Creeping over fields of green Remembering the
faces The moments unseen The hands that built
a dynasty The vision in their eyes Echoes in
the auction bar Beneath an endless sky This is
the bull buy Turn the bar You can feel your heartbeat
in your throat. The auctioneer's voice cracks
through the humid September air at the 1972 Hanover
Hillsale, and you're gripping the auction paddle
so hard your knuckles have gone white. Three
bids ago, you blew past your authorized spending
limit. Two bids ago, you started wondering how
you'd explain this to your bosses back at American
Breeders Service. One bid ago, you stopped caring.
Auctioneer's rhythmic chant. Because in that
ring, circling on legs that seem too elegant
for his age, is a calf unlike anything the Holstein
world has ever seen. His coat isn't the familiar
black and white that's made this breed the backbone
of the American dairy industry. It's a vibrant,
almost copper red, alert eyes, a presence that
makes experienced cattlemen, men who've spent
their entire careers avoiding red genetics, lean
forward in their seats. You raise your paddle
again. $55 ,000. The room shifts. You feel eyes
on you now. Curious. Skeptical. A few openly
hostile. The man three rows back, a breeder who's
been in this business longer than you've been
alive, shakes his head slowly. You know what
he's thinking. You know what they're all thinking.
That calf is a genetic mistake. A defect. The
kind of animal serious breeders cull from their
herds without a second thought. Your paddle rises
one more time. $60 ,000. The auctioneer's voice
cuts through the stunned silence. Sold. You've
just paid a world record price for a red and
white Holstein. You've just bet your career on
an animal the entire industry has dismissed.
And in two days, when you walk into your boss's
office to explain what you've done, you'll say
something that will echo through dairy breeding
lore for the next 50 years. But that's not really
where this story begins. To understand what just
happened in this auction barn, and why it matters
for every Holstein alive today, you need to go
back further. To a Swiss agricultural graduate
standing alone in Ontario farmland with nothing
but conviction and a crazy idea. To a Nebraska
breeding wizard who died before he ever saw his
life's work come to fruition. To a Kansas dairy
farmer who would later become governor and whose
bull would force an entire industry to confront
what it means to wield genetic power. This is
the story of four bulls who built the modern
Holstein breed and the price we're still paying
for their legacy. To understand what's coming,
you need to understand the world of dairy cattle
breeding in the early 1960s. You're standing
in a Nebraska pasture, let's say, in the spring
of 1960. The Eisenhower administration is winding
down. Kennedy is campaigning on television, a
technology that's starting to change everything.
and American agriculture is in the midst of its
own quiet revolution. If you're a dairy farmer
in 1960, your grandfather would barely recognize
your operation. The cows you're milking produce
twice what his did. The barn you work in has
electric lights, mechanical milkers, bulk tanks
that keep milk cold until the truck comes. You're
not just a farmer anymore. You're a businessman,
tracking production records, calculating feed
efficiency, making breeding decisions based on
data your grandfather never had access to. And
at the center of this revolution is artificial
insemination. The AI industry has changed everything.
Instead of keeping a bull on your farm, expensive,
dangerous, limited in genetic reach, you can
now order semen from the best sires in the country.
One elite bull can father tens of thousands of
daughters across multiple states. Genetic progress
that used to take generations can now happen
in years. But here's what you need to understand.
In 1960, the Holstein breed has a hierarchy.
A very clear, very rigid hierarchy. Black and
white is correct. Black and white is elite. Black
and white is what serious breeders produce. Red
and white? That's a recessive gene that surfaces
occasionally. An embarrassment to be eliminated.
Red calves are barred from the main herd book.
They're sold off. bred out, treated as genetic
noise to be filtered from the signal. You accept
this because everyone accepts this. Because the
men who built this industry, the AI companies,
the breed associations, the university researchers,
they all agree. Red is a defect. The science
is settled. Except in Europe, a young Swiss agricultural
graduate named Jean -Louis Schrago is looking
at the same science and reaching a very different
conclusion. Your Jean -Louis Schrago and you've
just graduated from agricultural college in Switzerland
with a specialization in dairy cattle genetics.
