New members

[simoon]

Sept 30, 2018 14:59:05 GMT -6 kdclc said:

Hello everyone,

New Member, Kevin Castelli of R-Place Ranch in Corsicana, TX.
I bring Northern Origin Registered Herefords to Central Texas.

Welcome. Can you give some detail into what your northern origin genetics include?

[1780]

First and foremost, I want to express my thanks to Glenn for allowing me back onto the Hereford Talk forum so that I at least have the opportunity to respond to the comments that has been directed at me over the last few weeks. I appreciate his confidence and will do my best not to mis-step again. Glenn has his reasons for banning me after only one post almost 3 years ago and be that as it may, bygones are bygones and I can only say that I hope the contribution I make will be of assistance to all Members. But before I do that, an introduction is appropriate.
I apologise in advance for the length of this post but there is much to say to put my involvement with the breed into context.
My name is Peter Hall from Cotmore Herefords Australia. My father was Norman Hall, my grandfather was Robert Hall, my great grandfather was William Hall and my great, great grandfather was Richard Hall, and every one of us has bred Hereford cattle. It is recorded in McDonalds History of Hereford Cattle that Richard Hall was breeding Herefords on Ashton farm in Herefordshire in 1780, and, while we know little about him from both the public and private records, the same book has written much about the next generation of the Hall family, and their involvement with the early development of the breed in the UK, while private records add to this their role in the US, to where one of the sons migrated. Significantly, William was one of the founding fathers of The Hereford Cattle Society in the UK, and also played a role on the development of The Hereford Herd Book Society, in which the family has recorded offspring since Volume 2. Following William, Robert continued his father’s work with the Hereford Herd Book Society, and with the general development of the breed, which is outlined in private records held by the family. It is not an overstatement to say that Hall cattle have populated the herds on at least 5 continents. In the early 1900’s when the breed adopted “prefixes” as a means of identifying cattle, Robert selected “Cotmore” because at that time the herd was the only herd of Hereford cattle in England that could trace ALL its herd back to the great bull Cotmore 376, who is one of 4 bulls depicted in Volume 1 of the Herd books as being “typical of the breed”. In the 1920’s Norman who was only 15 at the time began his role in partnership with Robert as the next generation of Hall to continue the direct relationship with the breed as his older brothers had started herds of their own. Copies of public records held by the family record that at that time the Cotmore Herd was the oldest herd of registered Hereford cattle in the world as well as having the longest record of continuous pedigree registrations. Tragically, like so many businesses worldwide, the Depression brought 150 years of Cotmore registered breeding to an end and Norman migrated to Australia. However, that didn’t stop the bloodline, and many of the Cotmore animals were purchased by my father’s brothers, whose families still have Herefords descended from the 1780 herd – that is nearly 250 years of continuous breeding of which I am extremely proud. I am also very proud that my family’s link with the breed is probably the longest relationship between one family and the Hereford breed in the world. As I learn how to use the Hereford Talk web site, I have some private Hereford records that some Members may find interesting and amongst these is a 1883 “Testimonial” from American breeders to a list of UK breeders including Robert Hall and his brother Henry, thanking them for their help establishing the Hereford breed in the US.
I will be 70 years old next year and my Cotmore herd is made up of 70 breeding females plus a couple of bulls and progeny. My journey breeding Herefords started when, after just short of 40 years in the corporate world, where I was a senior executive in some of Australia’s largest corporations I retired: so please do not get any idea that I am in this for the money, it is more a case of extending the family relationship with the breed while at the same time spending our childrens’ inheritance. As this next chapter of my life opened I was determined to keep occupied and as I had always felt that there was something wrong about the oldest herd of registered Hereford cattle in the world being cleared, it was a living symbol of the greatest breed of beef cattle to have ever existed. Accordingly I went on the hunt for descendants of the original Cotmore herd in Australia. Family records detailed animals that had been exported to Australia so I had a good start but my search ended out of luck, albeit I have since found some. It is very important to point out that at this stage a Hereford was a Hereford was a Hereford to me, and it was only as a result of turning my search to England that I learnt that this was not the case. It turned out that, in reality a Hereford was not a Hereford was not a Hereford.
