WEBVTT 00:00:14.189 --> 00:00:20.969 Creeping over fields of green Remembering the 00:00:20.969 --> 00:00:27.269 faces The moments unseen The hands that built 00:00:27.269 --> 00:00:33.590 a dynasty The vision in their eyes Echoes in 00:00:33.590 --> 00:00:38.810 the auction bar Beneath an endless sky This is 00:00:38.810 --> 00:01:03.789 the bull buy Turn the bar Welcome back to the 00:01:03.789 --> 00:01:06.370 Bullvine Podcast. Today we are doing something 00:01:06.370 --> 00:01:10.230 that I absolutely love. We are going back in 00:01:10.230 --> 00:01:12.810 time. Firing up the DeLorean. We are absolutely 00:01:12.810 --> 00:01:15.170 firing up the DeLorean and heading back to the 00:01:15.170 --> 00:01:18.469 late 70s. We're going to tell a story that, and 00:01:18.469 --> 00:01:20.469 I really don't think this is an exaggeration, 00:01:20.510 --> 00:01:25.810 is actively shaping. The herd of cows that you 00:01:25.810 --> 00:01:28.510 might be milking this very afternoon. It sounds 00:01:28.510 --> 00:01:30.709 like hyperbole, doesn't it? But it's really not. 00:01:30.829 --> 00:01:32.370 I mean, if you're a farmer listening to this, 00:01:32.430 --> 00:01:34.750 maybe you're sitting in the tractor or, you know, 00:01:34.750 --> 00:01:37.689 scraping the barn. Right. And you look at a pedigree 00:01:37.689 --> 00:01:40.390 today, could be a hydronomic calf, could be a 00:01:40.390 --> 00:01:42.650 show winner. It doesn't matter. You see that 00:01:42.650 --> 00:01:46.560 one name repeating. Over and over again, deep 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:49.239 in the background. This is the deep dive that 00:01:49.239 --> 00:01:52.060 explains why that name is there. Exactly. And 00:01:52.060 --> 00:01:54.159 the name we are talking about today is Walkway 00:01:54.159 --> 00:01:57.840 Chief Mark. But the fascinating thing, and I 00:01:57.840 --> 00:01:59.519 think the real reason we wanted to dedicate a 00:01:59.519 --> 00:02:02.319 whole deep dive to him, is that he wasn't the 00:02:02.319 --> 00:02:06.000 plan. He wasn't the golden child. He was quite 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:08.479 literally the backup plan. The plan B. Totally. 00:02:08.539 --> 00:02:12.259 The plan B that became the baseline of the entire 00:02:12.259 --> 00:02:15.310 breed. It's, I would argue, the most consequential 00:02:15.310 --> 00:02:17.550 accident in dairy breeding history. I think you're 00:02:17.550 --> 00:02:19.810 right. And honestly, for a lot of us who breed 00:02:19.810 --> 00:02:22.530 cows, it's a humbling reminder that, you know, 00:02:22.530 --> 00:02:25.009 we don't control nearly as much as we think we 00:02:25.009 --> 00:02:27.129 do. So let's set the stage. I want to take you 00:02:27.129 --> 00:02:32.710 to 1978. We are in Neoga, Illinois. Okay. Picture 00:02:32.710 --> 00:02:36.530 a quiet barn. There is a bull in that barn named 00:02:36.530 --> 00:02:38.949 Monroe. Now, Monroe is the star here, right? 00:02:38.990 --> 00:02:41.770 Okay. He is the one, the sire analyst, a guy 00:02:41.770 --> 00:02:44.849 named Charlie Will. once monroe is plan a he's 00:02:44.849 --> 00:02:46.810 the one undergoing test services he's the main 00:02:46.810 --> 00:02:49.610 event right and we really need to pause him charlie 00:02:49.610 --> 00:02:51.990 will for a second this guy is working for select 00:02:51.990 --> 00:02:54.789 sires and the pressure on a sire analyst back 00:02:54.789 --> 00:02:57.370 then it's just immense oh it's a whole different 00:02:57.370 --> 00:02:59.650 world today you have data coming out of your 00:02:59.650 --> 00:03:02.229 ears you've got spreadsheets genomic reports 00:03:02.229 --> 00:03:05.530 back then it was gut instinct shoe leather and 00:03:05.530 --> 00:03:07.669 reputation that's it you're betting your whole 00:03:07.669 --> 00:03:11.889 career on your eye your entire career It rides 00:03:11.889 --> 00:03:14.909 on picking the right bulls. You pick a dud, it 00:03:14.909 --> 00:03:16.909 costs the company a fortune, and you look like 00:03:16.909 --> 00:03:19.330 a fool. You pick a winner. You're a legend. You're 00:03:19.330 --> 00:03:22.789 a legend. And Charlie Will wants Monroe. He sees 00:03:22.789 --> 00:03:25.289 the potential. He sees his future tied to this 00:03:25.289 --> 00:03:27.349 bull. Monroe has the pedigree people are looking 00:03:27.349 --> 00:03:30.110 for. He has the right look. Yeah. He's the one 00:03:30.110 --> 00:03:31.990 that's going to put Charlie on the map. But then... 00:03:32.640 --> 00:03:35.360 Disaster strikes. It's the call that no analyst, 00:03:35.599 --> 00:03:38.759 no breeder, no one wants to get. Monroe done. 00:03:38.840 --> 00:03:41.080 This is gone. Mid -collection. Just like that. 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:43.599 The whole plan. Everything Charlie Will had been 00:03:43.599 --> 00:03:46.659 banking on is just gone. The plan completely 00:03:46.659 --> 00:03:48.659 falls apart. The bull is gone. The investment 00:03:48.659 --> 00:03:51.719 is gone. And here is Charlie Will standing there 00:03:51.719 --> 00:03:54.280 needing a bull to fill a slot in the lineup. 00:03:54.460 --> 00:03:56.560 The pressure is on. And this is where the story 00:03:56.560 --> 00:03:59.280 pivots on a dime. Because he looks at Monroe's 00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:02.759 younger, full brother, just a calf. A calf born 00:04:02.759 --> 00:04:06.300 June 13th, 1978. Not the one he came for. Not 00:04:06.300 --> 00:04:08.259 the one he'd been scouting. It's the classic 00:04:08.259 --> 00:04:11.319 spare heir situation, isn't it? You have the 00:04:11.319 --> 00:04:13.340 king who died, and now you're looking at the 00:04:13.340 --> 00:04:15.219 kid brother who nobody was really paying that 00:04:15.219 --> 00:04:17.860 much attention to. Exactly. And this is the moment, 00:04:17.939 --> 00:04:19.939 this is what you'd call a sliding doors moment 00:04:19.939 --> 00:04:23.009 for the entire Holstein breed. He has to make 00:04:23.009 --> 00:04:24.670 a call right then and there. He has to make a 00:04:24.670 --> 00:04:26.430 call. He's looking at this calf, this younger 00:04:26.430 --> 00:04:30.269 brother. Yeah. And he decides, OK, I'll buy him. 00:04:30.509 --> 00:04:33.350 He buys the younger brother, Mark, as a replacement. 