Archive for Genomics – Page 2

Genomic Young Sires vs. Daughter Proven Sires: Which one is best for Reliable Genetic Gain?

· Comments (1)

Tuesday, March 12th, 2013

The Bullvine is often asked, “How can using genomic sires be better, if the genomic sire’s reliabilities are not as high as those for proven sires?” So in typical Bullvine style we set out to answer that question. The following is our answer…

Single Trait – Fat

Bullvine wanted to keep this comparison as simple as possible. To do this we used one trait, in this case fat yield, knowing that breeders do not select for one trait only. The results apply to all traits.

Females in Your Barn

You have a virgin heifer and a seven year old cow that are both indexed at 100 kgs for fat yield. Both have been genomically tested and the cow is milking in her fourth lactation. The heifer’s index is 67% Rel. and the cow is 82% Rel.

TABLE 1: Females

	Born	Fat Index	% Rel	Regressed Fat Index
Heifer	2012 Jan 10	100	67	67
Cow	2005 Jan 16	100	82	82

Sires

Three sires you might consider using for breeding these females could be:

TABLE 2: Sires

	Born	Fat Index (kgs)	% Rel	Regressed Fat Index
Oman	March 08, 1998	82	99	81
Supersire	Dec 28, 2010	116	67	78
Pride	January 27, 2012	135	69	93

Index of Calves

What will be the fat indexes for the resulting calves? (Add parents together and divide by two)

TABLE 3: Regressed Fat Indexes for Calves (kgs)

DAMS	SIRES
	OMAN	SUPERSIRE	PRIDE
Heifer	74	72.5	80
Cow	81.5	80	87.5

These values are the expected average fat indexes. And, yes, there will be less variation amongst the progeny for Oman and the cow. The most variability amongst the progeny can be expected for the heifer when mated to Supersire or Pride.

Therefore, the short answer for which bull to use, is Pride. Pride will maximize the calf’s fat yield index.

Rate of Genetic Gain

Determining genetic gain is a principle taught to all college genetic students. The formula is:

Let’s simplify this:

Accuracy = Reliability

Selection Intensity = Determined by where the animal ranks in the population (all these animals are in the top 1% of the population so their selection intensity is identical)

Genetic Variation = Standard Deviation of fat yield indexes (common for all the animals in the example)

Generation Interval = The average time between the birth of the parents and the birth of the calf.

Generation Interval is the place where the numbers for the heifer and the sires, Supersire and Pride, are much smaller (in years) than those for the cow and Oman.

TABLE 4: Generation Interval (years)

DAMS	SIRES
	OMAN	SUPERSIRE	PRIDE
Heifer	8.5	2.5	2.0
Cow	11.5	5.5	5.0

Since the numbers for fat index in TABLE 3 are all similar, dividing them by a larger vs. a smaller generation interval greatly affects the outcome for genetic gain.

For the cow and Oman dividing 81.5 (Fat Index) by 11.5 (Generation Interval) gives a much smaller gain than for the heifer and Pride (80 divided by 2.0). In fact it is much different 7.9 compared to 40.

That’s the reason turning generations more quickly, using genomics, gives the faster rates of annual genetic gain. (Read more: The Genomic Advancement Race – The Battle for Genetic Supremacy)

The Bullvine Bottomline

Genomics gives you more speed. No question. If you’re worried about speed being dangerous, spread the risk by using multiple (not one) high indexing genomic sires where you might have only used one or two proven sires in the past.

Get original “Bullvine” content sent straight to your email inbox for free.

Bryhill International Genetics: 10 BIG Steps to Following Their Dream

· Comments (0)

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013

The Bryson family of Ormstown, Quebec are following their dream of growing Bryhill International Genetics into a leading dairy breeding operation.

Of course, expanding a farm and growing a family business can be both rewarding and challenging at the same time. Matthew and David Bryson take a moment to look back and consider how far they have come. “The past 6 years have led us to change our breeding philosophy completely, while gearing up for a large commercial dairy environment.” As the Brysons share how they made the necessary changes, Bullvine readers have a perfect opportunity to look at 10 big steps taken by Bryhill International Genetics as they follow their dream.

1. THE FOUNDATION: Start with the Right Team

The principle of building on the foundation of a great team is the basis of success for sports and business. The team members at Bryhill are Lynn, David, Stacey, Matt, and Sarah. Jason Bryson, a cousin, is also a very important employee involved throughout the farm activities and specifically the nursery where the new calves and high end genetics get their start. A brother, Alan, helps analyze breeding decisions and investments for future genetic orientations. It takes commitment and a shared vision for the future.

