Pedigree Breeders, compromising welfare?

[capfits]

This week is arguably the biggest show of Livestock in the UK. There will be many fine animals on display. Some will have be conceived naturally and delivered perfectly normally other will be embryo transfer and will have been caesered and of course a whole range in between.

With some in the veterinary profession raising questions about the breeding of among others dogs which cannot breath correctly due to breeding or even have no ability to give birth naturally! All bred by the supposedly most intelligent species on Earth, us!

This brings me to the cattle side of things and whether some are overstepping the welfare of livestock.
Let me explain a situation that may arise.

Pedigree breeder has a number of embryos and wishes to put into donor 18 month old heifers. Of course these embryos are only from the top performing genetic lines for LWG, muscle depth, but not for ease of calving.
So the embryos are 5 days old and are implanted into a batch of these maiden heifers. These maiden heifers are of course not the same breed they are limousines and the embryos are from Charolais. Again the genetics of these maiden heifers is not necessarily from and easy calving line.
So so save the cost of getting the transfer guy out twice 20 heifers get implanted at the same time.
Of course 4 months later and after they have run with a bill for a spell they get scanned. A good number have held to embryos, 12, and all the other heifers are in calf, result!

Anyway preps get under way for the calving and it is decided that to ensure the 12 heifers calf easily and hence improve the ease of calving score for EBVs they will be induced at 272 day.
So they get the Jag. Funnily enough half of them calf albeit with the usual problems of retained cleansing, slow calves and low colostrum production. The calves were a good size though. 3 others the waters break but there is no way the calves are coming out even with the aid. Vet appears when the 3 are lined up and caesered. 2 of the calves are really stressed and are touch and go and one is dead. One of the heifers is no looking to great and goes on to die. The other three give birth 1 with the aid and the other 2 caesered at more than 286 days.

Now this is of course a fictional tale.

So from an animal welfare point of view is this practice acceptable?

 

[Purli R]

Which part of the tale is fictional?

 

[neilo]

No, the practice is far from acceptable imo. This 'hypothetical' farmer was being a tw*t by not selecting more suitable recips, which would probably of avoided the problem in the first place. Who the hell would choose to use maiden Limmy heifers for pure Charolais embryos?

 

[Paul E]

Acceptable, no.
But then there's plenty of unacceptable practice at the other end of the spectrum too.

 

[Henarar]

Which part of the tale is fictional? View attachment 537914View attachment 537916

Why not?
Open this can of worms

 

[Purli R]

Not saying dont open it,we all know it goes on in a simillar vein to the OP even if it is made up.Some people think its progress,some people think its going backwards.Potentialy the animals are the losers(not just bovines) the Vet/embryo company"s are winners.Farmer will be no further forwards unless one makes 20 or 30grand

 

[liammogs]

How could you say its only ped breeders, plenty of people put a 'unknown calving ease' bull on heifers and just hope that they calf okay!!! Dont get me wrong all farmers want a live calf but there investing a lot of money into ET and every calf counts its the whole reason of having recipients if you need to ceaser its not a big finacial loss if she ends up going barren after rearing a calf unlike if she was a ped cow after paying a lot of money for it

 

[Davy_g]

no is the answer.
Don't think it is common in the pedigree world.
It may be more common in the show world - the two are different and the later includes many commercial animals / farmers - many of which are never planned to calve naturally.

Im not against ET, it has its place. I have used it and had more than 50% sections, never induced and none died. The only reason I would flush again is to preserve genetics (insurance against TB or other disease) rather than try and rapidly expand numbers (which is what I was aiming to do at the time).

 

[Dead Rabbits]

This week is arguably the biggest show of Livestock in the UK. There will be many fine animals on display. Some will have be conceived naturally and delivered perfectly normally other will be embryo transfer and will have been caesered and of course a whole range in between.

With some in the veterinary profession raising questions about the breeding of among others dogs which cannot breath correctly due to breeding or even have no ability to give birth naturally! All bred by the supposedly most intelligent species on Earth, us!

This brings me to the cattle side of things and whether some are overstepping the welfare of livestock.
Let me explain a situation that may arise.

Pedigree breeder has a number of embryos and wishes to put into donor 18 month old heifers. Of course these embryos are only from the top performing genetic lines for LWG, muscle depth, but not for ease of calving.
So the embryos are 5 days old and are implanted into a batch of these maiden heifers. These maiden heifers are of course not the same breed they are limousines and the embryos are from Charolais. Again the genetics of these maiden heifers is not necessarily from and easy calving line.
So so save the cost of getting the transfer guy out twice 20 heifers get implanted at the same time.
Of course 4 months later and after they have run with a bill for a spell they get scanned. A good number have held to embryos, 12, and all the other heifers are in calf, result!

