios than others.
The big challenge will be integrating these genetics into a program  to produce stock that will contribute with a degree of predictability.You have to start somwhere but one issue I see with the native program is that most are starting with a unique linebred strain and drasticaly outcrossing to cattle lines that are radicaly different in type and breeding.It could take a long time to sort that all out.

 

[Grousepark]

Good points, one and all.  Before this thread fades away, I've just gotta ask if anyone knows of semen from the old Haumont bulls?  Sons of Par Defender, such as Promise Defender, etc.  Also, I found that a man named Richard Staebel from....Minnesota? had dual shorthorns and possibly one of the Haumonts.  Does anyone know if Mr. Staebel had a semen tank?

 

[wiseguy]

My father (John Wise) and Ralph Pope owned a Par Defender grandson '68 PAR CHERRY '71 2 . We still have semen in the tank on him. Look him up on the ASA website he was one of the more popular bulls of this breeding and has over 130 registered progeny. As the story goes my dad purchased this bull against my grandfathers wishes with Ralph, it turned out to be a great investment though because each time for the next year that my dad visited Ralph he had a check for him. I like to remind him of this often when he shoots down my ideas.

x3482495
Regnum Tattoo Name Birthdate 
x3482495  '68 PAR CHERRY '71 2
Sex Male  Color Roan  Horn P
%     
Breeder  FRANK J. HAUMONT

Pedigree
    x2607690 CHERRY MAGNET 6TH
  x2875011 PAR DEFENDER
    x2185091 MAID OF PROMISE H 49TH
Sire: x3394681 PAR PROMISE 68 3RD
    x2875011 PAR DEFENDER
  x3139086 MAID OF PROMISE H 97TH
    x2763502 MAID OF PROMISE H 74TH

    x3256911 FREKEBA MAJESTY EDWARD
  x3329570 LILAC O K 67
    x3106279 LILAC LADY 82D
Dam: x3410380 CHERRY 398
    x3173717 LILAC PAR 18TH
  x3301635 CHERRY 361ST
    x2922099 CHERRY 228TH

 

[Grousepark]

YES!!!!!!!!!

 

[OH Breeder]

My father (John Wise) and Ralph Pope owned a Par Defender grandson '68 PAR CHERRY '71 2 . We still have semen in the tank on him. Look him up on the ASA website he was one of the more popular bulls of this breeding and has over 130 registered progeny. As the story goes my dad purchased this bull against my grandfathers wishes with Ralph, it turned out to be a great investment though because each time for the next year that my dad visited Ralph he had a check for him. I like to remind him of this often when he shoots down my ideas.

x3482495
Regnum Tattoo Name Birthdate 
x3482495  '68 PAR CHERRY '71 2
Sex Male  Color Roan   Horn P
%       
Breeder  FRANK J. HAUMONT

Pedigree
    x2607690 CHERRY MAGNET 6TH
   x2875011 PAR DEFENDER
    x2185091 MAID OF PROMISE H 49TH
Sire: x3394681 PAR PROMISE 68 3RD
    x2875011 PAR DEFENDER
   x3139086 MAID OF PROMISE H 97TH
    x2763502 MAID OF PROMISE H 74TH

    x3256911 FREKEBA MAJESTY EDWARD
   x3329570 LILAC O K 67
    x3106279 LILAC LADY 82D
Dam: x3410380 CHERRY 398
    x3173717 LILAC PAR 18TH
   x3301635 CHERRY 361ST
    x2922099 CHERRY 228TH

Any pictures? Would be great to see!

 

[wiseguy]

Looking for pictures. Talked more with my dad. He was homozygous polled,  6 frame, dark roan, and sired great females. He did comment however, that even though he had a 10 CE and -4.0 BW his calves were not super small at birth more like 75 to 85 pounds. He said the best part of this bull was his offsprings efficiency on forage.

Funny story on this bull. I am an Ag teacher and for the last seven years I have been using his semen to show my students about ampules. I bet I have thrown out 40 amps over the last 7 years. Guess I should have been more careful, but I really never thought anyone would use him again.

 

[sue]

Looking for pictures. Talked more with my dad. He was homozygous polled,  6 frame, dark roan, and sired great females. He did comment however, that even though he had a 10 CE and -4.0 BW his calves were not super small at birth more like 75 to 85 pounds. He said the best part of this bull was his offsprings efficiency on forage.

Funny story on this bull. I am an Ag teacher and for the last seven years I have been using his semen to show my students about ampules. I bet I have thrown out 40 amps over the last 7 years. Guess I should have been more careful, but I really never thought anyone would use him again.

Yes- that is a very cool looking bull. I had old magazines with his picture .... mailed to someone to "borrow" ..  ?