You're 23 years old, ambitious, and you've noticed
something that the North American establishment
seems determined to ignore. In Europe, there's
a market for red genetics. Dutch farmers, German
farmers, Swiss farmers, they don't share North
America's prejudice against the color. They want
elite cattle, and they don't care if those cattle
are red or black or purple with polka dots. They
care about production. They care about confirmation.
They care about results. You've done the research.
You know that red and white Holsteins aren't
defective. They're just different. The red color
is a simple recessive trait, nothing more. It
has no connection to milk production, to health,
to longevity. The stigma is cultural, not scientific.
And you've spotted an opportunity. If someone
could produce elite red and white Holsteins,
animals with the same genetic quality as the
best black and whites, there's a market waiting.
A market that North American breeders are completely
ignoring. In 1968, you board a ship for North
America. You have limited funds, limited connections,
and an idea that makes experienced breeders shake
their heads in disbelief. You find yourself standing
in the rolling farmland of Ontario, trying to
convince Peter Heffering of Hanover Hill Holsteins
to do something that goes against everything
the industry believes. Breed one of your finest
cows, you tell him, to a red factor bull. Heffering
looks at you the way you've gotten used to being
looked at. Politely skeptical. Maybe a little
pitying. He's been in this business for decades.
He knows how it works. And what you're proposing
isn't how it works. He says no. Most people would
go home after that. Most people would accept
that the establishment knows better, that maybe
the industry veterans are right. You've crossed
an ocean for this idea, and the first serious
breeder you approach has shut you down. But something
in you refuses to quit. You'll be back. 2 ,000
miles away, in Central City, Nebraska, another
kind of dreamer is building something he'll never
live to see completed. You're standing at the
fence line of Pawnee Farm, watching Lester Fishler
walk his herd. There's something different about
the way he looks at these animals. Other breeders
select for next year's milk check. Fishler is
building an architecture that spans decades.
Fellow breeders call him gifted. Some use the
word wizard. But there's no magic in what Fishler
does, just thousands of hours of paying attention
when others have stopped looking. He can study
a cow and see not just what she is, but what
her daughters might become, her granddaughters,
her great -granddaughters. He maintains what
he calls a strictly rag -apple herd, tracing
back to bloodlines he's refined over years of
careful selection. Every mating decision is deliberate.
Every calf born is a step toward something only
he can fully visualize. You watch him pause by
a pregnant cow named Pawnee Farm Glenview Beauty.
There's nothing flashy about her. She's not a
show cow, not a record breaker. But Fishler's
hand rests on her side for a long moment, and
you wonder what he sees. He won't live to find
out. Fishler will die before the calf inside
this cow, or her own calf, born a few years later,
ever produces a daughter. All those years of
patient work, and he'll never see the payoff.
That's the part of this story that catches in
the throat. But in April 1962, the architecture
Fishler built will outlive him. in ways nobody
imagined. Meanwhile, in Kansas, two partners
are making breeding decisions that will reshape
the entire industry, without any idea what they're
setting in motion. You're John Carlin, a dairy
farmer in partnership with Lawrence Mayer. You'll
go on to bigger things. Governor of Kansas from
1979 to 1987, eventually Archivist of the United
States. But right now, in the early 1970s, You're
just trying to build a quality Holstein herd.
Select Sires has proposed a mating. Your cow,
Cremel, bred to a bull named Penn State Ivanhoe
Star. It's a good match on paper. Star is proven.
Cremel has potential. You sign off on it the
way you sign off on dozens of breeding decisions,
with instinct, with pedigree analysis, with the
best information available. You have no way of
knowing that the calf that results from this
mating will revolutionize milk production across
the entire breed. Or that decades later, researchers
will trace two separate lethal genetic disorders
back to him. Or that his name, Carlin M. Ivanhoe
Bell, will become synonymous with both the promise
and the peril of genetic power. You're just making
a breeding decision. The same way farmers have
made breeding decisions for centuries. The difference
is, the tools have changed, and nobody's fully
reckoned with what that means. You're Jean -Louis
Schrago, and you've spent three years being told
no. Three years of industry veterans suggesting,
politely and not so politely, that you're wasting
your time. Three years of doors closing. Three
years of those 3 a .m. moments that anyone who's
ever chased an unpopular idea knows intimately.
