A storey is that HOPs with dark coat round their eyes are less prone to eye cancer. Makes sense to me, since cattle with white round their eyes are generally more prone to eye cancer. I favour that trait, as do some other HOP owners.

An interesting lecture by Dr. William Happer, professor of physics at Princeton University, summarizes his arguments about the myth of carbon pollution. It's that myth that underlies global warming alarmists' key arguments. Also touches on methane emissions from cattle, a subect being used to shut down cattle farming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8iEEO2UIbA

Lower Eaton Eclipse is in an otherwise non asterisked horned herd. Good for them. Not many doing this though, as you say.

The social overhead of making regulation, monitoring compliance, is collosal and inflexible to the needs of the farmer and his stock; e.g. Won't adjust contiguous TB test to avoid calving.

Such a penetrating observation. One wonders how cattle managed to survive until the mid 20th century without a massive programme of bTB testing, culling and movement restrictions. Farmers bearing the brunt, but a positive consequence is the employment of large numbers of bureaucrats to manage these policies.

Traditional herefords are a small breed, but not yet as small as the Suffolk horse; breeders are pushed very hard to find diversly related sires, and not to overuse the best stallions. They use a system called SPARKS (https://www.rbst.org.uk/blog/sparks-a-toolbox-for-breeding) to encourage more diverse selection. One hears of small wolf populations becomming infertile, and being revived by less related introductions. I am wary because of my experience with Whitebred Shorthorn cattle, a very small breed suffering from so called White Heifer syndrome. I was struggling to breed fertile females.

Thanks, I must get a copy

I suppose if your stock has no recessive defects, that works, stamping your perceived effective type. However, surely you won't be getting the hybrid vigour?