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view that assisted calvings are virtually avoidable , there should be very few , and yet most farmers still regard it as a routine activity .
“ This business of them calving themselves has proven to be spectacularly successful . We keep figures and with my cows 99.1 per cent calve totally unassisted . Which will include backwards calving and twins . The 0.9 per cent over the 30 years where we have assisted have all been complications . We ’ ve never had a big calf stuck in a small cow , which is what most of these farmers are pulling out , basically .
“ When farmers are assisting a quarter or a third of their cows it ’ s because they ’ ve got the combination of calf size and cow pelvis wrong . That ’ s why they ’ re hoiking them out .
Terence spoke at the British Cattle Breeders Conference in January this year and his topic was encouraging breeders to think about choices of sire and dam to
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get to that 99 per cent . He spoke specifically about terminal sire breeds .
“ Terminal sire breeds have a problem when used maternally . It was one of my themes in my talk . It is something that has only recently been understood and the whole problem is with the myostatin gene . If you are a terminal sire you need the myostatin gene . You won ’ t get the conformation you need without it . You wouldn ’ t have a Belgian Blue , for example , without it , so for pedigree breeds such as those you have to swallow up the bad calvings .
“ But if you ’ re a suckler man you should have cows without these mutations and then you can use one of these myostatin bulls from a Charolais breed or whatever else safely because the cow ’ s got a big pelvis and not got reduced fertility or reduced milk .
“ That ’ s why there is now a new model emerging of females in which you can use terminal sires today more safely .
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Rigel Flossie Poll ( b 2014 ) with her March born polled bull calf
“ The problem in breeding is that of when you get this ‘ double copy ’ of mutations , when it has come from both sides of the breeding , that ’ s when you get these humongous calves that cause problems with calving , because the calves are just too big .
“ When we had pedigree Charolais we had that , but I didn ’ t know about myostatin at the time . I would find these enormous dead calves in the field , but now with Salers you just don ’ t get them , you get these 30-35 kilo calves and there ’ s no trepidation of what you might find . We just go out and tag them .
Terence sees the rise and rise of the Salers in the UK wholly down to its easy calving and maternal properties .
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Our homebred homozygous polled stock bull , Rigel Polaris Poll
“ It ’ s no surprise that the Salers is now the 8th largest beef breed in the UK . It is such a perfect crossing breed .
“ There is a section of the breed trying to use pure Salers , but I think producing a three-quarter Salers is better and I encourage people to keep it very much as a crossbred animal because of the greater hybrid vigour .
“ Personally , I don ’ t ever see the Salers as commanding the prices of the main terminal sire breeds . We can sell bulls at 5000 or 10,000 guineas , that ’ s our future . We can make money at that .
“ More than half of our sales are made direct from the farm . It varies year to year . The rest are sold at Society Sales or other major multi-breed sales . This spring
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