Lying awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering
if everyone else is right, and you're the fool.
You've taken a job with American Breeders Service
as a sales representative, working your way into
the industry from the inside. You've learned
the business, you've built relationships, and
you've never stopped looking for a way to make
your vision reality. Then, in 1971, you find
it. Roybrooke Telstar, a Canadian superstar,
celebrated for refinement and exceptional udders.
Everything the show ring values, Telstar delivers.
But what most people don't know... What you've
discovered through careful research is that Telstar
carries the rare, black -red gene. There's just
one problem. Telstar has been exported to Japan.
You start making phone calls, you write letters,
you work contacts on the other side of the Pacific,
trying to locate something that might not even
exist anymore. Frozen semen from a bull that's
been out of North America for years. And then,
against all probability, you find it. Two units.
Two precious units of Telstar semen preserved
in a tank somewhere in Japan. The price for importing
them? $2 ,500. In 1971, that's serious money.
That's rent for months. That's a down payment
on land for two units of semen from a bull nobody
in North America is thinking about anymore. You
pay it. Now you go back to Peter Heffering at
Hanover Hill. You have something concrete this
time. You have a plan. Telstar's black -red gene.
combined with the true recessive red gene carried
by the right cow, will produce a red calf. Not
just any red calf. An elite red calf, with Telstar's
refinement and Hanover Hill's quality. Heffering
agrees to try. The cow you select is Tara Hill's
pride lucky barb, a phenomenal animal who happens
to carry the red recessive. The genetic math
is elegant. The odds are right. Now you wait.
You're Wally Linskoog, and you've driven from
California to Nebraska. for the Pawnee Farm dispersal
sale. Lester Fishler's herd is being sold off,
and buyers from seven states have gathered in
Central City. The mood is strange. Fishler was
respected, more than respected, revered by those
who understood what he was building. And now
his life's work is being parceled out to the
highest bidders. You've come with instructions
from Arlinda Farms. You've got a spending limit,
and you've got a feeling, something you can't
quite articulate. about a pregnant cow named
Pawnee Farm Glenview Beauty. Other buyers see
a good cow. You're trying to see what Fishler
saw when he bred her. You're betting that whatever
architecture he was building, some of it lives
in this animal. The bidding starts. Your paddle
keeps rising. $3 ,000. $3 ,500. $4 ,000. The
man next to you drops out. Someone across the
barn shakes his head and stops. $4 ,300. You've
just bought a pregnant cow for more than some
of these farmers paid for their land. Your bosses
back in California are going to want an explanation.
25 days later, Beauty arrives at Arlinda Farms
by train. She's exhausted from the journey. She's
also very, very pregnant. On May 9, 1962, she
gives birth to a bull calf. You don't know it
yet. But you're looking at an animal whose genetics
will eventually flow through nearly one -sixth
of every Holstein alive, whose influence will
help double the milk production of the entire
breed, whose name, Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief,
will become the most genetically dominant sire
in the history of any livestock species. Right
now, he's just a calf, finding his legs, blinking
in the California sunshine. And eight months
from now, he'll almost die. To understand what
happens next, you need to understand what artificial
insemination did to the cattle industry. Before
AI, genetic progress moved at the pace of a single
bull serving a single herd. A great sire might
father a few hundred offspring in his lifetime,
all within a few miles of wherever he lived.
His genetics would spread slowly, generation
by generation, limited by geography and time.
AI shattered those limitations. By the 1960s,
a single elite bull could father tens of thousands
of daughters across the entire continent. His
semen could be frozen, stored, shipped anywhere.
Farmers who'd never seen the animal, who lived
thousands of miles from his home farm, could
access his genetics for the price of a breeding
fee. The benefits were obvious. Genetic progress
accelerated dramatically. Milk production climbed.
The best genetics were no longer reserved for
the wealthy few. Any farmer could access them.
But there was a cost that nobody fully reckoned
with. When one bull could father so many daughters,
and when everyone wanted the best genetics, something
happened that the industry didn't see coming.
Genetic concentration. Imagine a funnel. At the
top, thousands of farms, millions of cattle.
