Sir Inka May had eighteen
years of breeding service!! Today we
would aAa him as 5-1-3-6-4-2 (so a near-perfect match with their linebred Segis
bulls offering 2-4-6). His parents
both lived into teenage so his longevity was inherited; but his physique
also had the sturdiness of legs, the moderate frame size and the openness of
rib with adequate blending of parts to express that latent longevity. He modernized the Carnation cattle away from
their extreme size and weight that held back their production in herds of less
capability to feed them to their capacity or house them in typical commercial
stalls of that period.
In other words, he was a high type
and component % sire with good health traits under today’s sire
definitions, rather than a high milk and early maturity (fast aging, less
fertility) bull typical of decades of sire selection in the AI era.
In my opinion, Red Holsteins
persisted because these original “seedstock” were superior for sound type, will
to live, longevity (--and you cannot achieve “longevity” without first
having good “fertility”) with high butterfat % as a bonus that
helped Holstein dairymen enter premium milk markets. Even today, forty years after Holstein USA
allowed Red Holsteins into registry, Red and Whites persist in AI popularity in
spite of rarely being ranked near the top of any production-driven
selection index.
Worldwide, Red & White
cattle are preferred where selection is multiple-trait oriented (milk + fat % +
protein % + fertility + moderate size + easy body condition), as in the
semi-tropics where heat resistance is important, and in Europe where dairy is
more grass-based and cheese yields set the milk price.
On the type front, three sires
who set records for combinations of type and longevity—ABC Reflection
Sovereign *RC, Amcana Dictator Model-Twin *RC, and Rosafe Citation R *RC—were
all descended from Sir Inka May.
An additional sire who was more revered for mature production
was Elmer Brook Aristocrat *RC.
All of these sires were active in Holstein AI breeding circles
during the eras prior to Holstein USA opening up for Red registry. As soon as their Red calves could be
registered, the values of their semen sought the stratosphere. Purebred breeders of our fathers’
generation valued type and longevity combinations as being the best route to
realizing genetic progress: without a surplus of cows and heifers to sort
for your future herd, you cannot harvest genetic progress in reality, no
matter what the pedigrees and sire stacks indicate on paper. You have to be able to voluntarily cull to
keep the best you have produced, and you have to have sound enough animals kept
to also reproduce. Longevity will lead
to a second income stream from replacement cows and service bulls desired by
local dairymen.
FACT: All modern Red Holsteins descend from (in
fact are linebred to) Sir Inka May.
While there are lesser contemporaneous
sources of Red factor to Sir Inka May (the Winterthur herd and
the Stewart and Maytag herds come to mind), they basically were the mates that
allowed “Red” to shine through once exposed to descendants of Sir Inka
May. The famous ABC
Reflection Sovereign *RC (sire of the equally revered Rosafe
Citation R *RC) had “Inka” in both sire’s and dam’s pedigree.
The influence of “Inka” is not limited
to his “Red” descendants, given Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief has multiple crosses to “ABC” and his sire Montvic
Rag Apple Sovereign *RC. His
contemporary Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation has some crosses to
“Inka” on the maternal side of his pedigree.
ALL the high production AI sires of the modern day combine these
two seminal 1960s sires in their ancestry.
Today, combinations of polled
heads and other desired traits are easier to find in Red Holsteins.
This is part of why we seek out the Red and *RC sires in
all the programs we represent.
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