There seems to be a lot of animosity and blame toward one guy here for providing a product that a lot of people want. Maybe these guys are pretty good at marketing their product, and maybe they're better at it than anybody else... Is anybody being brain washed here? It's not my intention to stick up for Lautner's program, and I doubt those guys need me to do that for them, but it seems absurd to me that people buy what Lautner sells and then complain about it being sold. And I understand it isn't necessarily the same people who are buying it and who are complaining about it...
This is a simple case of supply and demand...if people stopped buying semen on THC bulls, the guys who make a living off of that would find something else to be their "bread and butter" and then they'd do a good job marketing THAT. You can't force people to buy something they don't want...that's not how this works.
As mostly just an observer of the club calf thing, it's a somewhat interesting topic to me. And it's probably more interesting to me because I happen to have one cow that's different from my entire breeding program, and she happens to be both THC and PHAC. If she wasn't one of my favorite cows, I wouldn't have considered keeping her as long as I have, or considered flushing her just to try and get a clean heifer out of her to continue the cow family after she's gone. I haven't flushed her yet...she continues to have her one steer calf each year, and I just keep thinking, "I sure wish I had a clean heifer out of that cow!"
I'm a Simmental and SimAngus breeder, and since the ASA has always had an open herd book, our breed is forced to deal with every genetic defect known, regardless of what breed it's been traced to. And I'll tell you, nobody sat back and said, "Let's keep making these because they're just better than the others." On the other hand, nobody has said, "These cattle are banned from ever reproducing another calf!" The association has taken measures to identify cattle that are carriers or potentially carriers, and I think they have tried hard to make sure the breeders accepted the responsibility of deciding what to do with that information. I for one appreciate the steps our association has taken to identify those cattle and to inform us as breeders, and I appreciate the fact that we have an opportunity to know more about this generation or the next and to educate ourselves and our customers. I feel a responsibility to my program, to the beef industry, and to my customers to be informed and to share that information with other breeders. Does my program have a major affect on the entire population of the American cow herd?...No...but does that abstain me from a responsibility as a seed stock producer to produce clean cattle and to help educate other breeders who may not understand a few things I've learned along the way?...No...I don't think it does. The cool thing about living in America is we all get to decide for ourselves, so I don't feel the need to dictate to any other breeder what he should or should not be breeding to. If people are willing to pay for a product, then somebody is going to provide that product. If nobody is willing to pay for it, chances are, those guys are going to look for another way to make a living.
I'm not trying to get on a soap box here, and I'm not "looking down my nose" at anybody who wants to use THC bulls in his breeding program. But let's all take responsibility for our own decisions and accept our own consequences without blaming somebody else for forcing us to "drink the Cool-Aid." We all share our own burden for educating ourselves on these matters and for making our own decisions about how we'll use or not use that information in our own breeding program. I don't know of many guys who are trying to sell semen on THC bulls to some unsuspecting cow owner who has never heard of a genetic defect existing in the club calf industry.