My first point of contact in the UK was a call to my cousin, who like his father still had Herefords descended from the 1780 herd. He agreed that I could flush a few cows, but, the herd was too small to harvest sufficient embryos for my project. Quite by accident, I was introduced to an English breeder with an encyclopaedic knowledge of English Hereford pedigrees. I set him the challenge of finding cattle descended from the cow Lovely (EHB 12/211), who was bred by Robert and in turn descended from Cotmore. Lovely was a leading prize winner of the time and a daughter was exported to the US. A lithograph of Lovely 2nd who was a prize winner in Michigan, appears on P401 of Miller’s Histroy of Hereford Cattle. Putting that aside, it was not long before this English breeder was on the phone to me with the good news that he had found living descendant from Lovely in that part of the English Hereford population that had never been influenced by genetics imported from any other country and which the Hereford Cattle Society in the UK itself identified as being FULLY descended from the original Hereford. Over the next year I organised and exported to Australia about 130 embryos, including those from my cousin, which I calculated would produce about 30 living females for me: This turned out to be a realistic calculation. What happened next surprised me. I was contacted by the Rare Breeds Society in the UK, which is a government sponsored organisation with the sole responsibility to ensure rare and endangered breeds of British farm animals are preserved. They wanted to know if I would be prepared to have my herd in Australia classified, because of the presence of foot and mouth disease in the UK (that does not exist in Australia), as an insurance population of Hereford cattle. Being concerned about what they thought was the dissemination of the Herford by imported genetics from other countries, The Rare Breeds Society commissioned the Roslyn Institute, a world leading scientific research organisation to carry out research to determine whether there was a difference between the Hereford and the imported animals from other countries 1998_Blott_Genetic Diversity among European cattle breeds AND 1999_S Blott_Genetic variations in the British Hereford population. As they say in the movies the rest is history and I agreed that my herd would be an insurance population. In 2014 the first of my embryo calves was born. But that is not where it stopped.
My project coincided with the horse meat scandal in the UK and following a trilogy of research investigations, DEFRA (DEFRA is the equivalent of the British Department of Agriculture) confirmed the 1998 and 1999 research of Blott (the final DEFRA scientific report is 2014_DEFRA_FA0125_Development of breed specific assays for beef and pork authentication _the other two are available from my web site). I was asked if I would supply samples from my own herd and if I thought there were Herefords (original) in Australia. Samples from those animals were being sought for a research project being conducted by Taylor at Missouri University, and whose paper has been copied to this site in the past. After much investigation I located a breeder who supplied me with 4 samples. These were sent with 6 of my own to the US where they were added to the DEFRA samples and samples from Herefords (original) in the US. Taylor analysed these and then compared them with the American Hereford Association reference population. Subsequently Taylor asked me to provide him with the breeding history of the 4 additional Australian samples and after much research I identified that, for the female side of the pedigree three animals had been completely separated from the UK for 150 plus years: the male side was not quite as long but nevertheless long. What transpired from here was staggering. Taylor advised that these 4 samples showed NO evidence of genetic drift even though they had been totally separated from Britain some by more the 150 years, and if you look at Fig 1 in Taylor’s paper you will see that they are in exactly the same clump as the British samples with the US samples only marginally higher to the right but still overlapping. The AHA samples were far off to the right in a long arc. Taylor concluded and subsequently wrote that the Hereford and its North American counterpart were only “distant relatives”. Further research has confirmed this and significant differences have been identified in certain significant genetic sequences central to the breed. The majority of these provide understanding to the widely recognised traits of the Hereford.
Where to from here? Given the differences identified above, I am deeply involved with further research to develop a breed integrity test that will differentiate between the Hereford and its distant relations. This will eventually be available to breeders worldwide to assist their selection decisions.
In conclusion I have written this profile to not only introduce myself but also to provide background to my passion and answer my critics. For those of you who think I am using this as a means of promoting my herd and that I stand to gain financially, it is unlikely I will ever recoup my investment – research is not cheap. For those who think the research is being fabricated to produce set answers, it is being done by some of the world’s leading genetic scientists, and scientific fraud is a serious offence and a certain way to the scientific oblivion. These people are from some of the leading research institutions and have such significant reputations that they don’t have to commit scientific fraud to make a name for themselves, they are already names. I encourage you to go and look at their profiles on the web. If you think the research is taking too long I understand your impatience – It is frustrating me as well but in the science world there is NO substitute for being thorough. You can be assured the scientific papers will not be published until the scientists are certain of their conclusions – they all have to be reviewed by fellow scientists and we have some more world leading scientists lined up to do that. And finally, for those of you who doubt the value of science, all I can say is that science is now using our DNA to customise cancer treatment with remarkable success.

[phillse]

Hello everyone,

New Member, Sam Phillips from Southwest Alabama.
I am an FFA advisor. I don't have any Herford cattle. My father and I have a small herd of Shorthorns and Simmentals, which were bred up to purebred status following the rules of the respective registries.