00:04:33.430 --> 00:04:36.509 But it wasn't some, you know, strategic masterstroke 00:04:36.509 --> 00:04:38.949 at the moment. It was a salvage operation. He 00:04:38.949 --> 00:04:41.250 was just trying to plug a hole. And what I absolutely 00:04:41.250 --> 00:04:43.230 love about this part of the story, and this is 00:04:43.230 --> 00:04:45.689 a detail that just makes it for me, is that this 00:04:45.689 --> 00:04:49.709 was the very first bull Charlie ever bought for 00:04:49.709 --> 00:04:53.540 select sires. Can you imagine? Talk about a debut. 00:04:53.839 --> 00:04:56.019 Depressure. It's just incredible, especially 00:04:56.019 --> 00:04:58.459 when you learn a little more about Torley's backstory. 00:04:58.779 --> 00:05:01.680 He had actually been rejected for a job at Select 00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:05.000 Sires previously. No way. Yeah. He had to work 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:07.360 a sales territory up in Wisconsin that nobody 00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:09.500 else wanted. They called it the frozen tundra 00:05:09.500 --> 00:05:12.319 route and just grind it out until a sire analyst 00:05:12.319 --> 00:05:14.779 position finally opened up. So you have a guy 00:05:14.779 --> 00:05:20.560 who was himself. backup choice for the job, buying 00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:23.620 a backup choice bull. It's poetic. It really 00:05:23.620 --> 00:05:25.480 is. It's two underdogs who were never supposed 00:05:25.480 --> 00:05:28.360 to be the main characters. So the question we 00:05:28.360 --> 00:05:31.879 are going to unpack today is this. How does a 00:05:31.879 --> 00:05:34.920 replacement calf... bought by a sire analyst 00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:37.720 who had to fight for his own spot, end up accounting 00:05:37.720 --> 00:05:41.220 for 7 % of the entire North American Holstein 00:05:41.220 --> 00:05:43.819 genome. 7%, just let that number sink in. It's 00:05:43.819 --> 00:05:46.300 a staggering number for one single animal. That's 00:05:46.300 --> 00:05:49.800 not just influence, that's dominance. It is absolutely 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:51.980 massive. It means if you walk into an average 00:05:51.980 --> 00:05:54.720 barn and you look at 100 cows, the genetic equivalent 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:58.160 of 7 of them is purely walkway chief mark. It's 00:05:58.160 --> 00:06:00.579 a genetic monopoly. It is, a monopoly born from 00:06:00.579 --> 00:06:03.110 a complete accident. Okay, so let's back up a 00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:04.829 bit. Before we get into the genetics and the 00:06:04.829 --> 00:06:09.189 massive impact, I want to really ground us in 00:06:09.189 --> 00:06:12.560 the era. Because 1978 is a different world for 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:14.699 dairy farming. Oh, completely. It feels like 00:06:14.699 --> 00:06:17.000 a different planet compared to the tech -heavy 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:19.379 industry we have now. Completely different. For 00:06:19.379 --> 00:06:21.959 the younger listeners, or maybe those outside 00:06:21.959 --> 00:06:23.699 the industry, you have to realize there were 00:06:23.699 --> 00:06:26.319 no genomic predictions. Right. There were no 00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:29.500 S &P chips where you pull a hair sample and you 00:06:29.500 --> 00:06:31.339 know exactly what that calf is going to do before 00:06:31.339 --> 00:06:34.639 it's even weaned. It was the era of the cowman, 00:06:34.680 --> 00:06:37.560 right? The person with the eye. It was. Decisions 00:06:37.560 --> 00:06:41.089 were based on gut instinct. cow families, and 00:06:41.089 --> 00:06:45.370 phone calls. You talked to your AI rep, you looked 00:06:45.370 --> 00:06:48.350 at the dam, you looked at the sire's proof if 00:06:48.350 --> 00:06:51.600 he had one, and you just hoped. And then you 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:53.720 waited. And you waited. You bred a cow, waited 00:06:53.720 --> 00:06:55.779 nine months for the calf. You raised that calf 00:06:55.779 --> 00:06:57.839 for two years. And then you waited another year 00:06:57.839 --> 00:06:59.899 or two to see if she actually milked. You were 00:06:59.899 --> 00:07:01.720 making decisions on a five -year delay. Which 00:07:01.720 --> 00:07:03.879 is just mind -boggling to think about now. It 00:07:03.879 --> 00:07:06.060 is. And economically, things were different, 00:07:06.180 --> 00:07:08.839 too. Yeah. Corn was under two bucks a bushel. 00:07:08.860 --> 00:07:11.439 Wow. The margins were different. The goals were 00:07:11.439 --> 00:07:14.139 different. You could maybe afford to carry a 00:07:14.139 --> 00:07:16.439 cow a little longer if she had potential you 00:07:16.439 --> 00:07:18.480 believed in. And in terms of what people were 00:07:18.480 --> 00:07:21.350 breeding for. Hmm. What was the ideal cow in 00:07:21.350 --> 00:07:25.490 1978? The standard was elevation. Round, oak, 00:07:25.629 --> 00:07:28.689 rag, apple elevation. The beauty king. He was 00:07:28.689 --> 00:07:31.529 the king. If you had an elevation daughter, that 00:07:31.529 --> 00:07:33.670 was the type standard everyone measured against. 00:07:33.810 --> 00:07:35.790 They were balanced. They were pretty. They were 00:07:35.790 --> 00:07:38.449 what everyone wanted in the show ring. So into 00:07:38.449 --> 00:07:40.790 this world, this world of elevation and five 00:07:40.790 --> 00:07:43.910 -year plans, comes Foster Walk. The breeder. 