David, Lynn and Matthew Bryson at the original homestead

2. LEADING EDGE IDEA. Make it Work.

David and Matt Bryson describe the motivation behind Bryhill International Genetics. As a founding member of Trans America Genetics, “B.I.G. was used to set focus and aim at identifying, acquiring and merchandising breed leading genetics with a specific focus in mind. The move to a large freestall, the need to adapt to the changing technology (genomics) and the need to be more efficient, means that every decision we have made has led to aggressive moves so as to be better positioned for the future in order to have a business that would move easily into the next generation.” A successful, sustainable family dairy business.

3. FAMILY MATTERS. That’s Where We’re Going.

Every big dream starts with little steps. There are many variables that impact decisions. This was definitely the situation facing the Bryson family. “The expansion was prompted by a few different things. First, the business needed to support two families. Second, the previous site had limitations due to highway, rivers and town in close proximity. Third we wanted to offer a working environment that facilitated high volumes using efficient methods therefore allowing quality time with our families and preparing ourselves better for the future.”

4. GROWTH IS A GIVEN. Build More.

With growing clarity on where they needed to be, Bryhill got down to the actual building. Matt says, “The latest expansion is now complete. There are now two main dairy barns of 105’ x 475’ and a hospital, close-up barn of 75’ x 250’.The milking parlour is a double 16 allowing for more expansion and high flow as well as a calf barn with automatic feeding, just off the milking parlour. We currently milk 300 head and plan to keep growing the herd with the most efficient genetics possible.”

Innaugural feeding in Bryhill's new facility

Inaugural feeding in Bryhill’s new facility

5. A WORLD VIEW: Key in On It

Great product and facilities would be nothing, if it wasn’t meeting the demands of the marketplace. Dave clarifies the Bryhill philosophy. “We have identified the high GTPI, NM, Polled segments as our key markets. These are to us the markets which shall develop the highest demand for the commercial dairy farm and meet over 95% of world market needs.”

The number one GTPI polled heifer of the breed, Bryhill One Sassy P. Potentially the best heifer ever bred at BIG.

6. MAKE THE COWS MAKE THE DIFFERENCE. Make it Fast

Growing a successful dairy business always boils down to the cows that produce the milk, the genetics, the buyer interest and the bottom line financial success. The Brysons share which families they have introduced, “The cow families that we are working with are Sizzle P, Planet Lucia, Chart Topper, Shottle May, Converse Judy, Allen Dragonfly, Brocade, Baxter Carmel, Cosmopolitan, Adeen, and Dreary.” Here too there is a great deal of thought that has gone into the selections. “These are all cow families that have proven their abilities to make extremes. Breed changers we like to call them.” BIG changers!!

7. GENOMICS. Go for it NOW.

There is no hesitation at Bryhill International Genetics when it comes to using Genomics. “The top sires we are using are 100% genomic. Leading genomic sires will remain among the top of the breed regardless of rank.” That is important to the Brysons. “This gives us an advantage over the longer run as we shorten generation intervals and increase genetic gain.” Again it is no surprise to hear them say, “We aim to remain among the forerunners.”

8. GENOMICS. The Game Changer.

When you’re developing an international company that is relevant and sustainable you have to evolve with the modern marketplace. David recognizes the impact of genomics. “Genomics has significantly changed the way we do business. It has made us realize the value of cattle and breeding. While we still enjoy solid conformation, it has created more objectivity in our decisions and, we look more at what that individual will potentially transmit. We take pride in making these top females available and in fact it has also helped our merchandising. New progeny become recognized on objective, public top lists that are accessible to all. This has led to great contacts and marketing opportunities.”

9. CHANGE IS HERE. Be Part of it

Matt confirms this viewpoint. “The marketplace will change according to changes in market demand and technology. Consumers will play a huge impact and animal welfare will play a part too.” Dave highlights another game changer. “The polled gene has been a big part of our change as we see this becoming a standard!”

De-Su 199 Chart Topper" In partnership with TAG, Bryhil purchased Chart Toppers 1st Choice Numero Uno daughter for $79,000 at World Classic Sale 2011

De-Su 199 Chart Topper
In partnership with TAG, Bryhill purchased Chart Toppers 1st Choice Numero Uno daughter for $79,000 at World Classic Sale 2011. Chart topper is a Watson x Pine-Tree Missy Oman Miranda VG-86 x Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy EX-92 3E GMD DOM x EX-90 GMD DOM x VG-87

10. GET GOOD ADVICE. Grow With It

Despite their relative youth, the Bryhill team knows the value of good mentors. “ TAG has been an influential entity in our genetic development,” say the Brysons. They admit it is tough to offer advice to others but know that their experience could help others who are interested in expanding their genetic marketing strategies. “Two things come to mind.” say the Bryhill team. “It’s hard to go wrong with high genomics from top cow families.”” Try to identify where the market is going.” “This is not easy but it is doable.”