My grandfather was one of the first people in the area to use AI. His cattle were not registered just grade cattle that he bred to varying percentages of various breeds. He had a little of it all Chianina, Hereford, Simmental, Charolais, and Pinzgauer.

I was turned on to the concepts of linebreeding after reading Jim Lents book and reading the musings of Larry Leonhardt.

I am here mainly for garnering ideas as it relates to the Art of breeding.


I have a young lady that is showing a polled Hereford Heifer this year and was asking me for suggestions on a calving ease heifer safe heifer bull. Therefore, I am also here looking for more knowledge of Hereford cattle to better assist her.

[alex]

Jan 28, 2019 11:33:08 GMT -6 phillse said:

Hello everyone,

New Member, Sam Phillips from Southwest Alabama.
I am an FFA advisor. I don't have any Herford cattle. My father and I have a small herd of Shorthorns and Simmentals, which were bred up to purebred status following the rules of the respective registries.

My grandfather was one of the first people in the area to use AI. His cattle were not registered just grade cattle that he bred to varying percentages of various breeds. He had a little of it all Chianina, Hereford, Simmental, Charolais, and Pinzgauer.

I was turned on to the concepts of linebreeding after reading Jim Lents book and reading the musings of Larry Leonhardt.

I am here mainly for garnering ideas as it relates to the Art of breeding.


I have a young lady that is showing a polled Hereford Heifer this year and was asking me for suggestions on a calving ease heifer safe heifer bull. Therefore, I am also here looking for more knowledge of Hereford cattle to better assist her.

Welcome. I’m a little north of you in Choctaw County. I help with our FFA Advisor and local Choctaw County Livestock Show.

[perli]

Hello my name is Keith Perli I am an angus breeder from SD. I like good cattle of all Breeds! After reading some of the posts on this site I feel that most of the breed associations have lost there minds with the constant chasing of epd numbers so that the commercial cow herds are really starting to suffer the direction. How do we go against the current of the mainstream and have any semblance of sanity?

[Carlos (frmaiz)]

May 25, 2019 9:13:16 GMT -6 perli said:

Hello my name is Keith Perli I am an angus breeder from SD. How do we go against the current of the mainstream and have any semblance of sanity?

Welcome! You are not alone, if that helps.

[allenw]

Hi I'm Allen Walters from NW Oklahoma. I have a handful of grade cows from Dad's and Granddad's breeding and a 906 son from Dewall's. TDad and Granddad had some registered cattle at one time as well as some bred up from some of Great Grandad's original red cattle.

I signed on more to be able to open some of the downloads that aren't available to guests and to learn.

[grb]

Russell Benefield from Heavener Ok. Back in the Reg, Hereford realm after a long break, Judged for NEO A&M, and OSU, graduated back in 1978, actually grandkids got me back in, Like to try and get them involved in the show ring and the daily responsability other than whats going on else where in town nowdays, so 5 years back bought 15 heifers from the 4V ranch and picked a few from Tx and a few from Mo. and got started, shopped hard and ended up with a Victor bred bull with Sire Of Distinction straight across the top of the papers that I liked the conformation on, EPD thing is kinda new to me and can see where it might be useful but your still gonna feed and take care of want you want to go look at. Saved some heifers each year and let him go at 8yr old, so I'm bull shopping again and wife says I'm too picky. But I know what I'm looking for

[rosefield]

I have been reading Hereford talk for a few months and have followed along with many of the comments with interest.

My name is Dennis Russell
President / CEO
International Dairy Cattle Registry

International Beef Cattle Registry

P.O. Box 118
Butler, MO 64730
816-738-4179

My grand parents had Horned Hereford cattle but for some reason when my parents started they purchased Registered Angus.  Anyway, when it comes to involvement with the dairy and beef industries, grew up on a livestock operation with dairy, beef and swine. Was a member of 4-H and FFA, and part of livestock and dairy judging teams that went to State where individually ranked in the top 10. Graduating High School took training as an AI Technician and was a representative for a major AI Stud and bred cows in a 10 county area, many times traveling well over 300 miles per day 7 days a week.

We started the registries almost 7 years ago and we have made great strides in helping breeders.  There were time it seemed like we took 2 steps forward only to find ourselves 10 steps back.  But we continued on and kept forging forward.  We started out as the Composite Beef Cattle Registry and Composite Dairy Cattle Registry but since the middle of 2018 we have changed over to International Beef Cattle Registry and International Dairy Cattle Registry.  This move was discussed with our advisory board and was unanimously approved.  The reason for this move was because most of our breeders were breeding to purebred status and also because we have members in the US, Canada and the UK.

