Last year we, or rather I, bought a young bull calf from a registered Holstein breeder who sends cows to a friend's farm to be milked. We wanted to draw semen from him to breed our own cows AI as we don't like to keep bulls, but we like something cheap to use for "clean up", to mate the cows who don't breed as well as we would like.
Anyhow, we raised him up, fed him and cared for him for a year, and then sent in some ear hair from him for DNA testing as required by the Holstein Association for AI. His dam, who belongs to the people we bought him from, also had to be tested. Imagine my dismay when we got a letter Saturday stating that his grandpappy wasn't in fact his grandpappy. (Your papa aint' your papa but your papa don't know.) Somewhere along the way somebody goofed. I suspect until this is all straightened out he is no longer even registered.
Never having faced such a situation before I simply have no idea what to do. We paid for a purebred and eligible for AI use animal. As it stands right now that is not what we got. We fed him for a whole year plus a couple of months, by far the greatest expense in owning an animal. We really, really want to send him up to Verona where the drawing takes place and then sell him. He is big, messy, hard to care for, and costing us MORE money every day to feed. I am tempted to beef him and just take the loss....but I just don't know.
***Update...spoke to the Holstein Association today and all efforts are being made to resolve this. However the sire of the mother cow looks like it is going to turn out to be a bull we used heavily that had a bad proof and was beefed by the bull stud. If this turns out to be the case we will sell Frank, but at least he will be registered. I laughed out loud when I heard who the probable grandsire was and I'll suspect the lady at Holstein thought I was nuts. It was so ironic though. Ocean View Extra Special was a bull we used heavily enough to have the winning get of sire at Altamont a couple years ago. We like his daughters and couldn't really understand why they dumped him, but really can't use any more of that bloodline.
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4 comments:
Is the breeder responsible for the goof up? Don't they have to make good at least on the purchase price?
Hi Stacy...I just don't know what will happen. Whatever went wrong happened on the breeder's end. I have a sneaky feeling since the cows aren't on their home farm, but stabled up here in NY, that maybe someone just pulled hair from the wrong cow. Otherwise a mating was mis-reported almost two years ago, which could be a real problem.
wow, that's too bad. I hope it all turns out OK.
Thanks Laurie...I have decided that I will call the Holstein Assoc. today and if this is going to cost me any more money we will just beef him and take the loss.
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