THE BULLVINE BOTTOM LINE

When you want to know what makes the BIG difference, it really is clear what is working for the Bryson family and Bryhill International Genetics. They take many small steps consistently and persistently. They are following their dream and obviously are ready to make a mountain out of Bryhill. That’s the B.I.G. difference.

Get original “Bullvine” content sent straight to your email inbox for free.

The Genetic Genius of Darwin, Mendel and Hunt – Genetic Transmission and the Holstein Cow

· Comments (4)

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013

There is no question that when it comes to understanding what cows will transmit and what cows will not, it is an enigma wrapped in a conundrum. There is much that we don’t know and some would argue it is not meant to be known. The problem is, for those of us with a passion for breeding great dairy cattle, we want to know it all. For that I turn to the three greatest genetic geniuses in the history of the world, Darwin, Mendel and Hunt (No they are not a law firm).

Charles Robert Darwin He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.

Charles Darwin

Ask anyone in the world to name a geneticist and the first name that comes to mind has to be Charles Darwin. No better demonstration of Darwin’s theory of evolution exists in the world than in dairy cattle breeding. While there is no question that artificial selection and selective breeding exist on a daily basis, a cow’s ability to reproduce and produce milk leads to a natural level of selection that epitomizes Darwin’s theory. “The laws governing inheritance,” Darwin wrote, “are for the most part unknown.” Moreover, while many modern geneticists have theories about the tendencies of the modern Holstein cow, their genetic transmission pathways in large part remain a mystery to this day.

Gregor Mendel

Then along came Gregor Mendel who introduced the concept of “genes” to explain heritability. Mendel changed the whole way we look at breeding when he introduced the theory that the chromosome is the carrier of genetic traits. He also explained why a trait can disappear in one generation and reappear in the next and why these traits occur in a three-to-one ratio. One of Mendel’s disciples, three quarters of a century later, was Thomas B. Macaulay. Macaulay conducted his own studies, on his Mount Victoria Farms (Read more: Mount Victoria Farms – The art and science of great breeding).

Thomas Hunt Morgan

Then along came Hunt. Well, more specifically, Thomas Hunt Morgan, but my ego wouldn’t let this go as my name is Andrew Morgan Hunt (Read more about my ego: I’m Sorry But I’ve Had Just About Enough Of… ). In research that is now reproduced by grade 9 science students around the world, Morgan introduced the concept of X and Y-chromosomes. Morgan concluded that a female has two X chromosomes and that males have both X and Y-chromosomes. He also posited that the male of the species, because of the presence of the Y chromosome, transmits differently than the female.

To get a better understanding of this, let’s look at this from both sides of the story.

His side of the story (XY)

If you look at Holstein bulls throughout history you find four distinct patterns:

Great daughters but no legacy sons
These are the bulls that sired amazing brood cows but none of their sons were able to continue their genetic legacy. Examples are Hanover-Hill Triple Threat, Carlin-M Ivanhoe Bell, and Braedale Goldwyn. They all were able to sire brood cow daughters beyond compare, but no real sons to advance that genetic legacy. Why did these sires seem to produce better on the female side than that of the male? For that we need to turn to Morgan and his X and Y chromosome theory. Since the Y chromosome is the only one that is inherited solely via the paternal line, this leads some geneticists to believe that it carries little genetic information, and as a result a great sires genetic legacy rest more with his daughters than with his sons. Therefore, with this first group of sires it is thought that much of their genetics were transmitted on the X chromosome rather than the Y.
Great sons but not as many brood cows
Bulls that sired outstanding sons but never produced a top daughter. A couple of great examples of this are Montvic Rag Apple Sovereign, Maizefield Bellwood and O-Bee Manfred Justice. All of these sires have left outstanding sons, but are not found as often in the maternal sire stack of the great sires. There is no question as to their genetic contribution to the breed, but it was more as a sire of sons than their ability to leave an equal number of brood cows.
Sons and daughters both extraordinary
These are the sires that have gone down in history as the all-time greats. Sires like Johanna Rag Apple Pabst, Governor of Carnation, Montvic Chieftain, Wisconsin Admiral Burke Lad, A.B.C. Reflection Sovereign, Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation, Pawnee Farm Alrinda Chief, Walkway Chief Mark, Hanoverhill Starbuck, Madawaska Aerostar and Maughlin Storm. These are the bulls that not only displayed personal greatness but were also able to transmit both outstanding brood cows as well as legacy sons.
Sons and daughters that were inferior
Sons and daughters that are both below average. These bulls left inferior daughters and as a result were never even given the chance to produce sons. Bulls in this category are too numerous to mention and loads of their daughters go to the slaughterhouses every day. No explanation necessary other than a lack of genetic merit and here enters the need for genomics (Read more: The Truth About Genomic Indexes – “Show Me” That They Work).