We started the registry because as we were seeing and discovering breeders had animals that they were unable to register for various reasons.  One of our first projects was to provide export certificates for animals being exported to Russia.  After talking with them we provided an export certificate they sent to Russia for approval.  About 2 months later we received a call that our certificate was approved and we provided export certificates for over 200 animals exported to Russia.  The receiving farmer of those animals used those certificates then to receive their subsidy from the Russian Government for the purchase of the animals.

The dairy registry was started in the summer of 2013.  We started receiving emails asking if we could register dairy animals.  My reply back to them was that there was the Red & White Dairy Cattle Association.  The reply back to that is "we are thru with them".  After further investigation we discovered that an animal that was part of the Grass Pavilion at World Dairy Expo and was registered with the RWDCA was invited to exhibit in the show RWDCA show.  They did exhibit, didn't win, but it upset many Red & White breeders and so the RWDCA adopted a new rule that for animals to exhibit in Red & White Shows they had to be at least 87% dairy of approved dairy breeds.  Problem is they chose to not recognize breeds that are dairy.  They were upset that breeders no longer wanted to register their animals with them.  An Association that more than happy to take breeders money but basically don't ask for anything more!

So we started the dairy registry to represent the "non-traditional" dairy breeds of Fleckvieh, Montbeliarde, Norwegian Red, the Viking Red (Swedish Red and White, Red Dane and Finnish Ayrshire), the ProCross (a 3-way continual cross, but there are some that are thinking of stabilizing the breed combination and not need to crossbreed) and we developed the North American Red which is any combination of the Ayrshire breeds along with the Viking Red and Norwegian Red breeds.

The North American Red has been successful as many of them are at the top of the Elite list on genetic evaluations.  Now, because the North American Red is made up of more and more Viking Red genetics, there has been some interest from countries that are unable to import genetics from the Viking breeds due to health reasons, so they are looking to the US and the North American Red.

Because of some of our efforts, semen and embryos on some of these breeds has been exported to European countries.  With the Montbeliarde from France we have had several bulls born here in the US purchased by Coopex which is in France.  We are able to send US born DNA to France for genomic testing.

We have going on 4 years been providing the registration services for the American Lineback Association and as of January 1st this year we are providing registration services to the Heritage Shorthorn Society.

We also do registrations for Black Charolais here in the US because the Charolais Association in the US refuses to recognize the Black color.

We have access to over 20 databases and we have a good relationship with many foreign registries as well should we need any further ancestry information.

We care about our members and we care about ALL breeds, not just the ones that we represent.

We have helped breeders of other breeds in being able to export semen and embryo's because their own registry wouldn't or couldn't.  They wouldn't help because they were more interested in exporting their own genetics or they couldn't because their registration papers were unacceptable by other countries.

[strojanherefords]

Jan 12, 2020 1:00:27 GMT -6 rosefield said:

I have been reading Hereford talk for a few months and have followed along with many of the comments with interest.

My name is Dennis Russell
President / CEO
International Dairy Cattle Registry

International Beef Cattle Registry

P.O. Box 118
Butler, MO 64730
816-738-4179

My grand parents had Horned Hereford cattle but for some reason when my parents started they purchased Registered Angus.  Anyway, when it comes to involvement with the dairy and beef industries, grew up on a livestock operation with dairy, beef and swine. Was a member of 4-H and FFA, and part of livestock and dairy judging teams that went to State where individually ranked in the top 10. Graduating High School took training as an AI Technician and was a representative for a major AI Stud and bred cows in a 10 county area, many times traveling well over 300 miles per day 7 days a week.

We started the registries almost 7 years ago and we have made great strides in helping breeders.  There were time it seemed like we took 2 steps forward only to find ourselves 10 steps back.  But we continued on and kept forging forward.  We started out as the Composite Beef Cattle Registry and Composite Dairy Cattle Registry but since the middle of 2018 we have changed over to International Beef Cattle Registry and International Dairy Cattle Registry.  This move was discussed with our advisory board and was unanimously approved.  The reason for this move was because most of our breeders were breeding to purebred status and also because we have members in the US, Canada and the UK.

We started the registry because as we were seeing and discovering breeders had animals that they were unable to register for various reasons.  One of our first projects was to provide export certificates for animals being exported to Russia.  After talking with them we provided an export certificate they sent to Russia for approval.  About 2 months later we received a call that our certificate was approved and we provided export certificates for over 200 animals exported to Russia.  The receiving farmer of those animals used those certificates then to receive their subsidy from the Russian Government for the purchase of the animals.

