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GP83

Registered: 03-2007
Location: Abilene, Texas
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Looking for sources of older semen say 1950's/60's


I would like to bring back some of the older sire lines that had good fertility and longevity. Seems that we only have Ivanhoe, Cheif, and especially Evevation lines now.
14/3/2011, 6:16 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
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GP83

Registered: 03-2007
Location: Abilene, Texas
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Re: Looking for sources of older semen say 1950's/60's


Let me add a bit of info...

This is a comment from Greg Palen on the same question. There is some rare great breeding out there that needs to be brought back very carefully. If you just want to follow the crowd and have cows that need a multitude of chemicals to show anything and get bred.....!

My favorites would be as follows:

TRIUNES
This was big in Kansas (Meierkord Netherland Fancy Triune)
(Valla Vista Polkadot Ike= went to Weeks' Skyway herd)
and had connections to Bottema's in Indiana, Ravenglen in Illinois, eventually to Paclamar. Lots of "open" adequate "strong" usually "tall" but not lacking width.

Cash Mar Reflection Triune is maternal grandsire of Walkway Chief Mark, look for him in maternal pedigrees.

Paclamar Bootmaker was linebred Kansas Triune-Burke.
Triune was Paclamar's code name for a Bootmaker son, hence "Double Triune", "Triune Complete", "Triune Jethro" etc. Bootmaker was Dr Everett's alltime favorite on his "stayability" calculations at Cornell (precursor to PL).

ADMIRALS
These are descendants of Admiral Ormsby Fobes, and three places essentially kept his blood current in breeding:

Wis Reformatory (crossed against the Burkes)
Dunloggin (essential in their foundation sires prior to the "Pearl" bulls-- Woodmaster, Fond Memory, Golden Cross)
Hetts, Dibble & associates, eg Ellbank in NY, Gilna in MI, Cotton in SD= (crossed with Crescent Beautys)

Great udder texture, flat lactation curves, lots of longevity, depending on in whose hands were either 2-3-4 (John Hetts and Richard Wright) or 4-5-3 (Wis Reformatory) or 6-5-1 (Allen Hetts and Ben Dibble).

The dam of Hanoverhill Triple Threat is sired by Ellbank Admiral Ormsby Pride. I would use both of these in a heartbeat today.

Irvington Pride Admiral (sired the dam of SWD Valiant) is an example of a Dunloggin "Admiral". So was Curtiss Candy Invincible two generations before him. Dunloggins with an Admiral touch persisted longer in Holsteins than any of the rest of their breeding (udders more modern, a touch better for strength).

RAG APPLES
The ubiquitous presence of Canadian semen around the world preserves a fiction that Rag Apple breeding abounds.
But in fact it is mostly dispersed, Canada today is about the Elevation and Chief lines just line everyone else.

A "Rag Apple" would be a descendant of Johanna Rag Apple Pabst, thus of Mount Victoria ("Montvic") breeding and would encompass both the ABC Reflection Sovereign lines (which brings in Sir Inka May from Carnation Farms) and the pre ABC derivatives spread western into Alberta as well as into New England.

Rosafe Citation R, Romandale Reflection Marquis, Rosafe Pearl Hannibal (grandsire of PF Arlinda Chief), Rosafe Shamrock Perseus, Rosafe Magician-- Woodbourne Inka
Reflector (sire of Ideal Fury Reflector)-- these were bigtime ABC sons.

I personally think Marquis made the best sons: Agro Acres Marquis Ned, Prestige of Lakehurst, Life O Riley Marquis King, N Del Cee Dutchman, Shorelea Citation Mark A, Puget Sound Highmark, Zeldenrust Fond Memory... I say that because as much as he is made fun of as a "dry bag" bull you find him and his sons fairly close maternally in so many high profile pedigrees, he was that rare "tall/strong" bull who sired good maternal qualities.

Lakefield Fond Hope, NoNaMe Fond Matt, Glenafton RA Hagen, Roybrook Ace, Roybrook Telstar- these were Spring Farm Fond Hope descendants. Glenridge Citamatt is Fond Matt on top and Citation R (Roxy) on the bottom. Birch Hollow Royalty I think also combines Fond Hope and ABC fairly closely.

You could linebreed the Rag Apples and get more milk.
Where the mistake came was linebreeding ABC and the Highcrofts, then you lost ground. But you could always put a Rag Apple bull on a ragged out Ormsby milk cow and get a much superior animal, last longer, breed easier, milk easier. This line had constitutional vigor.

Indexing is all about combinations of Chief, Ivanhoe and Elevation today. They combined plus milk with decent components and classifiers liked them more often than not.
Thus they dominate Holsteins today, but these older lines were often better for strength, udder texture, fertility, and an ability to stay useful in old age, thus contributing maternally to the success of what has become the leading sire lines.

SKAGVALE
If you intended to milk Holsteins on grass, I would take a second look at what worked for Skagvale. Their bulls are a success on grass and look like failures on TMR feeding, a result of their strong ability to maintian body condition on coarse forages and low protein grain while milking well. In a TMR environment they get tanky and lose persistency, but Glen Tenneson knew what he was doing, and bred for what he needed at home.

Their best more recent stuff involved infusions of Waltner (Puget Sound) breeding. Look at the dam of Donnandale Skychief (PS Shiek x PS Highmark Pride). In fact, look at anything still going with Skychief in it, he is your outcross to the Elevation takeover of Holstein sire lines.