Her side the story (XX)

The female side of the story uses the same four distinct groups.

Great daughters but no legacy sons
These are cows with outstanding female descendants but undistinguished males. Great examples of these are the cow families of Hanover Hill Papoose, Krull Broker Elegance and Plunshanski Chief Faith. They all were able to leave outstanding female descendants generation after generation, but were never really able to accomplish the same feat on the male side of the story.
Great sons but not as many brood cows
These are the cows with potent transmitting sons, but daughters who didn’t outperform the average. Examples of these are Wylamyna Tidy Kathleen (dam of Sir Bess Tidy and Sir Bess Ormsby Tidy Fobes) Lakefield Fobes Delight (dam of Lakefield Fond Hope, Lakefield Fond Delight Fobes and Carnation Royal Master) and Pawnee Farm Glenvue Beauty (dam of Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief). All of these cows had outstanding maternal lines but for some reason were just not able to transmit that legacy through their daughters.
Sons and daughters both extraordinary
Among the females in this category are Glenridge Citation Roxy, Mil-R-Mor Roxette, Comestar Laurie Sheik, Braedale Gypsy Grand and Snow-N Denises Dellia.
Sons and daughters that were inferior
Cows who, in terms of influence, failed to produce anything worthwhile. Blame it on lack of genetics, bad breeding, improper management, or just bad luck, these cows just didn’t influence the breed. We have all seen examples.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

There has never been a clear explanation of why some bloodlines seem to transmit better through maternal lines, others through the paternal, and still others do well in both. Even genomics does not answer this. There are high genomic animals that still have these same tendencies. Maybe if we could genomic test the genes on each chromosome we might find the answers? Until then Genetic Transmission in the Holstein Cow will remain a mystery.

To read more about this get a copy of The Holstein History by Edward Morwick and read the chapter on Inheritance Patterns.

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Genomics: Think Big Not Small

· Comments (0)

Wednesday, February 6th, 2013

Even though we are still in the early stages of genomic indexes, certain trends are already apparent. One issue that I have noticed is that too many breeders are using genomics to narrow down their sire usage to a few sires at the very top instead of using genomics to discover what sires not to use. Everyone likes to look at the top of the list to see what sires hold their rankings, however, the real power of genomics is actually in pointing out what sires not to use.

While there is no question that genomics has changed the way we look at indexes, there is one major issue that we are all guilty of. We focus only on those sires that are in the top 10 or so to make our sire selection decisions.

So let’s take a look at the current top 10 genomic sires and their TPI Scores:

Supersire 2530
Jabir 2515
Numero Uno 2497
Jacey 2493
Predestine 2491
Chevrolet 2490
Hunger 2488
Jetset 2484
Balisto 2483
Willpower 2476

You will notice that all these sires are within 54 TPI points of each other. That is a difference of less than 2%. The issue with this is that, according to CDN research, 95% of the time sires can vary by up to 20%, when comparing their genomic index to their eventual daughter proven evaluations (Read more: The truth about genomic indexes – “Show Me” They Work!). Applying that to the current list of sires and instead of looking at the top 10 sires you would instead need to look at all sires within 20% of the top sire, Supersire. Since Supersire is +2530 gPA TPI that means your short list would include all sires over 2000 TPI. Instead of 10 sires this means looking at the 1000 current sires.

Furthermore, genomics is not as much about identifying the top few sires you should be using, as it is about identifying the sires you should not be using. When you are looking at two full brothers and trying to decide which one to use or sample, if they are greater than 500 gTPI points apart you are better to use/sample the higher one. Or, if you can only afford to sample one of them then genomics would be a strong indicator of which one to sample. However, when they are much closer, genomics alone cannot make this decision with great accuracy.

For sires that are less than say 300 gTPI points apart you really cannot use their genomic total merit index numbers alone to make that mating decision. You are better to make a short list of sires that are within the 300 TPI points and then look for the sire that is the best corrective mating on your animal. Given how much sires change and how little difference there is in the top sires these days, you are far better making corrective mating your number one requirement and only using genomics to help determine your shortlist.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Genomics is only as good as the way it is used. If we begin thinking that the top short list is the be all and end all for mating decisions, we start to muddy the waters. You cannot use the top 10 gPA TPI sires alone for your mating programs. Instead you are better to look at the top 1000 sires and find the sire that is the best corrective mating.

