[SallyintNorth]

I'm old fashioned I guess, but I'd sooner all our livestock just got on and did it the way nature intended.  I have misgivings about the extent to which we - sheep breeders,  cattle and goat breeders, and all, and the large and the small alike - intervene in this most natural of processes.

I use it myself, in that now I am on a small farm with no bull, I'll AI my Jersey cows rather than have the cost, kerfuffle and risk of hiring a bull, or taking them to a bull, to do it naturally. 

I totally get that a large proportion of our rare breeds depend on small keepers, many of whom have day jobs, and so need to be able to synchronise and plan lambing to fit into time off work which must be planned and authorised months in advance.

Also in preserving rare breeds, it is useful to use ivf, to harvest eggs and semen, and to implant embryos in surrogate mothers, in order to get as many young from the few remaining pure bred animals as possible.

But it seems to be becoming almost the norm.  Many commercial sheep and cattle breeders use implantation and other techniques to increase their yields.  I see increasing numbers of smalholders talking about sponging, whether or not they have the constraints of a waged occupation to consider.

One aspect which concerns me is the extent to which such breeding practises mask breeding issues.  Taken to an extreme, might we be creating a national flock which is incapable of reproducing itself?  And if so, is that okay?

Just my own thoughts, and it is not my intention to disrespect or criticise anyone using these techniques.  But I do feel the need for a discussion. 

[Marches Farmer]

I agree that use of sponging may mask breeding issues.  We leave the ram in for one cycle plus a couple of days and if a ewe scans barren she goes to cull.  Even with old ewes with twins tending to lamb a couple of days early, and first-timers with a single lamb a couple of days late, lambing is over in three weeks.  This system works for us and we've had no fertility problems for years, so I cannot find any reason to justify an additional cost.

[YorkshireLass]

... My reply seems to have vanished into the ether!

I agree that anything we interfere in isn't them selected by. So saving all the lambs means not getting rid of bad Lambers, and accepting treating all their feet means bad feet stay in the flock.

I lean towards culling hard, but you need enough genetic diversity to do that - if you did it with a rare breed you'd lose half your population 

[Penninehillbilly]

As a newcomer to sponging, using a sponge on a goat last year so I could control when she came in season and get her to the male at a date to suit males owner, i didnt use the injection.
I was thinking of sponging all of them next time, again within the normal season, so not using the (PMST?) injection, but to save me trailing miles with separate goats to males and having to miss one because of standstill.
Now I'm concerned,  what breeding issues would I be masking, am I doing harm to the goats?

[Old Shep]

We don't sponge, and this year didn't flush either, and all are due within 3 weeks.  (just one or two barren first timers that will stay for next year).  We both have "proper" jobs too but can manage this without too much interference with the sheep.  If your sheep are healthy they should get tupped fairly quickly.


Harvesting eggs and implanting them into a "better mother" seems silly to me - no good in the long term for the breed.  I know they often do it to get terminal sires such as beltex, but it's step too far for me.

[Fleecewife]

Oh thank you Sally for raising this topic for discussion.  I haven't been able to formulate just what I think so have just kept quietly to myself.


We have never sponged, used AI, nor do we flush - we put the tups in to their breeding groups on April 1st, for one month, which seems to be the best natural time around here for grass growth in spring, avoiding the worst blizzards etc.  We also lamb outdoors.  This is totally appropriate for our specific needs and those of our breeds.


However, I can fully see that others live in different situations where sponging and AI are helpful, and maybe are even what allows them to keep livestock while maintaining an outside job.


A major point is - is the flock/herd etc being used to produce meat, or to produce breeding stock?  If it's purely for meat, then I don't see a problem - you can pick and choose a sire from a breeder, to get meat animals with the characteristics the butcher wants.  That is the final product so there is no effect on the gene pool.