00:07:44.009 --> 00:07:46.410 He's the breeder. Walkway Farm, outside Neoga, 00:07:46.509 --> 00:07:49.850 Illinois. Tell us about him. Because he doesn't 00:07:49.850 --> 00:07:51.550 sound like the typical high dollar breeder at 00:07:51.550 --> 00:07:53.470 that time. The kind of guy who was chasing the 00:07:53.470 --> 00:07:55.709 elevation hype with a big checkbook. No, not 00:07:55.709 --> 00:07:57.610 at all. He wasn't chasing headlines. Walkway 00:07:57.610 --> 00:08:00.269 Farm was in Cumberland County. Flatland, Long 00:08:00.269 --> 00:08:03.730 Horizons. Foster was a dairyman's dairyman. What 00:08:03.730 --> 00:08:06.040 does that mean to you? It means he wasn't flying 00:08:06.040 --> 00:08:08.899 to the big national sales and dropping, you know, 00:08:08.939 --> 00:08:12.459 $10 ,000 on some glamorous heifer just to get 00:08:12.459 --> 00:08:14.620 his name in the paper. He had a totally different 00:08:14.620 --> 00:08:16.639 business model. He was a bargain hunter. He was 00:08:16.639 --> 00:08:18.220 a treasure hunter. That's a better way to put 00:08:18.220 --> 00:08:21.040 it. He would buy groups of heifers at, and get 00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:23.810 this. I'm ready. 21 cents a pound. 21 cents a 00:08:23.810 --> 00:08:26.910 pound. I mean, that's barely meat price. That's 00:08:26.910 --> 00:08:30.310 salvage value. Exactly. He was buying what other 00:08:30.310 --> 00:08:32.649 people would call bargain bin heifers. He'd go 00:08:32.649 --> 00:08:35.389 to dispersals or neighbor farms and buy the ones 00:08:35.389 --> 00:08:38.070 nobody else even looked at twice. And this is 00:08:38.070 --> 00:08:41.330 the key, right? He had the eye. He had the eye. 00:08:42.210 --> 00:08:44.690 He could look at a rough group of heifers. You 00:08:44.690 --> 00:08:46.929 know, maybe they were thin. Maybe they were birdie. 00:08:46.990 --> 00:08:49.429 Maybe they'd been managed poorly. And he could 00:08:49.429 --> 00:08:52.059 spot the diamond in the rough. Diamonds in the 00:08:52.059 --> 00:08:54.279 rough. That was his phrase, wasn't it? That was 00:08:54.279 --> 00:08:56.879 his whole philosophy. He believed that underneath 00:08:56.879 --> 00:08:59.360 the rough condition, the genetic framework was 00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:01.799 there. He could see the rib. He could see the 00:09:01.799 --> 00:09:04.679 dairy character, even when it was hidden by poor 00:09:04.679 --> 00:09:07.539 management. He saw potential. He could see genetic 00:09:07.539 --> 00:09:09.539 potential where other people just saw a cheap 00:09:09.539 --> 00:09:12.139 cow. I love that. It's almost like he was playing 00:09:12.139 --> 00:09:14.139 Moneyball before Moneyball was even a thing. 00:09:14.799 --> 00:09:17.659 That's a great analogy. Finding the undervalued 00:09:17.659 --> 00:09:20.309 assets that everyone else ignored. because they 00:09:20.309 --> 00:09:22.269 didn't look pretty in that moment. That's exactly 00:09:22.269 --> 00:09:24.389 what he was doing. And walkway wasn't some, you 00:09:24.389 --> 00:09:27.029 know, fly -by -night operation. They had credibility. 00:09:27.370 --> 00:09:29.330 They'd been advertising in Holstein World magazine 00:09:29.330 --> 00:09:32.409 since 1958. So he was established. He knew what 00:09:32.409 --> 00:09:35.450 he was doing. He knew pedigrees, but he was operating 00:09:35.450 --> 00:09:38.110 on the margins, finding these hidden gems to 00:09:38.110 --> 00:09:40.809 build his herd. Do you think he knew, I mean, 00:09:40.809 --> 00:09:43.289 do you think he knew what he had with this specific 00:09:43.289 --> 00:09:47.509 calf, with Mark? It's so hard to say. He knew 00:09:47.509 --> 00:09:50.620 the pedigree was solid. I mean, Mark Sire was 00:09:50.620 --> 00:09:53.940 Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief. A legend. A legend 00:09:53.940 --> 00:09:56.440 in his own right for production. And his dam 00:09:56.440 --> 00:10:00.000 was Walkway Matt Mamie, a very good 88 daughter 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:02.879 of another legend, Nonami Frond Matt. So the 00:10:02.879 --> 00:10:04.860 paper was there. The paper was definitely there. 00:10:04.940 --> 00:10:07.580 But to imagine that this specific calf, the backup, 00:10:07.799 --> 00:10:10.279 the one he probably just hoped would make a decent 00:10:10.279 --> 00:10:13.360 proof, to imagine he knew this calf would change 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:15.279 the world, I just don't think anyone predicts 00:10:15.279 --> 00:10:17.779 that. No. How could you? You can't. So the calf 00:10:17.779 --> 00:10:21.230 gets registered. He gets a number, a shoe, 000 00:10:21.230 --> 00:10:26.330 -177 -3417. He goes to the AI stud. He becomes 00:10:26.330 --> 00:10:30.710 code 7H09A0. And then the waiting game begins. 00:10:30.769 --> 00:10:32.570 And as you said, in those days, the waiting game 00:10:32.570 --> 00:10:35.049 was long. It was an exercise in patience. We 00:10:35.049 --> 00:10:37.149 talked about that five -year delay. The semen 00:10:37.149 --> 00:10:39.149 goes out. Farmers breed their cows. And then 00:10:39.149 --> 00:10:41.629 it's just silence. You just wait to see what 00:10:41.629 --> 00:10:44.269 happens when the daughters finally hit the milking 00:10:44.269 --> 00:10:46.740 string. So let's fast forward to the early 80s. 00:10:46.740 --> 00:10:48.320 The first daughters were hitting the ground. 00:10:48.399 --> 00:10:50.980 They're freshening. The data starts to trickle 00:10:50.980 --> 00:10:52.759 in. Yep. And we get what's been called this paradox 00:10:52.759 --> 00:10:55.299 proof, because usually a bull is good or he's 00:10:55.299 --> 00:10:57.539 bad or, you know, he's good at type and just 00:10:57.539 --> 00:11:01.019 OK at milk. But Mark was extreme. He was extreme. 00:11:01.120 --> 00:11:02.919 It wasn't subtle. What were people seeing? Well, 00:11:02.940 --> 00:11:05.399 first came the wow factor. It was all about the 00:11:05.399 --> 00:11:07.500 udders. Describe them for us. Paint the picture. 00:11:07.659 --> 00:11:11.759 If I walked into a barn in, say, 1983 and saw 00:11:11.759 --> 00:11:14.580 a fresh Mark daughter, what am I looking at? 00:11:14.809 --> 00:11:17.629 You're looking at mammary systems that were unlike 00:11:17.629 --> 00:11:20.370 anything seen at that scale up to that point. 