| Andy LeMaistre | Very good. Well, thank you very much for your statement. Appreciate it. Are there other participants that would like to comment? Okay. Hearing none, what I would like to do is to address the questions that were raised. Mr. MacPherson had a question of Bill Storrie and we can entertain a couple of questions at this point but, I think given that we have approximately 15 to 18 minutes left in the conference, we also need to come to some consensus as to how to proceed for a future conference and what specific issues should be dealt with. It seems, from what the Chair has heard, that there is a commonality in most of the statements that people have made and what we now need to do, I think, is to refine that into simple statement of specific problems we want to attack and determine how we are going to proceed. But first, I would entertain Mr. MacPherson who had a question of Bill Storrie and if you are still prepared to ask that question why don't we take that at this time, Mr. MacPherson. |
| Guy MacPherson | Okay, EPD is going to be different from every different person as to what he expects from it. Would it be possible to look at DNA patterns, would it be possible for example to pick out what each of us think are the ten or fifteen best animals in every herd throughout the world, run a DNA pattern over them and see if we get any uniformity. And see whether the white feet show a different DNA pattern to the others. |
| Bill Storrie | No it would not be possible. It would be impossibly costly. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Excuse me. Is that Mr. Storrie responding? |
| Bill Storrie | Sorry? |
| Andy LeMaistre | Is that Mr. Storrie. |
| Bill Storrie | Sorry, Mr. Chairman. I should have announced myself. I am responding to Mr. MacPherson. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Very good, sir. |
| Bill Storrie | I think it would be so costly it would be completely impractical to do DNA testing. It would cost in this country, to do a proper DNA test on ten animals, it would cost 1500 to 1800 pounds and that is a lot of money. We have not got a probe for white feet so there is no way that you could look at a DNA sample and say that animal will pass on white feet. There is just no way of doing it. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Mr. Storrie. Mr. MacPherson, your comment was that you did not agree or did not agree with that. |
| Bill Storrie | I did a lot of parentage and blood typing but I did it out of curiosity. |
| Andy LeMaistre | I see. |
| Bill Storrie | The consensus feed back is that a Belted Galloway, they certainly have no unique blood type, it is unlikely that we would ever be able to find the probe that would find any of the genetics off the belt, the white feet or anything else. If you look at the human experience, there are millions and billions of dollars spent on finding a probe just for one gene characteristic. |
| Guy MacPherson | Thank you, Mr. Storrie. |
| Andy LeMaistre | All right. Thank you very much to both Mr. MacPherson and Mr. Storrie for those comments. Is there another comment as it relates to that. There was, I believe, Max Auld is a geneticist as well? |
| Max Auld | That is correct. |
| Bill Storrie | Mr. Maddern in Australia. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Yes. There was someone else that commented. |
| Bill Storrie | Bob Maddern may have a comment. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Yes, Mr. Maddern, that is correct. |
| Bob Maddern | It is Bob Maddern here. I could only agree with what Bill Storrie said the chance of finding a DNA probe for white feet is fairly remote and would be very expensive. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Very good. Thank you for that comment, Mr. Maddern. Where there other questions that someone had? I believe Dick Butson, Dr. Butson? |
| Dick Butson | Yes? |
| Andy LeMaistre | You had a question I believe, I am not sure to whom it was or my notes are not orderly. |
| Dick Butson | In reply to Mary McCiellan. The point about doing analysis of fat and cholesterol in Belted Galloway. I think this is something that really should be done but it may be prohibitively expensive. I was very enthused about this when I first heard about it, but the more I went into it the more I realized that a tremendous number of samples have to be taken. The inside round steak has only 2% fat, where the rib roasts, this is of an average animal, contains 7.5% fat so you are going to have to take a lot of standard samples from each carcass that you are examining. The other thing is, it is a popular misconception that the cholesterol is the worse offender in the diet. It is the animal fat in the diet that is probably a more important feature. I think that you are going to have to compare Belted Galloways with possibly the solid colored Galloways, certainly with Angus, and Hereford and Limousin, and you are going to have to do it at least five carcasses for this analysis. Each analysis costs about one hundred dollars, U.S., per analysis of fat and cholesterol. I think, you are looking in the neighborhood of about seven thousand dollars by the time you have done it all. I think it is something that maybe if we were a bigger society we should do, maybe it should be somehow financially funded by Belted breeders throughout the world and I think it is an important thing for the future. That is the only comment I have to make on that. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Thank you very much, Dr. Butson. I think at this point what I would like to try to accomplish is to, as I said earlier, is to zero in on some specific issues that we would all agree need to be addressed and try to develop a procedure for either a telephone conference like we are having today or some other type of process in order to try to attack these issues to the benefit of all of our interests. I would entertain a comment from anyone if someone has thought through a pattern of procedure that they would like to see followed. Would anyone like to comment on that? |
| Bill Storrie | Mr. Chairman. It is Bill Storrie again from Scotland. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Yes sir, Mr. Storrie. |
| Bill Storrie | I would like to see the participants actually circulating a paper, just a brief letter so that we have time to look at that. |
| Andy LeMaistre | All right, sir. |
| Bill Storrie | There are questions being raised here and people do not have the time to respond and respond in depth. If we circulated a paper and all contributed to it we could then look at the various points and you could then draw an agenda off what you felt were the points being raised most frequently and then we could have an agenda sent out that these were the specific points that were going to be raised and we would have the background of the discussion paper. |