At the bottom, a handful of elite sires whose
genetics flow through everything. Each generation,
the funnel narrows. Each generation, more animals
trace back to the same few bulls. In 1960, this
seemed like progress. The best genetics spreading
faster than ever before. What could possibly
go wrong? You're the herdsman at Arlinda Farms,
and the chief calf is dying. He's eight months
old, and bloat has hit him hard, the kind of
severe case that kills calves in hours if you
don't act fast. You've seen it before. The abdomen
distends as gas builds up in the rumen. The animal
can't breathe properly. Without intervention,
pressure on the lungs and heart will finish him.
You work through the night. Trocar insertion.
Careful decompression. Watching. Waiting. Praying
to whatever deity looks after cattle and the
people who depend on them. The hours stretch.
The calf's breathing stabilizes. Then strengthens.
Chief survives. You watch him recover over the
following weeks. He develops into a deep -bodied
bull with a trademark ravenous appetite, the
kind of animal who attacks the feed bunk like
he's got somewhere important to be. Something
about the way he carries himself suggests what's
coming. You're watching Chief's first daughters
freshen, and something is happening that you've
never seen before. Four daughters. That's all
you've got so far. But what you see in those
four animals, the depth of body, the capacity,
The way they hit the feed bunk hard and then
walk to the parlor like they're ready to work.
This isn't normal. These aren't just good cows.
These are a different kind of cow. You pull the
production records. You run the numbers twice
because the first time must have been an error.
It's not an error. One of the great milk bulls
of all time, you say aloud. After just four daughters,
you've seen enough. You're Jean -Louis Schrago,
and you're standing in the Hanover Hill barn.
watching a calf being born. The genetic math
worked. Telstar's black -red gene, plus Lucky
Barb's recessive red, plus whatever divine intervention
guides moments like this. It all came together.
A vibrant red calf slides into the world. You
watch him find his legs, shaky at first, then
steadier. He's small, delicate, not the massive,
powerful frame you see in the black and white
bulls that dominate the breed. He's something
else entirely. He looked like a small deer, you'll
tell people later. Delicate, alert, unmistakably
special. Three years. Three years of being told
no. Continents crossed. Skeptics ignored. $2
,500 for two units of semen from Japan. And now
this small creature, blinking in the light of
an Ontario barn, carrying the genetic blueprint
for a revolution nobody sees coming. They name
him Hanover Hill Triple Threat. Five months from
now, he'll walk into an auction ring, and everything
will change. You're Ken Young, representing American
Breeders Service, and you've come to the Hanover
Hills sale with instructions you're about to
ignore. The triple threat calf enters the ring,
and something happens that you won't fully understand
until years later. The rest of the crowd sees
a red calf, a genetic curiosity, maybe worth
a few thousand dollars to someone who wants to
experiment with color breeding. You see something
else entirely. Maybe it's the refinement in his
movement. Maybe it's the same thing Schrago saw
in that barn five months ago. Maybe it's nothing
you can articulate, just a bone -deep conviction
that this animal matters. The bidding starts
low. It doesn't stay low. You push past $20 ,000,
past $30 ,000, past $40 ,000. Every bid, you're
further past your authorized limit. Every bid,
you're betting your career on a red calf the
industry calls a defect. $50 ,000. $55 ,000.
Your paddle rises one last time, $60 ,000. The
auction barn goes silent, then erupts in murmurs.
You've just set a world record for a red and
white Holstein. You've just done something nobody
expected, and many think is insane. When you
face your bosses at American Breeders Service,
you'll have one defense prepared. One sentence
that captures everything about this moment, about
risk -taking and conviction. and the sometimes
unreasonable courage that progress requires.
It was easier to ask for forgiveness than to
ask for permission. They forgive you. History
will prove you right, but that same history will
teach a harder lesson, too, about what happens
when conviction becomes concentration, when success
breeds overuse, when the tools grow more powerful
than the wisdom to wield them. You're a dairy
farmer in the late 1970s, and everywhere you
look, The bulls from this story are reshaping
your industry. Chief's daughters are legendary
now. The will to milk, breeders call it. That
relentless drive to produce that seems to pulse
through every animal carrying his genetics. Your
neighbor's herd uses Chief heavily. So does the
operation two counties over. So does almost everyone
you talk to at the county fair. Bell's daughters
are pouring milk at rates nobody thought possible.
