Part 3: Evaluating the Genealogy of Orison of Canela
Written by: Randall Arms
Written by Randall Arms:
"This is another commentary that I wrote in Spanish and due to the poor translations English speakers are getting on their end, I’ve taken the trouble to translate more accurately the original content. I apologize that this makes the chronological order of the commentaries inversed, but I’ve stipulated Part 1,2 & 3 in the title in order to facilitate reading them in a logical sequence.
So we’ve established in our last post that Shat-Acre Cinnamon was in great part an outstanding foundation cow in the Shatney fold due to her concentration of LC King’s Pride genes, to which she was both inbred (through Shatney-Acre Billie and Shat-Acre Herman) and line-bred. Moreover, LC King’s Pride was a very prepotent sire because he had a 2Sx1D inbreeding to his dam FS Loretta 2nd. This accumulation of excellent homozygous genes no doubt provided Cinnamon with a concentrated genotype derived from a proven bull that was much talked about in his time.
However, were there any other individuals in Cinnamon’s pedigree that could fortify her position as a genetic treasure hold? I’d say that certainly is true also, and analyzing the 7 generations behind her we find that she has additional inbreeding and line-breeding to the following ancestors of well repute:
Inbreeding
Shat-Acre Billie (1971)
2Sx4Sx5Sx3Dx4D
Shat-Acre Herman
3Sx2D
Line-breeding
LC King’s Pride
3Sx4Sx5Sx6Sx3Dx4Dx5D
Finglass Laoch of Glencoe VIII
4Sx6Sx7Sx4Dx5Dx6D
Pitcher Mt. Ivan
5Sx6Sx5D
XX Yellow Hill 12th
6Sx7Sx6Dx6D
When a cow can benefit by this many quality individuals repeated his her genealogical tree, it’s not hard to imagine why she has been such an influential powerhouse in the Shat Acre fold.
Of the 5 offspring she had while being part of the Shat Acre brood cow band, there is no doubt that her greatest claim to fame came from two cows that obtained NWSS National Champion Highland Cow/Calf status. Of course we are referring to the full sisters, Shat Acre Cinnamon Raisin and Shat Acre Cinnamon Swirl, so aptly campaigned by Ray Shatney and Janet Steward. Both were by Lance of Gordon’s Fold, another extremely influential bull acquired by Carroll Shatney. These two daughters of Shat Acre Cinnamon were responsible for four national championship titles and also projected their dam’s influence into the future as the prolific dams they were. Cinnamon Swirl had 10 calves in 11 years and Cinnamon Raisin had 10 calves in 10 years.
When Cinnamon Swirl was mated with champion Who’s Hill Scorpion, she produced a renown bull of the Scottish Highland breed of North America in Shat Acres Cinnamon Bear. He is the sire of many valued offspring including the highest selling bull in the NWSS auction, Shat Acres Raisin Cain.
When this cross was repeated Cinnamon Swirl produced the high caliber heifer Shat Acre Cinnamon Star that won the coveted award of Role of Excellence (ROE) in 2009.
As fate would have it, the last cow Shat Acre Cinnamon Bear bred, was an unplanned cross with his full sister Shat Acre Cinnamon Star. Yet in hindsight, this turned out to be a fortunate occurrence that resulted in our highly esteemed and beloved Cinnamon Ursula. Some modern nay sayers might shy away from such product of a 2Sx2D inbreeding to both Who’s Hill Scorpio and Shat Acre Cinnamon Swirl, but our knowledge would give rise to many reasons why we should be extremely excited to know that such a unique opportunity fell into our hands.
Our experience with many other species had already showed us the value of intelligent inbreeding to elite individuals. We are fully aware of the incredible impact Cinnamon not only had on the Shat Acre fold, but also to the over all breed as a whole. Nevertheless, to know we now possessed a heifer with two close doses of this tremendous cow in her pedigree was a reason to rejoice, as we looked forward to catapult Cinnamon’s genes further into the future.
How we chose to start this passing forward of the Cinnamon genealogy will be the subject of our next commentary.