PHA and Phenotype

If there was a chance of me being convinced that there is no impact on phenotype with PHA carrier status it was blown out of the water yesterday.

Based on what I was told I used to believe it was just a genetic defect that didn’t play a role in what an animal looks like.  Over time and numerous sales where I would pick a bull (sometimes female) and find out he was a carrier, what my eyes were seeing finally overruled what I had been told.

Yesterday was about as close to a blind test as you can get on the subject.  The Maine sale is supposed to be completely free of PHA/TH carriers.  After looking through the 94 or so bulls in the sale, I and three others from back home all selected lot #184 (if you are looking at the catalog, his picture is flat out terrible).   We all prioritize bone and muscle mass more than many up North because we’re slick sheer people.

Well, it turns out #184 was actually a PHA carrier, the only PHA carrier in the sale.  We had no clue or reason to even consider the possibility he was a carrier before the sale.

While never as blatant or against the odds of that situation, this type of scenario has come up way too many times.  To believe that PHA doesn’t impact phenotype I must believe that a gene that kills cattle has been passed down generation after generation for no reason at all and I must ignore case after case of selecting for a certain type of cattle resulting in finding PHA carriers.  While my wife may disagree, I’m simply not that stubborn.

I'm not saying PHA is nearly as potent or noticeable as TH and I'm not saying every carrier shows the signs.  I belive it's like everything else genetically speaking in that it moves that bell curve a little bit more in one direction but there are still cattle all the way through the curve.