My major concern has always been for the rare breeds.  I don't think AI is greatly used in rare breed sheep, partly because so few tups have donated semen (they seem to really object to the teaser ewe, or at least the four tups we volunteered did - poor soul just didn't do it for them).  The tups whose semen has been stored by the RBST were not chosen for their prize winning properties, but were simply a random selection of working, proven, registered tups.  This is as it should be to my mind for a Primitive, unchanged breed although it wouldn't perhaps be appropriate for other types.
However, for cattle and pigs, where there are fewer individual animals, then AI can be a life saver. This is partly because it allows breeding without having to buy or hire a bull or boar of your own, with its consequent dangers, and partly because the sire can be carefully chosen to maintain genetic diversity in the national flock, not just your own, and this is vital to the survival of some rare breeds.


Some large commercially popular breeds such as Suffolks, developed a tendency to carry a particular defect (can't remember what) which was caused by too small a gene pool, and the practice of using one tup, or a number of closely related tups, on a large flock, thus drastically reducing genetic diversity, and concentrating a genetic problem in the breed.  A balance has to be kept in these flocks between maintaining and improving the desired qualities of the sheep whilst maintaining a large enough gene pool for good health.
However, using semen from a single tup/bull/pig or group of clones, from a rarified top prizewinning line, in order to produce breeding males which fetch those amazing top prices, whilst being how it's done, makes me worry about what the next major consequence will be.  Using a 'good' sire when your business depends on selling top quality meat animals or more breeding stock isn't the same as using a very restricted line.


The use of AI could be either a help or a disaster to the maintenance of genetic diversity, depending on whether semen from just one ram was used on the whole flock, or a selection of rams, ideally a different one per ewe.  We tend to be laughed at for having tiny tupping groups, some even one to one, but this is the ideal for running the flock with maximum varied genetic characteristics, so producing the same effect using AI could work.  I don't know what the system is for buying straws - whether you have them all from one sire, or you can mix and match.


Sponging alone is a slightly different matter to AI, as it's simply a way of synchronising lambing to suit producers other needs.  I used to be very doubtful about the system, but now I think it's just changing times, and I can't see the harm in it (except perhaps leaving in a sponge for, what, ten days?  In humans that can lead to toxic shock    )

[YorkshireLass]

As a newcomer to sponging, using a sponge on a goat last year so I could control when she came in season and get her to the male at a date to suit males owner, i didnt use the injection.
I was thinking of sponging all of them next time, again within the normal season, so not using the (PMST?) injection, but to save me trailing miles with separate goats to males and having to miss one because of standstill.
Now I'm concerned,  what breeding issues would I be masking, am I doing harm to the goats?

I don't think there's a case for direct harm, other than inserting anything giving a risk of infection, things like that.
What it would mean in theory - or on a mass scale - is that say your goat had some genetic thing that made her not come into season properly / often enough. Using the sponge over-rides that, so she breeds, that genetic problem is passed on. If you didn't use a sponge, she wouldn't have as many kids so the problem wouldn't be passed on as much. The argument's a bit flimsy there, with sponges, I admit.


Also consider certain breeds of dog, who can't reproduce without AI and Caesarians 

[Penninehillbilly]

As a newcomer to sponging, using a sponge on a goat last year so I could control when she came in season and get her to the male at a date to suit males owner, i didnt use the injection.
I was thinking of sponging all of them next time, again within the normal season, so not using the (PMST?) injection, but to save me trailing miles with separate goats to males and having to miss one because of standstill.
Now I'm concerned,  what breeding issues would I be masking, am I doing harm to the goats?

I don't think there's a case for direct harm, other than inserting anything giving a risk of infection, things like that.
What it would mean in theory - or on a mass scale - is that say your goat had some genetic thing that made her not come into season properly / often enough. Using the sponge over-rides that, so she breeds, that genetic problem is passed on. If you didn't use a sponge, she wouldn't have as many kids so the problem wouldn't be passed on as much. The argument's a bit flimsy there, with sponges, I admit.

No problem with normal seasons, they let the WORLD know they want a man ?

[Womble]

We sponged this year for the first time. We figured that we already make life difficult enough for ourselves with all the stuff we've got going on, and the sheep have to work for us, not the other way around. If we can tighten up lambing even to one week rather than three, that will make a massive difference to how much time we have to take off work. I'm self employed, so time is money!