00:11:20.549 --> 00:11:24.669 We're talking high, wide rear attachments. Yeah, 00:11:24.690 --> 00:11:26.690 when you say wide. I mean, what? Like a shelf, 00:11:26.730 --> 00:11:29.850 you could set your coffee cup on it. And smooth 00:11:29.850 --> 00:11:32.110 four attachments that blended perfectly into 00:11:32.110 --> 00:11:35.470 the body wall. No bulges, no pockets, just a 00:11:35.470 --> 00:11:38.009 seamless transition. Okay. And on top of that, 00:11:38.110 --> 00:11:42.980 long, clean necks. Deep. angular ribbing. They 00:11:42.980 --> 00:11:45.059 just look like dairy machines. I read a quote 00:11:45.059 --> 00:11:46.720 from a breeder back then who said, when they 00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:48.519 come into the show, you love them. That's 100 00:11:48.519 --> 00:11:51.059 % accurate. They had that ring presence. They 00:11:51.059 --> 00:11:52.960 carried themselves with style. They look like 00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:55.639 money. If you judged a cow from the hocks up, 00:11:55.720 --> 00:11:58.620 she was the winner every single time. That quoted 00:11:58.620 --> 00:12:01.159 a second half, didn't it? It did. It said, however, 00:12:01.240 --> 00:12:03.580 when they turn sideways, you see the legs and 00:12:03.580 --> 00:12:05.639 high pins. And there it is. There was the oh 00:12:05.639 --> 00:12:07.600 -no factor. The feet and legs? The feet and legs 00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:10.799 were challenging. And that is Putting it very, 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:12.960 very politely. Let's get into the numbers. What 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:14.919 did the proof say? Okay, let's look at the numbers. 00:12:15.320 --> 00:12:20.039 His foot angle was negative 4 .42. Whoa. Okay, 00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:21.759 for the listeners who might not stare at Sire 00:12:21.759 --> 00:12:25.799 summaries all day, put negative 4 .42 into perspective. 00:12:26.159 --> 00:12:29.379 Is that needs a trim bad or is that call the 00:12:29.379 --> 00:12:33.120 vet bad? It's devastatingly low. In modern terms, 00:12:33.220 --> 00:12:35.419 if a bull is minus one, you're cautious, you 00:12:35.419 --> 00:12:37.840 protect him. Right. At minus four, you're breeding 00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:40.559 a potential disaster. It means shallow heels. 00:12:40.860 --> 00:12:43.039 The cows are essentially rocking back on their 00:12:43.039 --> 00:12:45.539 heels constantly. The toe grows long. The heel 00:12:45.539 --> 00:12:48.320 just disappears. And the overall score? His overall 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:52.179 feet and legs score was negative 3 .83. Rear 00:12:52.179 --> 00:12:55.360 legs, rear view was negative 3 .23. So they were 00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:58.039 knock -kneed. Cow -hawked, yeah. Their hawks 00:12:58.039 --> 00:12:59.820 were practically rubbing together. You're putting 00:12:59.820 --> 00:13:02.120 a massive, beautiful building on a structurally 00:13:02.120 --> 00:13:04.620 unsound foundation. And this wasn't just a random 00:13:04.620 --> 00:13:06.299 fluke, right? This came from somewhere in the 00:13:06.299 --> 00:13:08.779 pedigree. It wasn't random at all. This structural 00:13:08.779 --> 00:13:10.899 weakness traced directly back to the maternal 00:13:10.899 --> 00:13:13.759 grandsire, Nonami Fond, Matt. Matt was known 00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:15.759 for passing on some structural weakness in the 00:13:15.759 --> 00:13:19.179 legs. And Mark... Well, he inherited it in spades. 00:13:19.240 --> 00:13:21.500 So here is the dilemma for the farmers in the 00:13:21.500 --> 00:13:24.919 80s. You have the greatest utter improver of 00:13:24.919 --> 00:13:27.299 the generation. For sure. Maybe the best udders 00:13:27.299 --> 00:13:32.059 you've ever seen. But he is also the worst structural 00:13:32.059 --> 00:13:35.419 sire alive. Yeah, that's the paradox. Using him 00:13:35.419 --> 00:13:38.240 meant you were actively risking the longevity 00:13:38.240 --> 00:13:41.320 of your herd's feet just to get that milk and 00:13:41.320 --> 00:13:43.320 those incredible udders. It was the ultimate 00:13:43.320 --> 00:13:45.960 tradeoff. It forced farmers to ask a really tough 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:49.740 question. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Can 00:13:49.740 --> 00:13:52.179 I manage the feet to get the milk? Exactly. Can 00:13:52.179 --> 00:13:55.049 I afford the extra hoof trimming? Because remember, 00:13:55.269 --> 00:13:57.210 corn is cheap and you get paid for milk in the 00:13:57.210 --> 00:14:00.370 tank. If the cow milks 100 pounds a day, maybe 00:14:00.370 --> 00:14:02.429 you can afford to trim her feet a few extra times 00:14:02.429 --> 00:14:04.769 a year. And clearly for a lot of them, the answer 00:14:04.769 --> 00:14:10.230 was yes. The proof is in the numbers. 57 ,654 00:14:10.230 --> 00:14:12.789 daughters were production tested. That's a massive 00:14:12.789 --> 00:14:14.929 number. That's not a small sample. That's a city 00:14:14.929 --> 00:14:17.389 of cows. It is. That's a small city of cows. 00:14:17.750 --> 00:14:20.210 But it wasn't a blind decision. This really introduced 00:14:20.210 --> 00:14:22.830 the concept of protecting the mating into the 00:14:22.830 --> 00:14:26.320 mainstream. Protecting the mating. I hear that 00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:28.500 term a lot from the older generation of breeders. 00:14:28.740 --> 00:14:30.940 Unpack that for us. What does it actually mean 00:14:30.940 --> 00:14:33.299 in practice? It means you couldn't just use him 00:14:33.299 --> 00:14:35.919 as a herd bull on everything. You couldn't just 00:14:35.919 --> 00:14:38.899 load up the AI gun and breed every single cow 00:14:38.899 --> 00:14:41.340 in heat to walkway Chief Mark. You had to be 00:14:41.340 --> 00:14:43.860 strategic. You had to be a real cowman. You had 00:14:43.860 --> 00:14:46.360 to look at your cows one by one and say, OK, 00:14:46.500 --> 00:14:50.340 this cow has feet like tree trunks. She has a 00:14:50.340 --> 00:14:53.720 steep foot angle. Strong pasterns. Maybe she's 00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:55.720 a little coarse in the bone. She can handle it. 00:14:55.759 --> 00:14:58.299 She can handle Mark. You were hoping the cow 00:14:58.299 --> 00:15:00.500 would fix the feet and Mark would fix the udder. 