Unfortunately Ivy League is a TH carrier

[j3cattleco]

I understand that there are a lot of people wondering about Ivy League and whether he is still clean for TH.  Unfortunately, within the last few days, Ivy League was confirmed to be a TH-Carrier.  A letter will be sent to all the known purchasers of the semen this week alerting them that the genetics company made an error in Fall 2008 when its results indicated that Ivy League was TH-Free.  J3 Cattle Company takes this news very seriously and is taking aggressive steps this week to get this news out among the industry so that proper precautions can be made as we enter calving season.  
Our sincere apologies to everyone who is expecting calves out of Ivy League.  I know that this news is extremely unfortunate for everyone involved.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Joshua Ramsey
J3 Cattle Company  
575-921-3895

 

[BAILEYFARMS]

Well Done! I just hope people will let you know about all the good calves born not just the bad one. Great built and breed bull.

 

[justintime]

Congrats Josh for handling this properly. You are to be commended and I hope your first Ivy League bull calf is truly TH free and even better than his sire. Carrier or not, this bull is going to sire some great ones!

 

[knabe]

was a sample resent, or was the old sample tested twice?

one way to help QC the process would be to spike each sample in a set with unique non-mammal piece of dna like a gene from arabidopsis with size specific primers and include that primer pair in the process and see if all the samples match up.

or put a specific size marker in each sample that was say 50bp longer each sample so it would be easy to QC.

 

[jbw]

knabe,

could you say that again in Engilsh?  (lol)  PLEASE!

 

[sue]

Sorry Josh.

 

[j3cattleco]

Bump

 

[CAB]

  Sorry, Joshua & Katie, and the rest of the owners. I'm still stoked about the Ivy League calves. Brent

 

[BIGTEX]

Very sorry to hear, I know that CRB has had to deal with a similar situation. It is unfortunate that after all the money you have spent promoting him to have something like this happen. Still you have a great bull and it will only affect who I breed him to not if I use him.

 

[Jill]

Sorry to hear that.  Don't mean to be a jerk, but we have had discussion on this type of thing before and the way I understand it this test is 100% accurate, how can this happen?

 

[LazyGLowlines]

knabe,

could you say that again in Engilsh?   (lol)  PLEASE!

That's what I was thinking too!  Knabe, can you restate at a more 'crayon' level? 

 

[justintime]

Sorry to hear that.  Don't mean to be a jerk, but we have had discussion on this type of thing before and the way I understand it this test is 100% accurate, how can this happen?

I would suspect good old " human error". Either a mistake was made reading the test, or in reporting the test results. I do believe the test is accurate, but it still has the human factor involved.

 

[frostback]

I wonder how many head got sent to town as carriers that weren't?

 

[Joe Boy]

I am so very sorry for those who own the bull.  Looks like they tried to do the right thing and someone dropped the ball.  I feel for those breeders who were trying to use a bull with free status, what a terrible surprise.  There are plenty of people who do not care but are looking for the winner at any cost.  These folks cannot be numbered among the win at all cost folks.  Bless their hearts and they sure have broken hearts and we should all know their hurt is real.  Let's not make their burden greater.

Hopefully, we can learn some lessons.  Every year I called football games we had rule changes.  We had a good thing but it is never perfect, so changes are made.  This is a very good looking bull and there will be places for him to be used.  Hopefully, many good folks will use him on their free cows.  His owners are worthy of our confidence because they have tried and continue to try to do the right things.  Human error will always be a part of life, but we should try to illuminate it as best we can.  I hope the owners will come up with some suggestions that will be used to help the stud industry.

Again, I am so sorry that you have tried to do the right thing and your efforts have caused you to feel you have fallen on your faces.  Bless your hearts!

 

[chambero]

I deal with chemical analysis laboratories every day as part of my business. They have unbelievably stringent quality control programs that control every aspect of the analysis process from the time they receive a sample through result reporting.  They also have this little thing called professional liability insurance for when they make mistakes.  Sample costs for most kinds of chemical tests are less than what we pay for genetic testing.

The genetic testing laboratories are much more of a shoestring operation that have rapidly outgrown their ability to actually perform their tests.  Heavy workload + not enough people resources + clients demanding timely results = mistakes.  It happens in every kind of business.  It's why most small businesses are successful for a short period of time and then fail.

Short story is these labs (maybe they already have?) need to make the necessary investments to increase their productoin capabilities.  I don't know if patents/copyrights are involved, but if they are, and the holders can't make those investments, they need to sell the testing rights to a larger company that can.

 

[CAB]

  I do think that we can all learn something here as well. I know that if I were going to promote a bull, I think that I would have him double tested. It may be worth the 2nd test on a promotable bull to save the anguish that a bunch of good PPL are having to face.

 

[Show Steaks]

My only question is what spurred him being retested?

very unfortunate to the breeders who have him bred to carrier females and to the breeders who did a great job promoting him . he is stilla  good bul no matter what his th status is

 

[Joe Boy]

I agree with you.  I think we get in a hurry to get a good one markedted.  I think the labs are too busy with lots of pressure to get it done.  I tell the guys that work for me to take as much time as in necessary because it only cost us money when we have to go back and re-do it.

 

[CAB]

My only question is what spurred him being retested?

very unfortunate to the breeders who have him bred to carrier females and to the breeders who did a great job promoting him . he is stilla  good bul no matter what his th status is

Someone had a TH calf born which would throw up a red flag.

 

[onthegofarmer]

Josh,
Sorry you are getting all the bad Press.  When my Ivy League calf hits, I think it willbe awesome.