Everyone l points to the few select top genomic sires and then bemoans how much they change with each proof round and eventually to their daughter proof. Genomics works best on the macro level and not at the micro level. Due to current 65% reliabilities and a limited differential between top sires, a genomic total merit index cannot be relied upon for the final answer. Genomics is a Macro level tool and not a Micro tool. If you are limiting your mating decisions to the top few sires, you are also limiting your genetic improvement program.

Think big. Find the genomic sires that will deliver the specific improvements that your cows need!

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Is There Still Going To Be A Market For Purebred Dairy Cattle In 10 Years?

· Comments (2)

Friday, February 1st, 2013

People are starting to realize that the old market for purebred cattle, if not dead, is definitely endangered. Why is this once “healthiest” of marketplaces facing the current flat line?

The basic assumption has always been that there is a premium for purebreds that is paid back on sale day. Ever since there have been purebred cattle there has been a movement to convince commercial operators of the value of owning purebreds and registering their cattle. For about the past 20 years the focus has gone from educating the commercial producer on the increased value of purebred cattle to making the process and the system a better fit for the commercial producer. While the intentions were great, this change in philosophy has ultimately led to the demise of the premium received for purebred cattle.

Industry vs. Breeders – Whose Fault Is It?

For years I have heard both sides of this discussion. Seed stock cattle breeders complain that industry executives in organizations like milk recording and A.I., as well as geneticists, would not know a good cow if one kicked them in the head. I have also heard the other side of this argument where these geneticists and officials complain that purebred seed stock breeders don’t know how to see the bigger picture and the two sides have batted heads at the board level all along the way.

The part that many people don’t understand is that these industry officials did not set out to harm seed stock breeders. Neither were they looking to discriminate against them. Rather they saw this group as a niche segment of the market place and thought they needed to serve the bigger picture instead of catering to this small, but vocal group.

For many years the only organizations that seemed to hear the cry of the seed stock breeders were the breed associations. Initially, the breed associations were great about trying to build new marketplaces, as well as trying to help educate commercial producers on why they should pay a premium for these purebred cattle. They also educated commercial producers that by registering their cattle they too would receive a premium when they went to sell these cattle. Ironically, all that changed when breed associations started to try to become a greater service provider to commercial producers, instead of building the marketplace for purebreds. This shift in emphasis from worldwide market potential to bottom line domestic cattle and membership numbers, as much as anything, killed the premium paid for purebreds.

It Started Slowly, but Got Rolling Quickly

In the beginning the changes were small. They simply made it easier for commercial operations to register their cattle. Then came subtle (and necessary) changes to the classification systems to target a more commercial friendly cow. Followed by significant changes where breed associations stopped being a marketplace developer and focused on being a service organization to the commercial producer.

While this helped increase registrations and showed that the breed as a whole was growing, the objective set out by our breeder boards, it started to have a small but significant side effect. As the system changed to be more commercial friendly, the premiums commercial producers were expecting to receive for selling purebred animals disappeared. Take a look at many of the sale barns today and compare the price of a grade fresh heifer to that of a registered one. There is not as much difference as there once was. There is certainly not enough for many commercial producers to justify the cost and effort of registration and type classification. Add to that the fact that in many regions and with certain high end sires, there are no longer semen incentives for young sire usage, semen cost for young sires is almost as expensive as proven, and commercial producers ask, “If it doesn’t make financial sense, why do it?”

Without that premium selling price, many producers will stop registering their cattle. With less herds registering, that means that costs for the programs will fall on the niche group of seed stock breeders. Breeders who already have less income from fresh animal sales, and like all milk producers are battling the increased cost of production and the decreased milk sale price. It certainly isn’t a time to take back additional expenses.

Yes, your top 0.1% index seed stock breeder is seeing greater prices than ever. In addition, there is certainly still value in consistent generation after generation breeding families that provide a stable investment (more on that to come next week) but we are talking your average every day purebred breeder. They have certainly seen the prices for fresh heifers go down. Many have attributed that to the introduction of sexed semen and genomics. I would contend it was more accurately due to the fact that the cost of milk production went up, milk prices worldwide went down, and commercial producers, the buyers of these animals, no longer see the need for the extra investment in the purebred pedigree they once did.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

By making that small shift from building the marketplace for purebred cattle, to trying to woo the commercial producers into registering their cattle, the industry as a whole has, in a sense, contributed to its own demise. Now all sides need to find a way to work together, before it’s too late.

Has the heart of the industry stopped? Is there time for resuscitation? Who knows marketplace CPR?

Get original “Bullvine” content sent straight to your email inbox for free.