00:15:00.620 --> 00:15:02.980 It's genetic Tetris. You're trying to fit the 00:15:02.980 --> 00:15:05.240 pieces together so the flaws cancel each other 00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:07.179 out. That's a perfect way to put it. And when 00:15:07.179 --> 00:15:09.620 it worked. When the stars aligned and you got 00:15:09.620 --> 00:15:12.259 it right. What happened? You got a jaw -dropping 00:15:12.259 --> 00:15:14.519 cow. I mean, the best cow in the barn. The kind 00:15:14.519 --> 00:15:16.899 of cow that visitors would stop and stare at 00:15:16.899 --> 00:15:18.899 and just shake their heads. But when it didn't? 00:15:19.080 --> 00:15:21.580 Well, when it didn't, or on large commercial 00:15:21.580 --> 00:15:23.700 operations where they maybe weren't mating as 00:15:23.700 --> 00:15:28.600 individually, the feet caught up. Usually by 00:15:28.600 --> 00:15:30.919 the third lactation, that's when you'd really 00:15:30.919 --> 00:15:32.639 start to see the problem. And that's the heartbreak 00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:35.159 of it, isn't it? It is. I mean, imagine walking 00:15:35.159 --> 00:15:38.259 a pen. You see a marked otter. She's peaking 00:15:38.259 --> 00:15:42.059 at 90, maybe 100 pounds of milk a day. She's 00:15:42.059 --> 00:15:44.799 just pouring it out. She looks like a textbook 00:15:44.799 --> 00:15:47.220 illustration from her Hawks Up, perfect, utter, 00:15:47.399 --> 00:15:50.659 dairy, everything. But she's struggling to stand. 00:15:51.519 --> 00:15:54.019 She's got digital dermatitis because her heels 00:15:54.019 --> 00:15:55.500 are so low. They're just sitting in the manure 00:15:55.500 --> 00:15:58.659 all day. Her toes are long. She's shifting her 00:15:58.659 --> 00:16:01.340 weight from foot to foot. And as a farmer, that 00:16:01.340 --> 00:16:02.879 has to be one of the most frustrating things. 00:16:02.940 --> 00:16:05.620 You have the engine, but the tires are completely 00:16:05.620 --> 00:16:08.360 flat. It's gut -wrenching. You have to trim her 00:16:08.360 --> 00:16:10.820 constantly. You're spending money on hoof blocks 00:16:10.820 --> 00:16:13.480 and wraps. And eventually you have to make the 00:16:13.480 --> 00:16:16.179 call to ship a high -producing cow, not because 00:16:16.179 --> 00:16:18.360 she can't milk, but because she can't walk to 00:16:18.360 --> 00:16:21.019 the parlor. It's the daily grind. It's the grind 00:16:21.019 --> 00:16:23.879 of the dairy business, the constant battle between 00:16:23.879 --> 00:16:27.700 production and durability. And Mark was the poster 00:16:27.700 --> 00:16:30.679 child for that exact battle. He gave you everything 00:16:30.679 --> 00:16:32.299 you wanted in the bucket, but he made you work 00:16:32.299 --> 00:16:35.340 for it in the barn. He absolutely did. But despite 00:16:35.340 --> 00:16:37.639 all those flaws, people just kept using him. 00:16:37.740 --> 00:16:40.039 Because the milk and the udders were just that 00:16:40.039 --> 00:16:42.399 good. The economic return was there, even with 00:16:42.399 --> 00:16:44.259 the extra labor and the headaches. But there 00:16:44.259 --> 00:16:46.679 was something else going on, wasn't there? While 00:16:46.679 --> 00:16:49.039 farmers were looking at feet and udders, there 00:16:49.039 --> 00:16:51.379 was something darker hiding in the DNA. Yeah. 00:16:51.700 --> 00:16:54.539 A silent killer. This is the part of the story 00:16:54.539 --> 00:16:56.580 that turns into a bit of a scientific mystery 00:16:56.580 --> 00:17:00.080 thriller. Because for decades, nobody knew this 00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:02.659 was happening. It was completely invisible. So 00:17:02.659 --> 00:17:04.759 to understand this, we have to go back to Mark's 00:17:04.759 --> 00:17:07.779 dad. Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief. Right. Tell us 00:17:07.779 --> 00:17:09.980 about him. Well, Chief was a legend born way 00:17:09.980 --> 00:17:14.500 back in 1962. He had over 16 ,000 daughters, 00:17:14.700 --> 00:17:17.579 half a million granddaughters. His DNA is just 00:17:17.579 --> 00:17:20.420 everywhere. The production king of his era. He 00:17:20.420 --> 00:17:24.170 was the king. But nobody knew for... 30, almost 00:17:24.170 --> 00:17:27.410 40 years that Chief, and by extension his son 00:17:27.410 --> 00:17:30.509 Mark, was carrying a genetic time bomb. And this 00:17:30.509 --> 00:17:34.089 wasn't discovered until 2011. That's almost 50 00:17:34.089 --> 00:17:36.329 years after Chief was born. That's right, 2011. 00:17:37.130 --> 00:17:40.390 Genomics was just starting to really take hold, 00:17:40.569 --> 00:17:43.289 and the USDA researchers noticed something odd 00:17:43.289 --> 00:17:46.390 in the data. What was it? They saw haplotype, 00:17:46.730 --> 00:17:50.250 which is just a specific chunk of DNA on chromosome 00:17:50.250 --> 00:17:53.589 5 that seemed to be linked to embryo loss. Okay, 00:17:53.630 --> 00:17:55.690 explain that simply. What were they seeing on 00:17:55.690 --> 00:17:58.079 the farm level? They were seeing that certain 00:17:58.079 --> 00:18:01.079 cows, when bred to certain bulls, were getting 00:18:01.079 --> 00:18:03.240 pregnant, but they were losing the calves very 00:18:03.240 --> 00:18:05.799 early. So conception rates looked lower than 00:18:05.799 --> 00:18:07.500 they should have. Exactly. It looked like a fertility 00:18:07.500 --> 00:18:10.319 problem, but it was actually spontaneous abortions 00:18:10.319 --> 00:18:12.339 happening so early that the farmer might not 00:18:12.339 --> 00:18:14.460 even notice. So they call in the heavy hitters. 