| Andy LeMaistre | I think that is a valid point. I am not at all sure that we have not in effect done that, today in the broad sense, in a broad brush stroke, in that I think it is clear to me that we see the need for some type of an international registration or process by which we can undertake to develop EPDs. It just seems to me that that is a logical way to go. How they would be shaped to accommodate the various environments and other differences is a difficult question and would take quite a bit of work with knowledgeable people. Are there other comments on how we might proceed from this point? |
| Hume MacDonald | Mr. Chairman, it is Hume MacDonald from Australia. I believe that if we have to ... |
| Andy LeMaistre | Mr. MacDonald? I am having a difficult time hearing you. Are you still there, Mr. MacDonald? |
| Hume MacDonald | Can you hear me now? |
| Andy LeMaistre | Yes I can hear you sir. Would you start again? We lost the train of your comment. |
| Hume MacDonald | Fine, let me start again. What I would suggest that a third paper be developed along the lines of the existing meeting paper but setting out the those areas throughout the conversation today that appear to have the most relevance or degree of importance and that those papers then go to each society representing each of the countries and after that is done that a further teleconference be held on the basis of these. |
| Andy LeMaistre | All right. I believe that I understood what you proposed there. |
| Operator | This is AT&T, I am just adding Don Robertson into the conference call. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Very good. |
| Don Robertson
(President of the Canadian Galloway Association) |
Carry on. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Don Robertson? This is Andy LeMaistre, I am chairing the program. Welcome to the conference. |
| Don Robertson | Just carry on. I will listen on. |
| Andy LeMaistre | All right. Mr. MacDonald, if I could summarize, what you are suggesting is that the proposed traits for EPDs that were circulated be reviewed by all participants, modified and commented on and returned to us to see where the commonalities lie? |
| Hume MacDonald | Yes, particularly through each breed society, not only as individuals but through each breed society. Perhaps we will end up getting a hope or some degree of agreement and for the formation of the collection of the data on an international basis. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Yes, absolutely, and I think that I would agree that most of the breed societies, or at least the U.S. breed society, is giving consideration to EPDs at this time. Your suggestion is that each of the breed societies work out a recommendation and we would end up with something that was satisfactory internationally, or was pretty much the same that everyone could use. This would make a lot of sense, considering the size of the breed. Very good. Well, we certainly appreciate those comments. Is there someone else who would like to comment? |
| John Jeffords | I think one, this is John Jeffords. |
| Andy LeMaistre | John, go right ahead, sir. |
| John Jeffords | This is a comment concerning what Flora mentioned. |
| Andy LeMaistre | John, you are very faint. |
| John Jeffords | Can anybody hear me? |
| ?? | Yes, we can hear you better now. |
| John Jeffords | A response to Flora's question to start, as to whether there are enough animals to produce EPDs, the Polled Hereford Association of the United States does believe that it is possible to create EPDs. I believe Darrell Riemer's society the American Galloway Breeders Association which signed on to have the Polled Herefords recorded and possibly have EPDs done by them as well. It is one thing for each association to keep their own record and it is another thing for them to all share the records and to put them in a common data base. At this point we may have numbers large enough that we may get more accurate EPDs if we combine our records. I do not know if Darrell is prepared to mention what the American Galloway Breeders is going to do for the AGBA, but I do believe that by all the societies ... |
| Andy LeMaistre | All right, John. You have faded or we lost you again. |
| John Jeffords | Can you hear me again? |
| Andy LeMaistre | Yes. |
| John Jeffords | Combining our data bases I think we will all benefit. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Okay. Mr. MacDonald, perhaps I could ask you again, would it make sense for us to circulate to everyone the proposed structure that the American Hereford Association could supply in terms of the various traits and things, that we could modify, that would go to the various breed associations for consideration. Does that make sense? That sound positive to you? |
| Hume MacDonald | Positive. |
| Andy LeMaistre | All right. Very good. Mr. Riemer, are you still there? Are you prepared to comment as to where the American Galloway Association is at this point? |
| Darrell Riemer | Yeah. We had a Board Meeting and we approved going with the American Polled Hereford Association. They are going to do our pedigree and then ultimately we are going to try to get performance on these animals set up and our ultimate goal is to try to get a sire summary and EPDs. Right now they are doing it, it is an affiliate of the Polled Hereford Association, they are doing the registrations and performance records for seven different breeds right now, smaller type breeds, and they set up performance systems for each of those breeds and they seem like they are real cooperative people in that they will modify the program to specify for each breed. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Very good. Thank you very much for that comment. Are there other comments on how we should proceed then from anyone on the floor at this point? |
| Hugh Crawford | Hugh Crawford here. There are a few complications here that will not become important unless you are not prepared for them. Remember the international aspect of this endeavour. Pounds versus kilos. 200 day weaning weights versus 205-day weaning weights. And, different countries have completely different carcass evaluations procedures. We are talking about different countries here. Do not assume because we are all speaking English that we all mean the same things by the same words. |
| Andy LeMaistre | That is a very good point Mr. Crawford. Thank you. Other comments as to how to proceed or general ideas? |
| Peter Sutherland