Semen Prices Are Never Too High

· Comments (1)

Tuesday, January 8th, 2013

Many cattle breeders may be under-spending on semen. They have the mistaken idea that not spending is providing savings. What they are failing to consider is that short term savings could be causing expenses in the longer term. While the old adage “It takes money to make money.” seems cynical, there are times when it simply means there is good cause for loosening the purse strings.

Heifer Costs TODAY

A check of dairy heifer rearing costs for North America reveals a range between $1900 and $2200. For today’s discussion, let’s assume that that is the cost to produce an average proven sire daughter. It takes five doses of semen to get a heifer calf (including repeat services and a ratio of 50% bulls and 50% heifers). Therefore the cost to get a higher quality heifer is $ 2000 + 5 times the extra semen dose costs. That is the simple math and the simple answer is “Yes!” It costs more and the numbers could range, on average, from $25 to $50 extra per female bred per year.

What’s it WORTH to YOU?

It would be wonderful if you could dial in a one-size fits all answer to the complicated business of dairy cattle breeding. Since we can’t, we have to constantly analyze our business and the marketplace. Each dairy herd ultimately has to make semen buying decisions based on the answers to questions such as these ones:

Where are the genetics of your herd at today?
Where do you want your herd genetics to be in the future?
What financial or logistics issues affect your sire choices (i.e. herd size; availability of semen)?
What market are you targeting as your revenue stream (sales of milk, embryos or breeding stock?)

A Closer Look at SEMEN

Looking at recent economic studies we found that, on average, North American producers spend about 1.5% of their annual expenses on AI costs. On average that is $76 per cow per year and that does not include the on-farm labour costs for herds that inseminate their own animals. If, upon reading this, you are happy with where you fit in relation to the average, let’s remember “Being average today means that you will be behind tomorrow!”

At The Bullvine we are interested in which sires get used. We obtained the semen price lists for six major North American AI studs. Each organization has different product lines and their pricing strategies and customer focus groups also differ.

Our next study was to determine average semen prices, depending on a bull’s merit. For each organization we determined a weighted average semen price and compared categories of bulls to that average. The following chart shows how much extra you would have to spend on semen cost to get the targeted results. (See below)

What’s the DIFFERENCE?

Targeted Results	Extra Semen Cost per Dose
Average Proven Sire on Price Listings	$ 0
Sexed Semen	+ $19
Proven Sires
Over 2200 TPI and PTAT >2 or 2500 LPI and CONF >+10	+ $22
Over 2000 TPI and PTAT >1 or 2000 LPI and CONF >+5	$0
Other bulls	-$21
Net Merit > +$600	+ $10
Unproven Sires
Genomics TPI > 2200 or LPI > +2500	+ $ 18
Genomics TPI < 1800 or LPI < +2000	– $ 11
Net Merit > + $750	+ $ 12

Since neither Red nor Polled Sires on the price lists covered the genetic merit ranges listed above, a comparison for those categories was not possible.

An increase of $20 per dose is one thing when you’re looking at a 40 cow herd but it becomes quite significant in a herd of 500 cows. Is it a good investment or a worrisome expense?

What Is The Sexed Payback?

At the outset you have to accept that any payback from using sexed semen or will be three to four years down the road. With sexed semen, although there is lower conception and therefore it requires more doses per pregnancy, you are 90% sure of getting a female. Some breeders limit the use of sexed semen to their higher genetic merit animals. The payback is that they get more heifers from cow families they want to build from. Consider that 100 cows require an average of 30 replacements (a range form 20 to 40 dependent of herd). Using sexed semen on your top 50 cows will cost an additional $2850 ($19 x 3 or $57 in semen per cow). Your savings will have been in not rearing heifers from lower end cows. Those low end heifers can be sold at birth, vealed, bred for beef calves or used as embryo recipients. If you save $250 per cow per year in rearing fewer calves and getting some income from low end heifers calves, you save $25,000 for every 100 cows in one year. Why isn’t everyone using sexed semen? Simple answer: Sexed semen is not available on unproven or all top bulls.

Proven Semen: Show Me The Money?

The difference in semen cost between an average and top proven bull is $110 (5 x $22) per heifer calf. By selecting to solve herd problems (Read more – Fact vs. Fantasy: A Realistic Approach to Sire Selection and From Fantasy to Reality – Top Sires to Address Herd Culling Problems), here is what should you get for your money:

Less mastitis
Less feet problems
Less labour for calving problems
Less labour for health problems
Higher performance
Longer Productive Life

If you can save $250 per cow per year on these issues, you will net $14,000 per hundred cows. So you have invested $11,000 to get $25,000 back. A net of fourteen thousand is nothing to sneeze at. And, unlike with sexed semen, you should be able to target the bulls that provide the corrections that your herd needs.

You Could Get EVEN MORE MONEY.