The production numbers seem almost impossible,
gains in a single generation that used to take
decades. And triple threat? His daughters are
winning shows. Tall, angular, with the refinement
and utter quality that European breeders have
been starving for. The red and white population,
dismissed as defective for generations, is suddenly
producing elite animals that can compete with
anything in the black and white world. In July
1978, a new proof report arrives that stops conversations
in dairy co -ops from Wisconsin to California.
SWD Valiant. Son of Chief. His first daughters
have just been evaluated. Plus 1 ,000 food 41
pounds of milk. Plus 44 pounds of fat. And top
type scores. You read it twice. You've never
seen numbers like this. Bulls give you either
high production or elite type. Valiant is giving
you both. The total package. The kind of sire
that comes along once in a generation, if you're
lucky. The industry goes into a frenzy. Everyone
wants valiant semen. Everyone wants to ride this
wave. His son, Fisher Place Mandingo, will reportedly
become the first bull in history to sell a million
doses. The 1980s become the valiant decade. Subtle
shift. Triumph beginning to darken. But something
else is happening too. Something that won't become
visible for years. The funnel is narrowing. By
January 1987, you pull up the TPI rankings, Total
Performance Index, the industry's gold standard
for comparing sires. 31 of the top 100 bulls
are valiant sons. 98 of the top 400 carry his
genetics. Let that sink in. Nearly a quarter
of the breed's genetic elite, all connected to
one sire. The eggs are all in one basket. And
nobody's asking what happens if some of those
eggs are cracked. You're sitting at your kitchen
table. flipping through AI catalogs, making the
same breeding decisions that farmers have made
for generations. But you're not thinking about
genetic concentration. You're thinking about
your herd, your bottom line. Which bulls will
improve your cows, increase your production,
keep you competitive in a market that gets tighter
every year? The names in these catalogs have
become familiar. Bell, Chief, Valiant. You've
used them all. Your neighbors have used them.
The university extension agents recommend them.
The AI companies promote them. The science, or
what passes for science, says these are the best
genetics available. And they are. You've seen
it in your herd. The chief daughters that eat
like they're starving and milk like machines.
The bell daughters that set production records
you didn't think were possible. The valiant granddaughters
that look good and perform. You're not being
reckless. You're not cutting corners. You're
making the best decisions you can with the information
you have. But somewhere, in a way you can't see,
every mating decision you make is adding to a
concentration that nobody's measuring. Every
farmer making the same smart choice you're making
is narrowing the genetic funnel another fraction
of a degree. Years pass. The technology improves.
Your production numbers climb. The industry celebrates
its progress. And in a laboratory in Denmark,
researchers are starting to notice something
troubling in the pedigrees. You're a researcher
in Denmark, and you've been tracking a pattern
that doesn't make sense. Calf mortality. Specifically,
calves that die in utero or shortly after birth
with a specific cluster of vertebral abnormalities.
It's not common enough to raise immediate alarms,
but it's consistent enough to warrant investigation.
You start mapping pedigrees. Tracing ancestry,
looking for the common thread that connects these
affected calves. The pattern emerges slowly at
first, then faster, then with a certainty that
makes your stomach drop. Every affected calf.
Every single one. When you trace the pedigree
back far enough, they all connect to a single
animal. Carlin M. Ivanhoe Bell. The bull who
revolutionized milk production. The bull whose
genetics flow through thousands of herds across
the globe. The bull. who represents progress
itself. He's been carrying a lethal recessive
gene this entire time. The phone calls you're
about to make will change an industry. You're
a breeder in Wisconsin, and the facts that just
came through has changed everything. Complex
vertebral malformation, CVM, a lethal genetic
disorder traced back to Carlin M. Ivanhoe Bell.
And that's not all. He also carried BLAD, bovine
leukocyte adhesion deficiency, two lethal recessives
in one bull. The most influential sire in modern
Holstein history was a carrier for two separate
ways to kill his own descendants. You set down
the facts and stare at the wall. Your mind is
already running through your breeding records.