I draw the line at injecting to bring the into season un-naturally though, and it annoys me that if we ever wanted to show our sheep seriously, we'd have to lamb over Christmas to have lambs big enough by the summer.

The other thing we've done which I have mixed feelings about is footvaxing. On one hand we've gone a year now without even a case of scald, which is fantastic. On the other hand, I worry that we might now be breeding from ewes who are naturally more susceptible to footrot, but without knowing it. Hopefully we'll never need to footvax again, and having brought everything under control, can now cull out any ewes who have problems. It's a tricky balance though.

[Fleecewife]

Country File at the weekend had bits about keeping both White Park cattle and Long Horns.  Both were housed over the winter, although both keepers made the point that these are hardy outdoor breeds.  The Long Horn breeder went on to explain that there were two reasons for him keeping the cattle in in the winter, one because the grass they were on was getting poached, the second and to me more important point, that he was producing a meat product to suit the market.  Adam Henson pointed out that his animals were much larger than when his father first kept them.  For me, I don't believe in refusing to improve some individuals of a rare breed, so they provide an income for the owner, and possibly develop a new sub-type, as long as there is a core flock/herd kept to the original type (this is why we keep our Ancient Type Hebrideans).  We keep rare breeds 'for the future' so if their characteristics are needed with changing times then we have the original type available.  But the future is tomorrow as well as in a few decades time, so developing and using part of a rare breed for current use makes sense.


What worries me is the owner keeping his White Parks indoors over the winter.  Surely this breed has been outdoor and semi-feral for generations, and by bringing them indoors, being protected from the weather, fed ad lib forage and in daily contact with humans, is going totally against all the characteristics of the breed?


I know this is slightly different to your original question [member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member]  by I see it as a way of insidiously changing a breed, not by design but by inappropriate intervention, which is what we were discussing.


Did anyone else see the stories I mean?  I was cooking dinner so missed chunks, so it's possible I missed something.

[Penninehillbilly]

I didn't see it but I agree with your thoughts FW. There should be original stock line and a commercial line, ie White Park Commercial . I see Aberdeen Angus on tv, nothing like the early sizes, dad (and local dairy farmer) used to use an AA bull for first calver for easy calving, can't see that being true now.
Country file is repeated next Sunday morning, i usually set the video, as I always seem to miss Sunday evenings.

[pharnorth]

It is a great question Sally, and ideological as well as practical. Many of us keep small flocks or herds precisely because it is a lower tech less intervention and (slightly conversely) more hands on way of working with animals. I've not sponged to date, but have just AId my first sows, which was driven by one being slightly lame so didn't want the weight of the boar. Nonetheless, now I am realising the benefit of knowing precisely when they will farrow, and it was cheaper and easier than going to the boar. The slippery slope of intervention begins.
To the key point of does it affect the breed to over intervene?  Yes it has to be a risk. But by the same token every time I read a breed standard part of me says 'Is this right, does it really reflect the best of the past and the best of the future?'  Is it important or even useful,we all aim for the same thing? Perhaps what matters most is we aren't all, at any given time, doing the same thing. Out there somewhere is the odd Maverick doing it au natural, or breeding strength in some trait the rest of us missed.

[Marches Farmer]

We've always stuck to breeding an all-round good animal or bird, be it pig, sheep or poultry.  If you breed for one trait you will lose other desirable ones along the way.  Consider the crossing that used to be done to improve wool, yet after the first cross the carcase quality suffered.  Or the fact that commercial turkeys can no longer mate naturally due to the size of their double breast, or that Belgian Blue cattle in the Netherlands generally calve by Caesarean as they can't deliver naturally due to double-muscling.  When a delegation of Argentinian and Brazilian cattle breeders came over a few years ago to import beef sires and improve the robustness of their cattle (most of which originally came from British breeds) they visited traditional Hereford breeders, not those of modern Herefords.  A case, perhaps, of be careful what you wish for, for your wish may come true ....?