There is a $29 difference (-$11 vs. +$18) between young sire with low genomics compared to one with high genomics. Here it gets into exactly which young sires you use. If you use the top ones, you reduce the risk of calving out the “dogs” from lower end genetic bulls. If it costs $2000 to raise a “dog” and she sells for $1500 (or less) you have lost $500 at the outset. On the other hand, the scenario of using the top genomics young bull produces a heifer with significantly more sale value than the $2000 cost to raise her. Using high genomics, you again have the potential for savings on mastitis, feet, calving and health problems. With genomic testing of your heifers, you also have the choice of not raising an animal that is undesirable for your target market. Granted there is an added cost of $45 but you potentially save on rearing costs, have parentage verified and you have a head start, if the numbers are high, of attracting interest from the marketplace.

Can You Bank On It?

Depending on your scenario, the opportunity to benefit from investing more dollars in semen can vary. Let`s look at different scenarios.

If you are heavily into ET and IVF, avoid sexed semen as it appears to give poor results. You are going to have to make your money back from using non-sexed semen from the top sires and merchandising some progeny from them to cover the added costs and more bull calves. (Read more – $10,000 a dose polled semen and $750 Dollar Semen! Are you crazy?)

If you are milking 500 cows, you can use both sexed semen and semen from top proven and genomics sires. Your challenge is that you will have to manage more breeding events but your rewards are that you do not need as large a heifer herd around for replacements and the ones you do have will be of a higher quality.

If you are working with robotics, you may feel that semen isn`t a big issue that you are more concerned with cows that work within your system. However, you have already got the savings on labour and you can invest some of those dollars back into raising the genetic level of your herd. This could be a new revenue stream to assist your bottom-line. (Read more: Robotic Milking: More than just automation it’s a new style of herd management)

Low Cost Semen Actually Costs More Money

If, over several years of breeding, you consistently choose your semen based on low cost, you are not only falling behind the genetic curve but you are also not solving the problems that your herd has.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

The bottom line is that if you really want to move forward in today’s dairy breeding business, you’re going to have to invest money in semen! Lose the death grip on your wallet.

When the sires you use meet your on-farm needs, semen is never too expensive!!

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Preferential Treatment – The Bull Proof Killer

· Comments (6)

Monday, January 7th, 2013

Accuracy of bull proofs has been one of the biggest challenges for dairy cattle improvement for many years. It has been well known that top index cows have always received some level of “preferential treatment” and as a result their indexes have been inflated. Usually this didn’t affect their sire’s proof since they were usually already proven sires and when weighted with many other daughters this had little to no effect on the sires proofs. Enter genomics and large portions of young sire daughters receiving preferential treatment and this could have huge effects on the proofs of these genomic index bulls. There is no question that the current systems around the world cannot account for this preferential treatment and as a result many genomic sires’ first proofs will be inflated.

In the past when young sires were sampled they were used across many different herd environments and regions. I remember when regionally proven sire (California, etc) or breeder proven sires were released. Many breeders where hesitant to use them because they were not confident that these sires proofs would hold up. Young sire programs in the past offered semen at low cost or pretty much free (when you factor in incentives) to many different breeders in order to ensure that the sire got enough daughters and that they would be able to achieve a reliable proof.

Does random sampling still exist?

Young sires are no longer randomly sampled. In today’s genomic age, a lot of the systems and controls are gone. Yes, many of the sires are still offered to all breeders, but these high-ranking young sires are sold at a much higher price, and marketed much heavier. In addition often the first release semen is only used on contract matings on extremely high index, carefully selected mates. This results in anything but random sampling and in reality is almost the perfect method for receiving an inflated proof. It isn’t just because of the actual mates they are being used on but also because of the care the resulting calves will receive.

Why do daughters receive preferential treatment?

Think about it, if you have paid upward of $750 for a dose of semen (Read more – $750 Dollar Semen! Are you crazy?) to be used on your most valuable animals, wouldn’t you make sure you protected your investment by giving them the best care possible? It is well known that top index cattle around the world have received over inflated indexes as a result of preferential treatment. The problem is ‘how do we account for the biases?

Does the current system account for preferential treatment?

Genetic evaluation systems assume that all animals in the herd are treated equally. Yet while there is nothing wrong with a breeder wanting to ensure their return on their investment in these top genetic animals, it certainly causes many problems when accounting for it in the genetic evaluations of these animals. (Read more – The Hot House Effect on Sire Sampling).

