Similar genetics don’t mean I continue to be amazed by the differences in people and animals that are closely related. For example, one of my good friends was at one time one of the top Hereford breeders in America and over his fireplace is a row of Grand Championship trophies he won at Denver. I’ll never forget the day I was at his place when two bulls were delivered that my friend had purchased at the Cooper-Holden sale, which in those days was a combined event. The bulls were Line Ones and were both very closely related and yet they could not have been more different. I don’t think my friend would take offense when I call one of the bulls downright ugly. If he’d have been a scarecrow he’d have kept the crows out of a quarter section of corn. The bull looked like he’d been put together by a committee of sheepherders. He was long, tall and moderately muscled and in all the years I was acquainted with the bull I never did get a decent photograph of him. Clearly the bull had a superior intellect and enjoyed toying with me.

If the Hereford Association wanted a bull to represent the breed they couldn’t have found a better specimen than the other bull. He was heavily muscled, structurally correct, easy on the eyes and was phenotypically perfect. So, guess which bull went on to sire sons and grandsons that won numerous Denver Championships? You’d say the second bull, right?

WRONG! Which just goes to show, you can’t tell by looking.

In 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared that meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring was safe. I thought there’d be a rush to clone livestock but it didn’t happen, probably due to the cost associated with cloning but also because even though the animals had exactly the same genotype, in most cases they never lived up to the animal that was cloned. Plus, the clones turned out different. One wet day in judging class at college our coach had us judge a class by looking at still photos from the rear and side of four bulls. It was an easy class to judge and there were a lot of differences to talk about in our reasons. Only afterward did he tell us they were clones.

At bull sales quite often, we see full brothers sell and one of them will bring $50,000 while its identical sibling will fetch $5,000. For EXACTLY the same genes.

I’ve seen firsthand how genetics continues to toy with us. Take my brother... please. Though we supposedly have the same genetic makeup, we could not be more different. My brother is logical, a genius at math, fastidious about his appearance, would rather golf than do hard physical work, retired at 55, wears shorts all the time, graduated no. 3 in his class at West Point, went on to get his MBA at MIT and places a lot of emphasis on good breeding. While I think that’s fun too, I hate math, am an extremely hard worker, don’t golf or own a single pair of shorts and I’ve always been more entrepreneurial and will never retire. My brother likes liver, lima beans, corned beef and cabbage and moved to the East Coast as soon as he could while I’m a dyed-in-the-wool westerner and you’d have to tie me down and force feed me to eat liver, lima beans, corned beef and cabbage.

From the first time he met me my niece’s husband just looks at me, shakes his head and says, “You simply CAN’T be the brother of John Pitts.” 

I don’t know if he means that as a compliment or a criticism.

I was talking about genetics with a cattlemen buddy who has three siblings, two sisters and one brother. Like me and my brother, he and his brother could not be more different. My friend is quiet, extremely hard working and if he says something you can take it to the bank. His brother is exactly the opposite. His father used to say of him, “If BS was music, he’d be a brass band.”

All this reminds me of the words of novelist Barbara Kingsolver: “We are baked in the same oven. Why does one cake rise and the other fall?”