Anyway preps get under way for the calving and it is decided that to ensure the 12 heifers calf easily and hence improve the ease of calving score for EBVs they will be induced at 272 day.
So they get the Jag. Funnily enough half of them calf albeit with the usual problems of retained cleansing, slow calves and low colostrum production. The calves were a good size though. 3 others the waters break but there is no way the calves are coming out even with the aid. Vet appears when the 3 are lined up and caesered. 2 of the calves are really stressed and are touch and go and one is dead. One of the heifers is no looking to great and goes on to die. The other three give birth 1 with the aid and the other 2 caesered at more than 286 days.

Now this is of course a fictional tale.

So from an animal welfare point of view is this practice acceptable?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wa...wp/2016/04/21/look-at-what-weve-done-to-cows/

 

[Dead Rabbits]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wa...wp/2016/04/21/look-at-what-weve-done-to-cows/

Should add that the author did not quote her well. It is a mostly BS article with an agenda. Grandin does have valid concerns about what she sees coming into slaughterhouses from dairy farms though.

 

[Henarar]

the whole reason of having recipients if you need to ceaser its not a big finacial loss if she ends up going barren after rearing a calf unlike if she was a ped cow after paying a lot of money for it

So if she is cheap it don't matter if she gets cut up then thrown away after she has reared what is actually another cows calf ?
I think this is just the problem because even if all her ET calves are caesars there will not be a mark on the precious pedigree cow and that's fine because the cross bread recips are as you say expendable
really ?

 

[crofteress]

hope nobody ever buys my heifers as recipients , would far rather they went straight to be finished

 

[John Chance]

Disingenuous thread. Generic question spliced onto extreme story of questionable veracity.

 

[liammogs]

So if she is cheap it don't matter if she gets cut up then thrown away after she has reared what is actually another cows calf ?
I think this is just the problem because even if all her ET calves are caesars there will not be a mark on the precious pedigree cow and that's fine because the cross bread recips are as you say expendable
really ?

So your telling me youd rather risk £5000 heifer, calving and just get one calf when if you invest time and money you could be lookig at a far grater return on your initial investment!! If the heifers are given the up most care (which i bet they do) propbably cared better than normal commercial cattle!!

But its no different situatation to bulling a crossbred heifer to a newly bought bull with no ebv etc, happend hear years ago when dad used to sell a lot of cow calf outfits, bought a new bull to put on heifers, looked all good small shoulders, no real @ss but out of 20 heifers think dad said he had to cut 10 as they were monster calves, dont get me wrong id rather all calves come out the natural way but unfortunatly genetics dont always allow for it!!

 

[Ysgythan]

I bet there will be stock in show condition dying in this heat as well.

 

[Henarar]

So your telling me youd rather risk £5000 heifer, calving and just get one calf when if you invest time and money you could be lookig at a far grater return on your initial investment!! If the heifers are given the up most care (which i bet they do) propbably cared better than normal commercial cattle!!

I mean what I said
I do put our ped heifers to the bull though we have never given 5k for one but the value shouldn't come in to it

 

[Danllan]

Of course this is the case, as recently written on another thread, breeding dogs that can't function naturally is now not accepted, the same should and will be true of other animals including livestock. That's the ethical side.

From a 'pragmatic' viewpoint, breeding stock that can fulfil their natural functions and are more disease / injury resistant has to make more sense than shelling out for vet' fees and drugs, and than losing productive days.

 

[liammogs]

I mean what I said
I do put our ped heifers to the bull though we have never given 5k for one but the value shouldn't come in to it

Yea you might not have given alot of money for a heifer but there are plenty of people that do and its a way of spreading risk!!

At the end of the day if there is a market for pedigree stock, or extremes of breeds people will do it; all about supply and demand!!

 

[Henarar]

Yea you might not have given alot of money for a heifer but there are plenty of people that do and its a way of spreading risk!!

At the end of the day if there is a market for pedigree stock, or extremes of breeds people will do it; all about supply and demand!!

Maybe that doesn't answer the op question though

 

[matthew]

What I see in the show / sale ring as 'breed characteristics' I think we are already down the road of the pedigree dog breeders. Animals with very strange pelvic structures, wide shoulders and big heads = bad calvings or Ceasars and rubbish locomotion.