On the "Rat tail deal?"

[aj]

I wondered about the performance. Bob Dickenson won a little feedlot adg contest one time with 5 rat tails. I would think a rat tail would fight flies less well but that is only conjecture.

 

[justintime]

I wondered about the performance. Bob Dickenson won a little feedlot adg contest one time with 5 rat tails. I would think a rat tail would fight flies less well but that is only conjecture.

I have also wondered about the performance issue as well. My experience in feeding rat tails was that, as a rule, they did not gain as well as other " normal" cattle in the pen. There were some rat tails that did gain well, but most took longer to leave the pen. We never hesitated in buying them, if they looked healthy, and had some growth, as they could be bought at major discounted prices, and as an old cattle buyer once told me " you will make more money buying cattle, than you ever will selling cattle."  A very true statement when you are feeding cattle. He also told me that somedays you will make more money by just going home and not buying any cattle ( when the markets are too high). Now that I am just raising breeding stock and not in the feedlot business any more, in my world there is no such thing as cattle prices that are too high. That was not the case when I was buying feeder cattle.

 

[cornish]

there is a 'newly' found genetic defect in one of the most popular breeds of sheep.  This defect causes the lambs to be abnormal looking-- and they have named it "hairy lamb syndrome".  These lambs, visually, just look different-- but internally they are very unthrifty, and prone to lung problems- almost all of them die before weaning from Pnuemonia- but not all.

Perhaps this rat tail deal is closely related to something like that-- on the outside-- they have one slight difference-- but internally is where the real problem lies. 

 

[KSUwildcat2009]

After asking some questions to the people who mentioned rat tail herfs, they weren't 100% positive that they were considered rat-tails.  However, I did find this and I think you guys are on to something on the black thing.  They did say that the calves did not gain as well in winter months but should be expected to gain as well as normal calves in other times of the year.  I didn't spend much time doing a thorough review of literature, so there may be other papers out by now.  I also noticed a paper that talked about rat tail calves being caused by an infection.
http://jas.fass.org/content/77/5/1144.full.pdf+html

On the Hairy Lamb thing, I am 99.9% sure that the two have nothing to do with each other.  These lambs have actual hair instead of wool, so yes they are going to be abnormal looking and most of them can't be kept alive.  The Rat Tail calves live normal lives just may not gain as well in some cases.

 

[HGC]

There is a study published in the journal of animal science done by KSU and MARC in Clay Center, NE.  They did two studies, the first looked at the performance of rat tails (43) vs there non rat tail (570) herdmates.  All calves were sired by dark red purebred simmental bulls and out of angus and angus X cows.

Birth weight and weaning weight were not different.  Rat tails had 42# lighter yearling weights and 79# lighter slaughter weights.  They concluded that rat tails performed poorer in the winter months.

The second study looked at the inheritance of the rat tail trait.  They produced rat tail calves from dark red purebred simmental bulls X with purebred angus cows.  The took 8 rat tail heifers from this cross and flushed them to 2 different rat tail bulls to produce 64 F2 calves.  21 of the 64 calves (33%) were rat tail.

They concluded that 2 different loci contribute to producing the rat tail condition.  First, the red/black loci, rat tails need atleast one black gene.  No red rat tails were produced.  Secondly, an unidentified loci (C locus) has to be in a heterozygous state.

Rat tails are produced by crossing some continental breeds (Charolais and Simmental are the only two I know of) with a black angus or holstein.  They also concluded that the dilution gene is not involved in producing rat tails as the sires of the rat tail calves were all dark red purebred simmental bulls that were homozygous recessive for non dilution.

Hope this clears up some information.

 

[HGC]

The study that I was refering is the same one that KSUwildcat posted the link to.

 

[RyanChandler]

There is a study published in the journal of animal science done by KSU and MARC in Clay Center, NE.  They did two studies, the first looked at the performance of rat tails (43) vs there non rat tail (570) herdmates.  All calves were sired by dark red purebred simmental bulls and out of angus and angus X cows.

Birth weight and weaning weight were not different.  Rat tails had 42# lighter yearling weights and 79# lighter slaughter weights.  They concluded that rat tails performed poorer in the winter months.

The second study looked at the inheritance of the rat tail trait.  They produced rat tail calves from dark red purebred simmental bulls X with purebred angus cows.  The took 8 rat tail heifers from this cross and flushed them to 2 different rat tail bulls to produce 64 F2 calves.  21 of the 64 calves (33%) were rat tail.

They concluded that 2 different loci contribute to producing the rat tail condition.  First, the red/black loci, rat tails need atleast one black gene.  No red rat tails were produced.  Secondly, an unidentified loci (C locus) has to be in a heterozygous state.

Rat tails are produced by crossing some continental breeds (Charolais and Simmental are the only two I know of) with a black angus or holstein.  They also concluded that the dilution gene is not involved in producing rat tails as the sires of the rat tail calves were all dark red purebred simmental bulls that were homozygous recessive for non dilution.

Hope this clears up some information.

The dilution gene known in Chars or the dilution gene found in Simms or the dilution gene found in Gelbviehs? ...  Still think it odd that the only breeds that are known to carry a dilution gene, are the only breeds that rat tails have been noted in. 

 

[cornish]

http://jas.fass.org/content/77/5/1144.full.pdf+html

On the Hairy Lamb thing, I am 99.9% sure that the two have nothing to do with each other.  These lambs have actual hair instead of wool, so yes they are going to be abnormal looking and most of them can't be kept alive.  The Rat Tail calves live normal lives just may not gain as well in some cases.

I have kept them alive long enough to ship.  I don't think the two defects are related-- i just used that as an example for something on the outside to be wrong-- when the real problem occurs on the inside health wise.  Even though- the research proves they found this gene at the location of which a similar condition exists in both humans and mice-- so who's to say it doesn't occur in cattle, hogs, or goats?  Spider lambs, and TH Calves are very similar defets-- although completely different.

 

[KSUwildcat2009]

I have kept them alive long enough to ship.  I don't think the two defects are related-- i just used that as an example for something on the outside to be wrong-- when the real problem occurs on the inside health wise.  Even though- the research proves they found this gene at the location of which a similar condition exists in both humans and mice-- so who's to say it doesn't occur in cattle, hogs, or goats?  Spider lambs, and TH Calves are very similar defets-- although completely different.
[/quote]

Ok I'm following you now.  That's a good point to make.  After all, everything starts with something wrong on the inside. 

My guess, this is hypothesizing at its finest, is that they don't gain as well because they don't have hair to help keep in heat in the colder winter months.  Other than not gaining well, especially over winter, there's no mention of any other physiological problems.  And this no hair, especially on the tail, thing could possibly be due to all kinds of deficiencies, seeing as the development and maintenance of the hair follicle is not a simple process, like many other biological functions.