The bell daughters you bought. The matings you
made. The calves you lost over the years that
nobody could explain. The guilt doesn't arrive
all at once. It comes in waves. That heifer you
lost three years ago. The one the vet couldn't
figure out. The stillborn calf last spring. The
neighbor's troubles that you chalked up to bad
luck. Were those Bell? Were those CVM? Were you
unknowingly producing calves destined to die,
trusting the system, trusting the science? You
want to be angry. At the AI companies, at the
researchers, at someone. But who? Everyone was
operating with the best information available.
Everyone was making the same smart decisions
you were. We weren't careless, you'll tell someone
later. at a conference over drinks when the wounds
have started to heal. We just didn't know what
we didn't know. You're watching an industry forced
to grow up overnight. The breed associations
move fast, faster than you've ever seen bureaucracies
move. Testing protocols are developed. Carrier
status designations are created. Mandatory disclosure
requirements are implemented. If you want to
sell semen now, you have to know your bull's
carrier status. If you're marketing an animal,
you have to disclose genetic risks. The age of
blind trust is over. Some breeders want to abandon
Belle's line entirely. Burn it down. Start fresh.
But the voices of reason prevail. Belle's genetics
are too valuable, too deeply embedded to simply
discard. The answer isn't elimination. It's management.
Test before you mate. Avoid carrier -to -carrier
breedings. Use the information. Don't run from
it. In 2016, 17 years after the CVM discovery,
a cow named Chicnall Durham Arrow walks into
the ring at World Dairy Expo. She's a Bell descendant.
Through Regan Crest Elton Durham, through generations
of careful, tested, managed breeding, she wins
Grand Champion of the International Holstein
Show, proof that even a complicated legacy can
produce champions, if you have the wisdom to
manage it. You're a dairy farmer in 2024, and
the lessons from Bell and Chief and Valiant are
built into every decision you make. Before you
order a single dose of semen, you check the inbreeding
coefficient. You look at the genetic diversity
metrics. You consider not just what this mating
will produce, but what it means for your herd's
long -term resilience. The tools you have access
to would seem like science fiction to the farmers
who used Chief in the 1960s. Genomic testing
that can predict a calf's potential before she's
weaned. Mating programs that flag compatibility
issues automatically. Databases that track carrier
status for dozens of genetic conditions. You
pull up the genomic profile on a heifer you're
planning to breed. The software suggests three
sires. All have strong production indexes. All
are compatible with her genetic profile. All
show acceptable inbreeding coefficients. But
here's the thing. The temptation toward concentration
hasn't diminished. If anything, it's accelerated.
Young bulls can achieve widespread use faster
than Chief or Valiant ever did. A hot sire can
go from sampling to dominating the proof sheets
in two years. The same forces that created the
Bell Crisis, everybody wanting the best genetics,
everybody making the same smart choice, are still
at work. You pause over the top -ranked bull
in the catalog. His numbers are phenomenal. His
daughters are already setting records. Everyone's
talking about him. And you remember the question
that Bell and Chief and Valiant taught you to
ask. Is this wise or just popular? You're having
coffee with a fellow breeder after a show, talking
about mating philosophy. He's third -generation
dairy. You've known him for years. Every mating
decision I make, he says, stirring his coffee,
I think about what happened with Bell and Valiant.
That history isn't academic for us. It's operational.
It's why I check inbreeding coefficients before
I check anything else. He pauses, looks out the
window at the passing trucks, then adds something
that sticks with you. Those bulls taught us what
happens when we get careless with concentration.
The lesson cost the breed. I'd rather learn from
their mistakes than make my own. You nod. You
get it. Everyone who's been in this business
long enough gets it. The power to reshape genetics
comes with the responsibility to wield it wisely.
Every tool that amplifies your reach also amplifies
your risk. Every shortcut that promises faster
progress also promises faster consequences if
you're wrong. You're at a show, watching a breeder
prep a gorgeous red heifer. The copper coat gleams
under the barn lights. The refinement in her
frame is unmistakable. Echoes of triple threat,
50 years removed but still visible. You ask what
the red and white breed means to her program.