00:18:14.500 --> 00:18:16.720 I read about Harris Lewin and Heather Adams at 00:18:16.720 --> 00:18:18.599 the University of Illinois. Yep. They get the 00:18:18.599 --> 00:18:20.900 case. They sequence the DNA. And what do they 00:18:20.900 --> 00:18:24.220 find? What is it? They find a mutation in a gene 00:18:24.220 --> 00:18:27.490 called APAF1. It's what's known as a nonsense 00:18:27.490 --> 00:18:29.829 mutation. Nonsense sounds harmless, you know, 00:18:29.849 --> 00:18:33.329 like a typo. But in genetics, it's definitely 00:18:33.329 --> 00:18:35.789 not. No, it's catastrophic. Basically, it puts 00:18:35.789 --> 00:18:37.470 a stop sign in the middle of the genetic code. 00:18:37.750 --> 00:18:40.369 It breaks the protein that the gene is supposed 00:18:40.369 --> 00:18:42.730 to make. So what happens to the animal? If a 00:18:42.730 --> 00:18:46.589 calf gets one copy of this mutation from either 00:18:46.589 --> 00:18:49.069 its mom or its dad, it's a carrier. It lives 00:18:49.069 --> 00:18:51.390 a perfectly normal life. Mark was a carrier. 00:18:51.829 --> 00:18:54.230 Chief was a carrier. They were fine. But if a 00:18:54.230 --> 00:18:57.109 calf gets two copies, one from the sire and one 00:18:57.109 --> 00:19:00.450 from the bank, the embryo dies. It results in 00:19:00.450 --> 00:19:02.529 a spontaneous abortion, usually very early in 00:19:02.529 --> 00:19:04.750 the pregnancy. And because Mark and Chief were 00:19:04.750 --> 00:19:07.569 used so heavily, so widely. The gene was spread 00:19:07.569 --> 00:19:10.529 far and wide. The frequency of this bad gene 00:19:10.529 --> 00:19:13.490 in the Holstein population just went up and up 00:19:13.490 --> 00:19:15.609 and up. And they had the data to prove this was 00:19:15.609 --> 00:19:18.190 lethal. They did. And here is the chilling stat. 00:19:18.619 --> 00:19:22.859 Among 246 ,000 animals that they tested, they 00:19:22.859 --> 00:19:26.539 found zero double -copy animals alive. Not one. 00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:29.599 Not a single one. Every single pregnancy where 00:19:29.599 --> 00:19:32.160 the calf inherited two copies of that gene ended 00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:35.579 in death. It was 100 % lethal. That is. That's 00:19:35.579 --> 00:19:37.720 heavy. When you think about the scale of it all. 00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:41.779 It is. I mean, think about the farmers. For 30, 00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:44.500 40 years, they're seeing these cows slip calves. 00:19:44.779 --> 00:19:47.099 And they're blaming themselves. Of course. Maybe 00:19:47.099 --> 00:19:49.619 they blame the nutrition. Oh, my ration is off. 00:19:49.779 --> 00:19:51.839 Maybe they blame the weather. It's too hot. They 00:19:51.839 --> 00:19:53.839 aren't holding. Maybe they blame their own management. 00:19:54.200 --> 00:19:56.779 I'm not doing a good enough job. But it wasn't 00:19:56.779 --> 00:20:00.339 bad luck. It wasn't bad luck. It was APA1. It 00:20:00.339 --> 00:20:03.119 was a genetic tax that was being collected silently 00:20:03.119 --> 00:20:06.539 in every single barn that used that bloodline. 00:20:06.759 --> 00:20:08.980 The financial cost must have just been astronomical. 00:20:09.380 --> 00:20:11.839 They put a number on it. The estimate was about 00:20:11.839 --> 00:20:17.859 $420 million in losses. $420 million. That's 00:20:17.859 --> 00:20:21.079 half a million calves that were never born. That's 00:20:21.079 --> 00:20:23.970 staggering. It is. But and here's the really 00:20:23.970 --> 00:20:26.690 complicated part of the story. They also estimated 00:20:26.690 --> 00:20:28.789 the gain because you have to look at the whole 00:20:28.789 --> 00:20:31.250 picture. Right. Because you can't forget Chief 00:20:31.250 --> 00:20:34.849 and Mark brought massive game changing milk production. 00:20:35.349 --> 00:20:37.910 They revolutionized the efficiency of the dairy 00:20:37.910 --> 00:20:40.529 cow. And that's what paid the bills. The estimated 00:20:40.529 --> 00:20:42.710 financial gain from the milk production of the 00:20:42.710 --> 00:20:45.890 Chief Mark line. What was it? Roughly 30. billion 00:20:45.890 --> 00:20:49.089 dollars 30 billion with a b with a b so when 00:20:49.089 --> 00:20:51.950 you do the math the value outpaced the cost by 00:20:51.950 --> 00:20:54.950 about 70 to 1. that is a tough calculus it feels 00:20:54.950 --> 00:20:57.750 cold to talk about it in dollars and cents but 00:20:57.750 --> 00:20:59.789 that's the reality of genetics isn't it it is 00:20:59.789 --> 00:21:01.490 you get the good with the bad until you learn 00:21:01.490 --> 00:21:03.369 how to separate them and that's the beauty of 00:21:03.369 --> 00:21:06.289 where we are now with technology once they identified 00:21:06.289 --> 00:21:09.730 the mutation in 2011 we could test for it We 00:21:09.730 --> 00:21:12.109 can manage it. So the curse is gone. The curse 00:21:12.109 --> 00:21:14.890 is neutralized. We can keep the good stuff, the 00:21:14.890 --> 00:21:18.069 udders, the milk, the angularity, and just avoid 00:21:18.069 --> 00:21:20.710 mating two carriers together so we never see 00:21:20.710 --> 00:21:23.380 that embryonic death again. The gift remains. 00:21:23.779 --> 00:21:26.140 It's incredible how technology allowed us to 00:21:26.140 --> 00:21:29.319 salvage the legacy. So, okay, we have the incredible 00:21:29.319 --> 00:21:31.519 udders. We have the terrible feet. We have this 00:21:31.519 --> 00:21:34.380 hidden lethal mutation. A lot of baggage. A lot 00:21:34.380 --> 00:21:36.779 of baggage. And yet, despite all of that, despite 00:21:36.779 --> 00:21:40.279 the oh -no factors, Mark's influence didn't fade. 00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:43.539 It exploded. It went supernova. You would think 00:21:43.539 --> 00:21:46.299 a bull with bad feet and a lethal gene would 00:21:46.299 --> 00:21:49.140 be bred out of the population as quickly as possible. 