inbreeding

Alaska · #1 02/24/13, 09:58 AM

We are just starting at building a small herd , slowly.
We have 3 angus-x (all black) cows that recently calved. We were blessed with one heifer calf. The two bull calves have already been castrated.. WE will keep the heifer as part of the herd provided she is a good mother.
We purchased a 3/4 lowline bull this fall. He is now over a year old. We have high hopes for him as our herd bull for years to come.
Next year of course the calves will all be his offspring. If we keep any heifers, what are the issues of breeding with the father? I hear do's and dont's from locals.

Wanda · #2 02/24/13, 10:25 AM

If he is a good bull there will be no problems.

RedRidge · #3 02/24/13, 11:02 AM

The ole saying pertains... "If it works it's line breeding, if it doesn't it's inbreeding" :-)

pancho · #4 02/24/13, 11:12 AM

If you are doing it because he is a good bull and the heifers are good heifers it probably won't hurt.
If either have problems and you are breeding them because it is handy and easy,
you might have a problem.

ramiller5675 · #5 02/24/13, 05:00 PM

I've got two pretty decent bulls right now, and I've been saving replacement heifers so I can improve the quality of the herd. I've flirted with the idea of line-breeding in the past, but I had a couple of heifers get into the wrong pasture a couple of years ago with their sire when they were about 15 months old and cycling.

I managed to get them into the right pasture the next day, but they both calved the next spring on the day when they must have been bred by the "wrong" bull. One calf was fine, but the other calf had something obviously wrong with it and it died a couple days later. I don't know if it was a genetic problem with that calf (from the way it looked, I'm guessing it was), or something else, but it turned me off of the whole line-breeding to improve your herd genetics idea pretty quick.

Both heifers are pretty decent quality, their sire looks great, but the only real way to figure out if there is the potential for an in-breeding problem is to actually breed the two animals and look at their offspring. Then, if there is a problem, you have to clean up the mess and kill an inbred suffering calf or cull the heifer because you can't take the risk of having another inbred mess if you breed her to the bull.

Losing a calf and/or wasting the time and effort to grow that heifer for two years before she has that calf can get expensive in a hurry. Having more than one lost calf or heifer can get even more expensive.

Not to mention that it isn't cheap or easy to turn heifers into cows.

I would rather sell any heifer calves and use the money to buy older heifers or cows and avoid any chance of in-breeding. Wait until you have enough cows to justify two bulls before you think about raising your own replacements.

Alaska · #6 02/24/13, 06:24 PM

well I have 9mos+ To figure it out . Who out there is doing the line breeding.

arnie · #7 02/25/13, 01:26 PM

i'v kept a heifer and bred her back to her father the calf is big healthy and growing well though we have sold this good bull because he got into the habbit of jumping the fence to breed the neabours cows we have kept a replacement bull from his mother and a differint regersterd angus bull so a little inbreeding will continue but so far there has been no bad problems

opportunity · #8 02/25/13, 04:46 PM

I had one bull bred his daugter the calf was not very good but it was a steer so it was eatten. I have two bulls now so I don't have that problem and if I get heifers I don't want to breed to the other bull I will sell them of a bull

Alaska · #9 02/27/13, 05:56 PM

well I will have to give this some thought. If this drought continues I dont know how many more cows I want.

unregistered41671 · #10 02/27/13, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alaska

well I will have to give this some thought. If this drought continues I dont know how many more cows I want.

Agreed, sometimes it is best just to keep what you have, healthy.

DJ in WA · #11 03/03/13, 08:49 PM

Had the same question a few years ago. I saved this piece that I read elsewhere from a veterinary disease specialist and cattleman. Pretty much answers your question.

It is pretty rare that both bull and dam carry a matching recessive gene that results in defects. Its a probability thing. If 1 of 100 bulls have a hidden defect gene, and 1 of 100 cows have that same hidden defect gene, then the odds of the two mating and creating a calf with the defect are 1 in 10,000.

For some reason this site likes to split up my quotes.

http://cattletoday.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=57931&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15

Quote:

I'm a food-animal veterinarian/veterinary pathologist. I know more than a little bit about genetics, genetic defects, inbreeding suppression, etc., - so I'm aware that if an undesirable gene is present, breeding closely-related individuals will increase the likelihood that it will be expressed - but at the same time, inbreeding/linebreeding can be used to concentrate the genes that code for desirable traits. It's how ALL of the breeds we now know were originally developed.

Quote:

In the vast majority of instances, whether you're a commercial or purebred operation, there's little downside to breeding a bull back to his daughters - if you like the bull and the traits you selected him for, and he's passed them on to his daughters, you're just maximizing those desirables by practicing some in-herd inbreeding. Really, outside of the possibility of recessive defects, the only significant downside is from narrow-minded people who might look at the pedigree and get their panties in a wad about (gasp!) 'inbreeding', and shy away from what you've produced.

If you look at pedigrees for many bulls in many breed associations, you'll see specific animals or family lines appearing time after time. How many Angus bulls have EXT, 6807, Scotch Cap, etc. multiple times in their ancestry? How about 600U, Black Mick, Black Irish Kansas, Siegfried, Doubletime and now, Dream On, etc., in the Simmental breed?

I think it's CRAZY for a small commercial beef producer with just a few cows who may only need one bull at a time, to be buying a new bull every two years - you're not 'getting your money's worth' out of that bull purchase, and you don't really know for sure what you have(or had) before you get rid of him. If he's good, he's worth breeding back to his daughters; if he's not, then put some wheels under him and bring in something different.

Alaska · #12 03/05/13, 07:16 PM

Thanks DJ that was great info. I have been leaning towards increasing the herd size from within.
Slow but sure.
With the economy and the direction this country has taken I hate to invest a lot of money in anything.

randyandmegs · #13 03/08/13, 08:16 PM

All registered cattle in the US came from inbreeding at some point.

Yvonne's hubby · #14 03/09/13, 06:46 PM

I started out with 7 cows and a bull.... all were pretty good grade stock. I have bought a couple new bred heifers over the years, but mostly have saved a better looking heifer every year or so for replacing old cows. My current bull is the the great grandson of that old black angus I began with. So far my herd hasnt had any negative issues with the breeding program. My calves always bring top dollar on sale day.

Alaska · #15 03/10/13, 11:49 AM

If the draught here lets up and I can get this grass to grow we will continue to build the herd slowly from the stock we have. Hopefully we will get several heifers out of this next group of calves. Very new to the cattle business and want to take it slow. We are fairly remote and have healthy cows and I do worry about bringing some illness in with new cows.