The dairy registry was started in the summer of 2013.  We started receiving emails asking if we could register dairy animals.  My reply back to them was that there was the Red & White Dairy Cattle Association.  The reply back to that is "we are thru with them".  After further investigation we discovered that an animal that was part of the Grass Pavilion at World Dairy Expo and was registered with the RWDCA was invited to exhibit in the show RWDCA show.  They did exhibit, didn't win, but it upset many Red & White breeders and so the RWDCA adopted a new rule that for animals to exhibit in Red & White Shows they had to be at least 87% dairy of approved dairy breeds.  Problem is they chose to not recognize breeds that are dairy.  They were upset that breeders no longer wanted to register their animals with them.  An Association that more than happy to take breeders money but basically don't ask for anything more!

So we started the dairy registry to represent the "non-traditional" dairy breeds of Fleckvieh, Montbeliarde, Norwegian Red, the Viking Red (Swedish Red and White, Red Dane and Finnish Ayrshire), the ProCross (a 3-way continual cross, but there are some that are thinking of stabilizing the breed combination and not need to crossbreed) and we developed the North American Red which is any combination of the Ayrshire breeds along with the Viking Red and Norwegian Red breeds.

The North American Red has been successful as many of them are at the top of the Elite list on genetic evaluations.  Now, because the North American Red is made up of more and more Viking Red genetics, there has been some interest from countries that are unable to import genetics from the Viking breeds due to health reasons, so they are looking to the US and the North American Red.

Because of some of our efforts, semen and embryos on some of these breeds has been exported to European countries.  With the Montbeliarde from France we have had several bulls born here in the US purchased by Coopex which is in France.  We are able to send US born DNA to France for genomic testing.

We have going on 4 years been providing the registration services for the American Lineback Association and as of January 1st this year we are providing registration services to the Heritage Shorthorn Society.

We also do registrations for Black Charolais here in the US because the Charolais Association in the US refuses to recognize the Black color.

We have access to over 20 databases and we have a good relationship with many foreign registries as well should we need any further ancestry information.

We care about our members and we care about ALL breeds, not just the ones that we represent.

We have helped breeders of other breeds in being able to export semen and embryo's because their own registry wouldn't or couldn't.  They wouldn't help because they were more interested in exporting their own genetics or they couldn't because their registration papers were unacceptable by other countries.

Welcome aboard, since you work with the Pro Cross you must know Mike Osmondson.

[rosefield]

Yes I know Mike Osmundson.  We talk very frequently.  He also has a few North American Red bulls and some Montbeliarde cattle.

[soherf]

Hello my name is Holly Schafer and I manage H and R Ranch in both Texas and Oklahoma.  The herd is comprised of modern, classic and miniature registered Herefords with a heavy focus on polled show quality calves.

When I selected the first few females for the ranch we purchased the only two polled mini females we could find in all of Texas.  Today the herd numbers around 50 head not counting all the co-owned bulls scattered across the country.

These smaller framed cattle are the bloodlines/standard from the early 50's and offer a unique look into the past both from a genotype and phenotype perspective.  The entire herd has DNA profiling done and if polled the horn/poll test is also completed, including our cow herd.

We offer the ability to reduce frame score in a single generation as well as a strong injection of far removed bloodlines.  Our eight bulls range from a frame score 000-2.

I also field phone calls from across the country regarding issues with registration/transfers/DNA problems/etc. with the AHA and have successfully helped over 90% of people get a resolution to their problems.

I know most of you will laugh me off as the mini person and I'm fine with that because Herefords are Herefords (my papers look exactly like yours) and they all have a place in the market.  My niche doesn't overlap with yours.

[Glenn]

Since you are new, I'll let this pass but we (I) have a policy against advertising on the page.

[bwill151]

New to the forum here. I'm from northeast Ohio. I happened to stumble onto this forum while searching a particular bull. Decided to sign up and give it a try. My family used to dairy farm, but sold the cows in 2000. After being away from agriculture for awhile,I missed it. Now that I have kids of my own I decided to keep my thumb in the pie by having a small herd of beef cattle. Looking to incorporate some agriculture into their lives, albeit on a small scale compared to what we used to do.

[jonas1979]

Jonas Coblentz from Western Montana. I'm brand new here. I came here to learn all I can about Hereford cattle. We have a small growing herd of mixed cattle and I am interested in Hereford cows particularly. I see a few around these parts but, for the most part, they aren't the type of cattle I've been impressed with. I do know (or hope) the type I want exist. I'm sure when the time comes someone will point me in the right direction. As I learn I also hope to give back to the forum and all the great people here in this network.