She doesn't hesitate. When I lead a red cow into
the ring, I'm leading 50 years of people refusing
to quit. That's Triple Threat's real legacy.
Not just the color, the stubbornness. Something
about the way she says it, matter of fact, like
she's stating the obvious, strikes you. She's
not being sentimental. She's being precise. Shrago's
dream, passed down through generations. Ken Young's
unauthorized bid vindicated a thousand times
over. The industry that called red a defect forced
to admit they were wrong. In 2025, Golden Oak's
Temptress Red will walk away as grand champion
at the National Red and White Show, then go on
to claim supreme champion at World Dairy Expo.
Another link in the chain. Another proof that
vision matters. Another reminder that what the
industry calls a defect, a dreamer might call
an opportunity. you step back and look at what
these four bulls built. Hanover Hill Triple Threat
took a color the industry called defective and
turned it into a global market. Every elite red
and white Holstein alive today traces back to
him, through Apple Red, through Jubilant, through
dozens of pathways that all converge on one copper
red calf in an Ontario barn. He proved that what
the establishment dismisses, the visionary might
embrace. delivered the milk production revolution
the industry wanted and the genetic accountability
crisis it needed. His legacy flows through your
bulk tank every morning. It also flows through
every genetic test you run, every carrier screening
you check, every transparent disclosure that
protects the breed from repeating his hidden
mistakes. He taught you that power and responsibility
are inseparable. Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief put
his stamp on nearly one -sixth of every Holstein
alive. His genetics helped double the breed's
milk production. His concentration taught you
that dominance unchecked becomes vulnerability.
15 % of the genome in one bull's descendants,
a staggering achievement and a staggering warning,
inseparable. SWD Valiant delivered the total
package. Production and type together, the dream
every breeder chases. Then he became the textbook
example of what happens when everyone chases
the same dream at once. His sons dominated the
rankings so completely that the breed had to
confront what popularity without restraint really
costs. You're standing in the genomic age they
made possible. You have tools Schrago and Fischler
couldn't have imagined. The ability to map potential
before a calf takes her first breath. You have
responsibilities they couldn't have foreseen.
The knowledge that your reach exceeds anything
their generation dealt with. And you have their
lessons. Written in the breed's DNA. Written
in the testing protocols you follow. Written
in the question you ask before using the hottest
bull in the lineup. Is this wise or just popular?
You're standing in your barn at dawn, watching
a calf find his legs. The genetics are solid.
You've done your homework. checked the coefficients,
reviewed the carrier status for a dozen conditions.
But that's not what you're thinking about right
now. You're thinking about Schrago, crossing
oceans for two units of semen, refusing to accept
that the industry knew better than his own vision.
You're thinking about Ken Young, paddle rising
past all reason, betting his career on a red
calf everyone called defective. You're thinking
about Fischler, building an architecture he'd
never see completed. about the unnamed breeder
who mated chief to a cow with a questionable
udder, rolling dice that no spreadsheet would
have recommended. They weren't reckless people.
They were people who understood that the safest
path rarely leads anywhere worth going, and that
the price of never risking anything is never
building anything either. But they also learned,
sometimes painfully, that risk without responsibility
is just gambling. That power without accountability
leaves wreckage. That the greatest gift you can
give the next generation isn't just better genetics,
but the wisdom to use them well. The next bull
who builds the breed is being born somewhere
today. Maybe in a barn like yours. Maybe from
a mating that seems risky on paper. Maybe from
a color or a line that the industry currently
dismisses. The question isn't whether you'll
find him. The question is whether you'll have
the wisdom to use him well. This has been the
Bullvine Podcast, the bulls who built the breed.
This episode was based on historical records
from American Breeders Service, ABC Genetics,
Select Sires, and archival materials from the
Holstein Breed Associations. Special acknowledgement
to the breeders, past and present, whose decisions
and courage shaped the breed we work with today.
If you're making breeding decisions, remember
what these bulls taught us. Test before you trust.
Balance power with diversity. Ask the harder
questions earlier. For The Bullvine, thank you
for joining us. Until next time, keep building
something that lasts. The legends live here.