The Collie Farm Blog

I am so impressed with the inexpensive nature of DNA testing for livestock: the going rate for a single sheep DNA test is just over ten dollars, and multiple companies are in competition for your business. Contrast this to the dog show world, where some researchers accept public funds to do DNA research.Then they get the help and cooperation of dog lovers and owners to collect samples for their studies. Then they turn around and patent their findings and sell the patent to a single DNA test company, who can then monopolize the test for seven years until the patent runs out.

This results in DNA tests for canine breeding stock that run about $200 “on sale” at a clinic setting! This phenomenon has made it exhorbitantly expensive for dog breeders to try to do the right thing and test their breeding stock for all known hereditary diseases. Verifying a dog is “good” for breeding can cost upwards of a thousand dollars!  Contrast this to the sheep scrapie gene discovery, which is now in the public domain, multiple DNA test companies compete to offer the test, and the price is very reasonable. I don’t know if this particular tets may also be subsidized, since it’s in the public interest to reduce scrapie. But, the drastic difference in price clearly points to some level of profiteerism on the dog DNA tests! I doubt that demand is a factor- I would almost bet that more dog DNA tests are done than sheep.

I always try to encourage “dog people” to ask questions before they donate to, or participate in, reserach projects on DNA, to first verify that the researcher has pledged to publish their findings to the public domain, and not patent them. My understanding is that this is a hot ethical topic in the research community, but one that we’re little aware of as laymen.

I decided I wanted to test two of our rams for the scrapie resistance gene. Rams that are “RR” at codon 171 are valuable in that all of their offspring with either be “RR” or “QR,” both of which are considered resistant to scrapie. Hershey is our older ram, I am interested in his status. I did not castrate #900, who was born in January, thinking I may want to keep and breed him. He was sired by Jessica’s ram, #650, so is unrelated to all the sheep I have (except his mother, of course). And, #650 is “RR” and also is a very nice ram, so capturing his genetics may be desirable. So, I’m testing those two rams before deciding on my breeding plans for this fall.

The other two ram lambs born this year I castrated- they were born late enough that they’ll probably still be around when the ewes start going back into heat around August/September. I don’t want any accidental breedings, or the necessity of having to separate them; so they’ll be dedicated as butcher lambs. I figure that if I decide not to keep #900 for breeding, I’ll either sell or butcher him before that time frame, so it was safe to keep him intact. He is a lunker, a chubby boy, his mama is feeding him well!

I shopped around a bit on the web for DNA testing companies. I found three, but sadly, one appears to have gone out of business in the last week, I assume as a result of the tough economy. Of the remaining two, Biogenetic Services, offers customers the option of using blood “cards” instead of collecting blood in a vial/tube. I didn’t want to have to call a vet out, or haul the sheep to a vet just to collect a tiny bit of blood. I figured I could probably figure out how to draw blood on my own, but would still have to get a hold of the “purple top tubes” necessary to send blood in vial form. And then you have to pay for faster shipping, to keep the blood fresh.

By comparison, collecting a few drops of blood to put on a paper card is much easier to collect, and mail. Biogenetic Services sells the cards in batches of 15, for a dollar each, plus a few bucks S&H. I purchased a small box of lancets intended for diabetic use, so that I could be sure that each blood sample was clean. The instructions say you can also use the same piercing instrument and clean it with alcohol between animals, but there is risk of contamination. We are talking about such small quantities of blood here, that if you just get the tiniest bit of somebody else’s blood mixed in, it will invalidate the sample.

I spoke with the veterinarian on staff at Biogenetics, and he warned that even animals housed together in close quarters (like a feedlot) can often have each other’s blood on them. He recommended collecting from the ear, which I did. I found that piercing the tip of the ear produced the best blood drop, which I carefully squeezed from lower on the ear, to keep my hands away from the sample. I tried to make sure that I handled the card from the edges, and that the only thing that touched the target area of the card was the blood drop.

Then all that was left to do was label the cards, and send them off in the mail in a regular envelope! I’m anxious to learn the results!

First of all, we finally agreed on a name for our Maremma: “Bronte” (spelled without the umlaut- because who wants to spell a dog’s name with an umlaut?). Here is a photo of her with the ram, taken by our neighbor Marla. She and the ram get on pretty well. If she tries to tug at his ears too much and gets on his nerves, he pushes her down and hurts her. So, they have their relationship sorted out!

You’ll note the long-line she’s wearing. This is a  great secret I learned long ago from Patty Ruzzo in a seminar. Patty is now passed on, but she was a well-known dog trainer who was highly successful in Obedience competition, and I learned many valuable things from her and think of her often.