(Field Director, Galloway Cattle Society of Australia) |
Peter Sutherland from Australia here. |
| Andy LeMaistre | I am sorry, I did not catch the name sir. |
| Peter Sutherland | Peter Sutherland from Australia. Field Officer for the Galloway Society. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Yes, sir. |
| Peter Sutherland | I travel right around Australia looking at Galloway herds and one of the observations that I have made is that the Belted Galloway is a smaller animal in Australia but a lot of the breeders here do not feed them well enough compared with the solid breed Galloways and I was wondering whether that happens around in other parts of the world where the nutritional value is not put into the animal to give it the full growth. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Does anyone wish to respond to that? |
| Darrell Riemer | This is Darrell Riemer. I would like to make a comment to that. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Go ahead Darrell. |
| Darrell Riemer | When you do EPDs there is a place to list what kind of conditions those animals are under and that what a EPD is supposed to decipher the different types of conditions animals are under to try to give you a net pounds, negative or positive. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Very good. Thank you Mr. Riemer. Any other comments? We are fast approaching the end of the meeting and if I could just summarize for a minute and if someone wanted to comment on top of that; I think the process which we should follow is one of trying to circulate a proposed EPD system that might work on an international basis and to get that to the various breed associations for consideration in reporting back, on a timely basis, say within the next ninety days. That schedule may or may not be possible depending on what the meeting schedules are, but to be able to report back to see whether or not there is a consensus among the various breed associations then to combine this data into one bank that would be available to everyone, would be a first step for us to proceed. Is there any positive or negative comment about that proposal? |
| Peter McKeon | Peter McKeon in Australia. I think that is probably a good way to initially tackle it, get some feed back from all the various societies and then possibly at that time each of the societies could nominate one or two representatives who could then follow up with a telephone hook up to discuss those results because otherwise the cost of this is going to be quite enormous. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Right. Okay. Let us undertake that procedure. Our plan is to report to each of the participants, this will be transcribed, and we will report the entire transcription to each of the participants and what we would do then is we will try to get together an outline of the Hereford program to see how that might fit with everyone and I would just encourage each of you of the fact that each of you has been willing to invest your time and energy to sign up this, would mean that you would be able to carry forward to your particular breed association and try to get some action. I think this is a watershed time for Belted Galloways on an international basis and we really need to take advantage of it at this time. One other comment that I would make regarding conference calls is that we did analyze the price and we find that it is significantly more expensive from New Zealand and Australia and we will try in the future to let everybody know the expense and to work up an equitable cost that would spread the cost equally to everyone around the world who wanted to participate. Are there any other comments before we close the meeting? |
| John Jeffords | There is one, John Jeffords. |
| Andy LeMaistre | John Jeffords, go ahead, sir. |
| John Jeffords | Can everyone hear me loud enough? First of all we believe that we were having for a while was the tape machine here so thus we had to turn off the tape machine so there will not be a transcription. |
| Lynn Jeffords | There may be, I took a lot of notes. |
| John Jeffords | My wife took a lot of notes ... |
| Andy LeMaistre | And there is the transcriber, Carol ... |
| John Jeffords | Denver was cut off, Ms Galloway was there so I believe it was the same situation the telephone line was creating a conflict with conference call. |
| Andy LeMaistre | You are fading again, John. |
| John Jeffords | In the future what we would have to do is check out how to record a conference all. |
| Andy LeMaistre | We will make our best effort to make an accurate transcription of the various comments and to get that to everyone along with particulars on an outline of an EPD program that can be and we will take it from there. Are there other comments? Otherwise I am going to close the meeting I think we had this on a strict time basis and we are over that time now. |
| ?? | Can you give us an expected cost to run one of these? |
| Andy LeMaistre | I can tell you from the various countries, the cost of a two hour conference from New Zealand is $145.00, from Australia it was $150.00, these are U.S. dollars. Great Britain is $110.00, Canada was $52.00 and in the United States it was $38.00. I think that what we would try to do in the future is to equalize the costs as it obviously does not make sense for it to cost four times as much for New Zealand or Australia to participate. We will try to work out some equitable per head cost and we would all share the expense for the international link up. I think it was an excellent idea that it was proposed that there be some appointed representatives from each of the breed societies that would participate. Perhaps along with the various discussions that you individuals may have with the breed societies it could be that the breed society would underwrite a portion of the costs associated with your representatives to participate. That is all the information that I can give you at this time. We will try to get more information to you when we try to schedule another meeting. |
| ?? | Thank you. |
| Andy LeMaistre | Thank you sir. Well without any further ado, I certainly appreciate everyone's participation and I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to John and Lynn Jeffords for being the stimulus behind this. I know that they have probably visited with most of you personally and I think we are very fortunate to have their strong interest for Belted Galloway cattle that they would pursue this course, so I certainly am very appreciative to them and all of you and I look forward to having the opportunity to meet with you all again. |
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