00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:51.400 Right. You'd think he'd be a cautionary tale. 00:21:51.710 --> 00:21:54.869 Instead, he became the foundation. And this is 00:21:54.869 --> 00:21:56.890 where we get into the mark mania that we're still 00:21:56.890 --> 00:21:59.049 living in today. Let's talk about the pedigree 00:21:59.049 --> 00:22:01.609 dominance. Because usually a bull is either known 00:22:01.609 --> 00:22:05.109 as a sire of sons or a sire of daughters. It's 00:22:05.109 --> 00:22:07.269 one or the other. Right. It's pretty rare for 00:22:07.269 --> 00:22:10.049 a bull to be elite at both. Usually a bull is 00:22:10.049 --> 00:22:12.650 great at making the milk cows, the daughters 00:22:12.650 --> 00:22:15.190 or the workers in the barn. Or he's great at 00:22:15.190 --> 00:22:17.130 making bulls that then make great milk cows, 00:22:17.369 --> 00:22:20.920 his sons or the changemakers. but mark mark was 00:22:20.920 --> 00:22:23.779 extraordinary at both he was a master of both 00:22:23.779 --> 00:22:26.240 sides of the pedigree i saw a stat that just 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:30.759 blew me away it said mark appears 42 times in 00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:34.099 the combined pedigrees of the top 10 gtpi females 00:22:34.099 --> 00:22:37.240 42 times and you compare that to another legend 00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:40.700 starbuck who appears 35 times. So Mark is winning. 00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:43.400 Mark is winning, and he is doing it on both sides. 00:22:43.640 --> 00:22:45.500 He's father of the father of the father, and 00:22:45.500 --> 00:22:46.940 he's also the father of the mother. He's just 00:22:46.940 --> 00:22:49.539 everywhere. So let's trace this river of genetics, 00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:52.279 because it leads to three names that pretty much 00:22:52.279 --> 00:22:55.079 every listener will know. If you've bred Holstein 00:22:55.079 --> 00:22:57.380 cows in the last 20 years, you know these names. 00:22:57.480 --> 00:22:59.220 Absolutely. The first one is the king of the 00:22:59.220 --> 00:23:03.339 ring, Braydale Goldwyn. Goldwyn, yeah. If you 00:23:03.339 --> 00:23:06.630 follow show cows at all, Goldwyn is God. premier 00:23:06.630 --> 00:23:10.130 sire at World Dairy Expo 10 times. 10 times. 00:23:10.170 --> 00:23:13.470 10 times. He completely redefined what a modern 00:23:13.470 --> 00:23:16.529 show cow looked like. He sired RF Goldwyn Haley, 00:23:16.690 --> 00:23:19.549 Eastside Louisdale gold missy cows that sold 00:23:19.549 --> 00:23:22.130 for huge money and won everything there was to 00:23:22.130 --> 00:23:24.369 win. And Mark is hiding in that pedigree somewhere. 00:23:24.509 --> 00:23:26.769 Oh, he's not hiding. He's the foundation. Goldwyn 00:23:26.769 --> 00:23:29.869 has three separate crosses to walkway chief Mark. 00:23:30.029 --> 00:23:33.180 Three. Not just one line. Three. Via his son, 00:23:33.279 --> 00:23:36.000 Shore Mar James, and his maternal line through 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:39.160 Braydale Gypsy Grand. It's woven deep into his 00:23:39.160 --> 00:23:41.460 DNA. So when you see those Goldwyn daughters 00:23:41.460 --> 00:23:43.859 winning at Madison with those silky hides, those 00:23:43.859 --> 00:23:45.859 perfect udders, that incredible ring presence. 00:23:46.140 --> 00:23:48.180 You are seeing the ghost of Walkway Chief Mark, 00:23:48.299 --> 00:23:50.160 that ring presence we talked about from 1983. 00:23:50.460 --> 00:23:52.240 It traveled through time and expressed itself 00:23:52.240 --> 00:23:54.759 in Goldwyn. Okay, so that's the show ring. He 00:23:54.759 --> 00:23:57.000 conquered that. What about the commercial barn 00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:00.359 production? For that, you enter Segal Bay Super 00:24:00.359 --> 00:24:02.599 Sire. The milk wagon. He was the millionaire 00:24:02.599 --> 00:24:05.460 sire. Super Sire sold a million units of semen. 00:24:05.559 --> 00:24:08.259 He was the production king of the genomic era. 00:24:08.420 --> 00:24:12.339 A million units is just... It's hard to even 00:24:12.339 --> 00:24:15.819 comprehend. It is. And at one point, 60 % of 00:24:15.819 --> 00:24:18.339 the entire Active Select Sires lineup traced 00:24:18.339 --> 00:24:21.500 back to Super Sire. 60 %? That's a genetic bottleneck. 00:24:21.539 --> 00:24:24.279 It is. Which means that 60 % of their lineup 00:24:24.279 --> 00:24:26.940 traced directly back to Mark. So where is he 00:24:26.940 --> 00:24:29.240 in Super Sire's pedigree? Mark is deep in the 00:24:29.240 --> 00:24:31.700 maternal line of Super Sire through a cow named 00:24:31.700 --> 00:24:34.640 Jean -Louis Luange Chief Mark. Mark gave Super 00:24:34.640 --> 00:24:36.819 Sire the engine. He gave him the genetic capacity 00:24:36.819 --> 00:24:39.579 to make all that milk. So Mark gave us the prettiest 00:24:39.579 --> 00:24:42.059 cows with Goldwyn and the hardest milking cows 00:24:42.059 --> 00:24:44.799 with Super Sire. And then we get the modern icon, 00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:47.079 the one that brings it all together, far near 00:24:47.079 --> 00:24:49.680 Delta Lambda. Lambda is everywhere right now. 00:24:49.720 --> 00:24:52.480 You open a Sire book today and Lambda sons are 00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:55.450 the hot ticket. Everywhere. He's the sire of 00:24:55.450 --> 00:24:57.750 Seymour's Paris, the global cow of the year. 00:24:57.869 --> 00:25:00.849 He's the sire of Parfait. He is the It Bull of 00:25:00.849 --> 00:25:03.369 this moment because he combines the pretty with 00:25:03.369 --> 00:25:05.589 the production. He does both. The Holy Grail. 00:25:05.609 --> 00:25:08.970 Yeah. And how much Mark is in Lambda? Okay, this 00:25:08.970 --> 00:25:11.430 is the stat that just blew my mind when I first 00:25:11.430 --> 00:25:14.309 saw it. I'm ready. Walkway Chief Mark appears 00:25:14.309 --> 00:25:19.259 25 times. in Delta Lambda's pedigree. 25 times. 00:25:19.319 --> 00:25:22.339 How is that even possible? 