We all know that puppies usually go through a “keep-away” age, where they start to learn they can run faster than we can, and that being caught is not fun. But, traditional store-bought dog long-lines used for controlling keep-away dogs are heavy and cumbersome. If you are training a dog to jump or herd, regular long-lines can get dangerously tangled on things. So this was Patty’s solution: grosgrain ribbon. This is a special kind of ribbed ribbon you can buy at a fabric store- it is quite strong, and inexpensive. Tie 10 yards of it to a brass clip, and you have a fabulous, lightweight long-line that “floats” along as the dog runs. It’s slippery so it rarely tangles with solid objects. And, if a dog really hits it hard, it breaks, saving their neck from serious injury.

This long-line is so lightweight the dog forgets he is wearing it. And, the best part is that you can step on it when you are calling him, and then just stand their casually like you haven’t done anything at all. He has no idea what has just occurred, and he starts to develop a superstitious belief that you are God-like, and can stop him in his tracks when you call him. Much better than stooping to pick up a heavy long-line, so the dog figures out “oh, if I run fast enough to get that long-line out of your reach, I’m home-free!” Instead, with this long-line, the dog starts to believe that when you call, there is no choice but to come.

So, this is what Bronte is wearing most of the time. She is still at a very silly age, and is easily intimidated by us, so when we are out in the pasture, she bounces around and woofs, trying to initiate the keepaway game, half afraid of being snagged. When she does this, I ingore it, and now and then, step on the long-line, catch her, pet and praise her then let her go.  The long-line is reasonably safe for her to wear in the pasture- there is not much for it to get stuck on. She has broken (or chewed?) it a couple of times, but I just re-tie it while she’s enjoying eating her dinner, and she is rarely the wiser. Her dinner is my best puppet string: she must eat it while I pet her if she wants to eat.

I used a line like this for many months on my “remedial” Border Collie, Gene. Gene was horrible about keepaway, for much of the first year of her life! Especially in a pasture with sheep. And, when Gene is frightened or upset, she flees, unlike most dogs who seek comfort from their owners when scared. I attribute this brilliant and simple invention to me eventually getting Gene under voice control, and now she has very good call-offs when she is working livestock, and will even reluctantly come to me when she is hurt or panicked.

So, I’m hoping, if it worked for Gene, it’ll work for Bronte! So far it seems to be doing the trick! Training an LGD is very different for me, as I only have a few minutes per day of interaction with her, as compared to a competition and house dog that gets many hours of intensive interaction per day. So, I have to make the most of every minute I’m in the pasture, to teach her the things she needs to know!

Last weekend, we moved the sheep back down to the pasture to graze. The move almost went without mishap, except that at one point, the sheep drifted down to the end of the driveway by the road, and noticed the green alleyway by the tree farm. They decided to start strolling in that direction. I wasn’t able to get down there very fast with Maggie, and because that area is unfenced and close to the road, I didn’t want to send Maggie down there by herself.

As I carefully pursued them with Maggie, they drifted further and further, until they finally stopped, three properties down, where the properties border an elevated road. Fortunately, they stood there in indecision long enough for me to get around them with Maggie and nudge them back home. My heart was in my throat though, partly from running all that way, and partly because I feared that if they got onto the road, or Maggie disobeyed me and rushed to try to bring them, we could have had a disaster!

The sheep are happily back in their graze now. The first few nights, I fence the sheep in an inner circle of hotwire, and the dog in an outer circle. The dog was very fearful about the move (Kirk actually carried her the whole way down to the field, because she cannot yet walk on a leash!). I was worried I wouldn’t be able to catch the dog once she was loose in that big area, and frightened.

But, after a few days, they all settled in. So, now the sheep are inside the hotwire, and the dog has the rest of the pasture to roam. The lambs are safe from the dog, and coyotes would have to make it past the dog, and the hotwire, to get to the sheep. Now, I have to move the hotwire rectangle every week or so to put the sheep on fresh grass, and let the worn spots rest.

This morning I moved the wire, in the photo you can see the left side is muddy and eaten down, and the right side is fresh green grass. The Premier Electronet fencing is all that it promised to be- easy to move and very effective at keeping in the sheep.

Kirk has been working on this bridge the last few weeks. It is made out of more barn wood-these boards were floor joists from the second story. The boards are huge and heavy, 2×12″ true dimension lumber, and sometimes bigger. The wood from the barn is funny, we know it was milled on site, and there are many inconsistent dimensions of lumber. When building something like this, it’s necessary to pick through the boards to find ones that are the same.

We have two drainage ditches that stretch across our pasture. There are culverts on one end of the pasture where you can cross the ditches, but they’re by the road. Last summer, Kirk drug a few of these barn joists down to the field to use as temporary bridges over the ditches. This way, we could walk straight across the fields, through the middle, which is a straighter path from the house. But, the bridges were a bit risky- narrow and often slippery.

So here is his more permanent solution. This is the first one, he plans to start the second one soon. This barn lumber was very dark from over 100 years of weathering- it was never stained or painted. He ran it through the planer, and it’s amazing how just shaving off a few millimeters, it looks as clean as fresh-cut lumber! He is finishing it with Varathane, so it will be pretty fancy!

The old bridge is in the picture- this new one will be a bit safer for walking on when our hands our full of stuff!