Dna at auctions

We pull hair on our fawns when we tag them which is during their first day of life. We keep the hair in little envelopes that we get from Wildlife Genetics. They are clearly identified with tag and official ID numbers. We send in all the doe fawns hair and hold on to the buck fawns hair and only send it in if we grow one who is good enough to be a breeder. Last year we thought we knew who was out of who and when we got the DNA results back, we were wrong about 2 of them.



Anyone who tells you they know who is out of who because they see who is taking care of who is fooling themselves. We have a doe named Mattie who had twin doe fawns this year. One day when the fawns were less than a week old we saw 4 fawns feeding off her... they were all buck fawns! It is getting more and more difficult to sell does and I just can not imagine not treating your customers right. Roger said it right when he talked about "investors". We want to do business with our customers more than once so we treat them right.

Thunder Valley does the same thing Roger! Hope you are having fun bottle feeding now

stevel said:

We pull hair on our fawns when we tag them which is during their first day of life. We keep the hair in little envelopes that we get from Wildlife Genetics. They are clearly identified with tag and official ID numbers. We send in all the doe fawns hair and hold on to the buck fawns hair and only send it in if we grow one who is good enough to be a breeder.

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This is the way I like to see DNA done. I do not buy deer, but if I did, the only deer that I would buy that has not been DNA'ed would be shooter bucks. Fawns would have to come with a DNA guarante.

thunder said:

Thunder Valley does the same thing Roger! Hope you are having fun bottle feeding now

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Yes Kelly, I am now having fun bottle feeding It is great to be back home again! But we only have 6 on the bottle this year so it isn't bad. 2 Poncho, 2 Updraft and 1 Shadow and 1 Matrix. Laurie had them all broke in by the time I got home

stevel said:

We pull hair on our fawns when we tag them which is during their first day of life. We keep the hair in little envelopes that we get from Wildlife Genetics. They are clearly identified with tag and official ID numbers. We send in all the doe fawns hair and hold on to the buck fawns hair and only send it in if we grow one who is good enough to be a breeder. Last year we thought we knew who was out of who and when we got the DNA results back, we were wrong about 2 of them.



Anyone who tells you they know who is out of who because they see who is taking care of who is fooling themselves. We have a doe named Mattie who had twin doe fawns this year. One day when the fawns were less than a week old we saw 4 fawns feeding off her... they were all buck fawns! It is getting more and more difficult to sell does and I just can not imagine not treating your customers right. Roger said it right when he talked about "investors". We want to do business with our customers more than once so we treat them right.

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Hi Steve and Carolyn,

You are correct for sure about not judging what fawns belongs to what mom. We have seen some moms chase off the real mothers when they were feeding a fawn. If we hadn't tagged them and could see the tags with our own eyes you would have thought it was just a really protective mom with her baby

We don't pull hair that first day, we actually use the plug from the hole we make when we tag them the first day. Sometimes in the first couple of hours even. Laurie being a chemist at work she can buy these really neat tiny bottles and we use alcohol and seal the bottles and label them. It works really well.

On older deer we use the hair method, except bucks we use the antler core.

People just need to remember not to use plastic bags for the hair samples. The moisture will screw up the hair sample is my understanding.



Steve, it sure is hot out. I could use a good stiff drink to cool off, how about you?

I think DNA at auctions would be great. Most of the deer that I own were bought trusting the farmer that they are what he said they are but they are not real high dollar animals. I have no reason not to trust the farm that I buy from My best doe's were bought dna'ed and anything that I buy in the future will be as well. It would be nice to know exactly what I am getting, it's not that I dont trust anyone it is just a dna test will tell for sure.

I agree with Steve and Roger above. Pull the sample when tagging and file it in a paper envelope and store it in a dry spot or send it in right away if that fawn is destined for an auction. I keep very few females together in one pen and know who the mother is and sometimes witness the birthing. However my investors are not there and the burden of proof is on me. Not to mention my reputation.



Here are a couple of more reasons to DNA:



1. Years ago I DNA'ed every doe I had to their sire and some to both sire and dam. The next generation and the one after that was all sire and dam. I have not entered auctions or DNA'ed any deer now for 3 years. I have many samples stored and could have DNA'ed pedigrees to sire and dam three to five generations deep top and bottom if need be. I had to DNA mothers of my deer that I don't even own to accomplish this. None of it was for myself. I did it for my "investors" and I did it because you can't turn back time. I am relatively young and I am striving for longevity in the industry and I cannot do this if I don't know what I started with or can't prove it.



2. Even though I haven't isolated allele markers to specific traits, I have compared enough young deer to bucks of high quality and proven does to see a pattern emerge. Guessing which deer is of the desired quality when that deer cannot grow antlers is expensive and time consuming. Especially when line breeding. You can't polish a terd.



3. Unintentional mistakes can be expensive. If you were to A.I. a doe two years in a row to very expensive semen and that doe wasn't who you thought she was because you didn't confirm it years ago could be quite expensive. It will make you feel even more foolish when the doe you thought you were breeding is at another farm being live-bred and is kicking your does butt. You are fooling yourself if you think an investor will not care in the year 2010. If you find yourself in this situation with a breeder run, don't walk away.



4. DNA is far less expensive than the alternative of raising, feeding, and testing sub-par animals for years and years on a trial basis. That is what happens outside the fence, not inside of it. You pay for the science, you may as well use it.

Roger, I know what you mean, it's supposed to be in the 90's for a while. Next time you fly into CAK let me know... the first one is free!

Hey Roger



We have had great success with just drying out the ear plugs in a low temp oven, or even just at room temp if it is warm enough and storing them in paper envelopes. No EtOH needed, they are easier to ship and you don't have to worry about the seal breaking and the EtOH leaking out causing your sample to rot–which I have seen happen over and over again. As long as you get the moisture out of the tissue(so they look kind of like jerky) they seem to keep just as well as the hair samples.

Hi Renee,

That is good info for everyone to know. Thanks much for jumping in on the discussion with this information. I guess we will have to give it a try.

So Laurie has a question for you. Since we currently have a library of samples in bottles here and all this years fawns are stored in the alcohol can we dry down those samples and then send them in for testing or is it too late for those samples to be handled that way?

You know, I want to say that they should be fine but I haven't tested that so I am not totally sure. The consensus around the lab is that it would work just fine. How big are your samples? One thing you could try is splitting them in half, saving half in EtOH and drying the rest for shipping. We, and I assume DNA Solutions is the same, only need a tissue sample about the size of a lentil.