25 separate lines 00:25:22.339 --> 00:25:25.259 of descent, all converging on that one backup 00:25:25.259 --> 00:25:28.000 calf from Neoga, Illinois. That is unbelievable. 00:25:28.420 --> 00:25:31.799 It's not influence, it's saturation. It is. Holstein 00:25:31.799 --> 00:25:33.539 International Magazine had the best headline 00:25:33.539 --> 00:25:35.960 for it. They called it The Righteous Revenge 00:25:35.960 --> 00:25:38.539 of Walkway Chief Mark. The Righteous Revenge. 00:25:38.660 --> 00:25:40.420 I love that. It sounds like a Western movie. 00:25:40.619 --> 00:25:42.779 It fits, doesn't it? It's revenge for being the 00:25:42.779 --> 00:25:45.259 backup plan. Revenge for all the criticism of 00:25:45.259 --> 00:25:47.200 his feet. Revenge for carrying a lethal gene. 00:25:47.420 --> 00:25:49.440 At the end of the day, his positive genetics 00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:52.440 were so powerful that they just overwhelmed everything 00:25:52.440 --> 00:25:55.299 else. He won. It really makes you think about 00:25:55.299 --> 00:25:58.160 Foster Walk and Charlie Will. Yeah. Two guys 00:25:58.160 --> 00:26:00.200 in the late 70s just trying to do their jobs. 00:26:00.519 --> 00:26:02.460 Do you think they ever could have imagined any 00:26:02.460 --> 00:26:05.839 of this? There is no way. No way. Foster Walk 00:26:05.839 --> 00:26:08.440 just wanted to find a diamond in the rough. He 00:26:08.440 --> 00:26:10.720 wanted to breed a good cow and pay the bills. 00:26:10.900 --> 00:26:13.259 And Charlie Will. Charlie Will just needed a 00:26:13.259 --> 00:26:15.539 bull to replace the one that died so he wouldn't 00:26:15.539 --> 00:26:17.880 get fired on his first assignment. They were 00:26:17.880 --> 00:26:20.640 solving a problem in 1978. They were looking 00:26:20.640 --> 00:26:23.099 at next Tuesday. Exactly. They were looking at 00:26:23.099 --> 00:26:25.680 next Tuesday, not the next century. They had 00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:28.299 absolutely no idea they were building the genetic 00:26:28.299 --> 00:26:31.579 architecture for the cow of 2025. It's humbling, 00:26:31.579 --> 00:26:33.940 isn't it? It really is. It is. It reminds you 00:26:33.940 --> 00:26:36.059 that we are all just stewards of these genetics. 00:26:36.890 --> 00:26:39.170 We make decisions today. We breed this cow to 00:26:39.170 --> 00:26:42.049 that bull. And we have no idea what ripples that 00:26:42.049 --> 00:26:44.349 is going to send down the timeline 50 years from 00:26:44.349 --> 00:26:47.170 now. We are planting trees we'll never sit under. 00:26:47.329 --> 00:26:49.250 It brings us back to that image of the barn. 00:26:49.609 --> 00:26:51.990 We'll leave the listeners with that. Yeah. I 00:26:51.990 --> 00:26:54.730 want you to picture this. It's 4 a .m. You know 00:26:54.730 --> 00:26:56.970 that feeling. Oh, I know. Well, the coffee hasn't 00:26:56.970 --> 00:26:59.470 kicked in yet. The rest of the world is completely 00:26:59.470 --> 00:27:03.509 asleep. You are in the barn. It's quiet. It's 00:27:03.509 --> 00:27:06.490 quiet. The only sound is the hum of the bulk 00:27:06.490 --> 00:27:08.710 tank and maybe a scraper running in the background. 00:27:08.970 --> 00:27:11.170 You've got your flashlight cutting through the 00:27:11.170 --> 00:27:13.849 steam rising off the cows' backs. It's the best 00:27:13.849 --> 00:27:16.230 time of day. It's just you and the herd. It is. 00:27:16.390 --> 00:27:20.759 And I want you to look at your cows. Not just 00:27:20.759 --> 00:27:22.960 glance at them, but really look at them. Look 00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:25.440 at the udders. Look at that dairy character. 00:27:25.839 --> 00:27:28.819 The sharpness, the clean bone, the way the neck 00:27:28.819 --> 00:27:31.779 blends so smoothly into the shoulder. You are 00:27:31.779 --> 00:27:33.640 looking at Foster Walk's Diamond in the Rough. 00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:36.279 You really are. You are looking at the legacy 00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:38.920 of a backup plan. You are looking at the result 00:27:38.920 --> 00:27:42.079 of a disaster that somehow turned into a dynasty. 00:27:42.500 --> 00:27:44.500 And I think there is a real lesson in that for 00:27:44.500 --> 00:27:46.480 all of us, especially when things go wrong on 00:27:46.480 --> 00:27:48.400 the farm. What's the lesson for you? That in 00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:50.230 this business, the ones who change everything 00:27:50.230 --> 00:27:53.130 aren't always the ones you planned on sometimes 00:27:53.130 --> 00:27:56.509 the superstar dies sometimes the plan a completely 00:27:56.509 --> 00:28:00.069 falls apart sometimes you have to go with the 00:28:00.069 --> 00:28:02.210 scrawny younger brother that nobody was paying 00:28:02.210 --> 00:28:06.309 attention to and sometimes that backup plan the 00:28:06.309 --> 00:28:08.930 one you almost didn't pick is the one that builds 00:28:08.930 --> 00:28:12.789 the empire that is a powerful thought So next 00:28:12.789 --> 00:28:14.750 time you're looking through a sire catalog or 00:28:14.750 --> 00:28:16.789 looking at a pedigree on a registration paper 00:28:16.789 --> 00:28:20.349 and you see that name Walkway Chief Mark, don't 00:28:20.349 --> 00:28:22.869 just gloss over it. Won't. Remember the accident. 00:28:23.009 --> 00:28:25.529 Remember the bad feet. Remember the incredible 00:28:25.529 --> 00:28:28.410 udders. And just remember that biology always, 00:28:28.509 --> 00:28:31.809 always surprises us. Amen to that. Keep reading 00:28:31.809 --> 00:28:33.789 the good ones. Thanks for diving deep with us 00:28:33.789 --> 00:28:35.609 into the history behind the herd. Catch you on 00:28:35.609 --> 00:28:45.539 the next one. See ya. Turn the volume high. For 00:28:45.539 --> 00:28:52.160 the icons of the ages, they never will die. From 00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:56.240 the shoring thunder to the quiet strength they 00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:02.279 knew. Hear their stories now. Coming right up. 00:29:10.220 --> 00:29:11.480 Legends live here.