15/3/2011, 15:48 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
Dairylands Profile
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EX93

Registered: 03-2006
Location: Straid
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Re: Looking for sources of older semen say 1950's/60's


Thanks for the info, that must have took a bit of typing. There has been a lot of interest in older semen on cowtalk in the past, perhaps too much interest to leave sources unsourced if you see what I mean.

Personally I was dissapointed to see so much strong tall and open in the descriptions of your old bulls. My cows mostly need some combination of strong smooth and stylish which seems to be very rare today. I had assumed 456 bulls were rare because they were selected out.
15/3/2011, 17:58 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
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Ex97
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Re: Looking for sources of older semen say 1950's/60's


I say, by all means use these lines, and let them compete with todays genetics and get an up-to-date proof. Then we will know if they really are better, or if they are just figures of nostalgia.

15/3/2011, 20:31 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
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Cowtalk Staff

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Re: Looking for sources of older semen say 1950's/60's


I too am a Polled Dairy Cows voyuer and thought Mark Yeazel's observation on older bulls was excellent:

"I don't know what all this has to do with recessive genes, but the history
is interesting. But it is only interesting because the crosses worked. And
they only worked because you had herdsman who made intelligent decisions on
what bull should follow what bull. Some of them were influenced by Bill
Weeks, some by their own intuition and some could just be plain fortunate.
 How much history is not recorded in these crosses because they did not work
and ruined good herds? Use the same bulls in the wrong herds and they would
have been forgotten.

It seems that cattle were more extreme 50-60 years ago. Less refined,
rugged. Pick the opposite style animal and you produced a balanced animal
that could produce 4000 over herdmates. Can this really be duplicated today
when cattle are very homogeneous?

Triple Threat was very successful in Europe because he was crossed on many
short, wide rugged cattle and he shot them up, and refined them. A bit more
difficult task now. Elevation seemed to have done the same here in the US.
 They were the right bull at the right time. Can we have the right bull at
the right time anymore? Seems like any bull starting with 56 or 65 should
be the right bull, but the classifiers do not seem to appreciate the
daughters as much as the tall dairy bulls."





---
WWS-SA
16/3/2011, 6:58 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
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Ex97
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Re: Looking for sources of older semen say 1950's/60's


We were obviously well behind N America in Holstein breeding in the past, with some background friesian influence still showing. When I think back even 15 years ago, there was still a wide variety in our herd, most evident when they were standing in a line feeding. Now, only an inch or two separates most of their toplines.

As far as my memory carries me back, we really didn't have many small round cows. We had small cows, but they were quite dairy. We also had some tall cows, but some of them could be quite brutal - an F16 comes to mind.
16/3/2011, 13:18 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
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GP83

Registered: 03-2007
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Re: Looking for sources of older semen say 1950's/60's


Those old lines were not better than todays cattle. But they did have some traits that we need to bring back.

  I used the top type bulls of the breed for years and got better type,(hit or miss) but weaker cattle that became harder and harder to breed. I thought it was just me, but soon learned that almost everyone couldn't get their cows bred! Thanks to the universities who make the list of the best bulls, they had an answer, chemicals!
16/3/2011, 15:12 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
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EX93

Registered: 09-2010
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Re: Looking for sources of older semen say 1950's/60's


quote:

FiringOnAllFour wrote:

I say, by all means use these lines, and let them compete with todays genetics and get an up-to-date proof. Then we will know if they really are better, or if they are just figures of nostalgia.




These bulls do have updated proofs on dairybulls.com

All of the older bulls that I have looked at are much lower on everything except DPR.

I thought that I saw an article about a herd (research herd) that bought a large quantity of semen from different bulls back around the 60's with the intent of only using that semen. They were then going to compare their cows to the cows of today to see whether genetics or environment was the biggest factor of milk gain. I thought I saw it in Hoard's Dairyman.
16/3/2011, 17:25 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
Riceton Profile
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EX93

Registered: 04-2010
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Re: Looking for sources of older semen say 1950's/60's









I thought that I saw an article about a herd (research herd) that bought a large quantity of semen from different bulls back around the 60's with the intent of only using that semen. They were then going to compare their cows to the cows of today to see whether genetics or environment was the biggest factor of milk gain. I thought I saw it in Hoard's Dairyman.



It is a university herd somewhere in the midwest, Iowa State maybe, but yes they started this trial in the 60`s I think and kept half the herd with those genetics and the other half they use the most current genetics. It has been awhile since I read it so I won`t quote it but there is a HUGE difference in production. Anyone that says the production gains are only from better management and not genetics are kidding themselves.

---
"Where Lifetime production matters"
16/3/2011, 17:42 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 
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Ex97
True blue dinky-di maverick


Registered: 06-2003
Location: southern,oz
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Re: Looking for sources of older semen say 1950's/60's


someone forgot to tell our 2 threats that!
we have started to use the advantage red son of one of them.In fact we like our threats that much we just imported more threat embryos.Hope ours are the heifers as the 2 implanted at Gloryland are ultrasounded bulls.
Also lately imported are senater embryos from a 6 gen ex ransdall christine conclusion.Im looking foward to those senater being one of my favorite bulls.
16/3/2011, 21:28 Link to this post PM via Email   PM via Forum
 


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