Most “animal-model” genetic evaluations in the world account for the genetic merit of a sire’s mates. However, when the US first added females to their genomic reference set they actually got lower reliabilities as a result of inaccuracies in female’s proofs due to preferential treatment. That is why some countries actually leave female genomic data out of their reference sets, as a large portion of the females are these high index animals that, in many cases, have received preferential treatment. In the US they actually implemented a scaling-effect adjustment to bring those top females down. The US has also implemented a new single-step model that includes genomic and traditional data together designed to account for this in bull proofs. Other countries are also looking for potential solutions. This includes potentially withholding early data from evaluations as well as other options. The challenge is that no one has found a real solution to the actual problem, and steps so far just mask the issue with scale downs and other band-aids.

How to identify preferential treatment?

I recently attended a GEB session put on by CDN (Canadian Dairy Network) where they gave a presentation on accounting for herd bias. Brian Van Doormaal presented a few different ways he theorized would identify bulls’ daughters who might have received this preferential treatment. One indicator he presented of possible preferential treatment was if a high percentage of a bull’s early offering were the result of ET. Another indicator he looked at was the percentage of daughters that have been genotyped. However, neither delivered conclusive results. Another suggestion that was presented was increasing the number of daughters a sire needs in order to receive an official proof. The challenge with that is that A.I. companies and most high profile breeders are wanting sires to get a proof as quickly as possible and increasing the requirements will cause delay. In addition, analysis of semen price so far does not show it to be a great predictor either. Currently there are simply no answers.

In Brian’s presentation he equated this problem to the challenges we have seen with second-country proofs. In Canada bulls like Shottle, Planet and more recently Man-O-Man (Read more – Man-O-Man will he turn platinum? and Is Man-O-Man really going to be a sire of sons?) that come through with initial Canadian proofs over 3500 LPI, which everyone knows to be unrealistic, in time saw their proofs drop 300+ points with the addition of more daughters. Van Doormaal also comments that you could expect bulls like Snowman, and genomic sires to do the same.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Currently there are no definitive answers only growing concerns. This preferential treatment problem is going to get greater attention, as more high profile genomic sires, priced high and highly marketed will start to receive proofs in 2013. The industry must be proactive about this issue. If not we are going to see breeder confidence in proofs decrease, instead of increase, because of genomics. That would be a killer!

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Bullvine Performance Index (BPI) – Top Sires December 2012

· Comments (0)

Friday, January 4th, 2013

While there is no doubt that national composite index’s (TPI^TM, LPI, PLI etc.) are great marketing tools, recently there has been discussion about their merits as actual genetic advancement tools. With each index providing “home field” advantage to domestic animals and many out of date with where the industry is headed, we here at the Bullvine have developed the Bullvine Performance Index (BPI).

In the BPI we use direct genomic values instead of parent averages and we also incorporate reliabilities, in order to greater account for animals whose indexes stand the best chance of being stable over time. As far as what traits we looked at, we have used an equally balanced weighting between production, longevity and health and fertility, as we see that emphasis represents where the market is heading. We also include a small component (MPS) that factors in dam, 2^nd dam and 3^rd dam actual performance irrelevant of country of origin, as per our discussion with many breeders who feel that this should have some weight. Instead of trying to be reactionary to the marketplace like most composite indexes, we are trying to be leading and ahead of the market. We also are publishing BPI as a percentage so that it is clear just how far apart each animal is from each other. Since this is a ranking index we felt it was more important to show the range between animals than to give a number that technically means nothing.

Top 50 BPI Sires

Sire Name	BPI	Production	Longevity	Health and Fertility	MPS
MR LOOKOUT P ENFORCER-ET	100%	97%	94%	78%	96%
LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN-ET	94%	99%	60%	19%	96%
COYNE-FARMS DORCY-ET	93%	58%	93%	50%	95%
SOUTHERN-HILLS BAYARD-ET	90%	68%	87%	78%	99%
HAMMER-CREEK FRED KRUNCH-ET	89%	74%	77%	84%	96%
GOLDDAY	89%	45%	96%	47%	99%
ZANI BOLTON MASCALESE ET	87%	94%	64%	34%	94%
TEXEL BEAUTY COSMO-ET	86%	77%	81%	54%	98%
AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO ET	86%	65%	92%	70%	96%
CO-OP BOSSIDE MASSEY-ET	85%	79%	48%	59%	92%
UFM-DUBS OLEGANT-ET	85%	48%	66%	70%	95%
BADGER-BLUFF FANNY FREDDIE	85%	74%	51%	63%	89%
RMW ANCHOR-ET	85%	82%	84%	67%	96%
FARNEAR-TBR-BH CASHMONEY-ET	84%	84%	92%	52%	99%
MOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL-ET	84%	83%	89%	43%	97%
LIRR DREW DEMPSEY	84%	34%	85%	49%	97%
RMW DORCY AMBROSE-ET	83%	59%	100%	61%	96%
CERVI ALLEMAR ET	83%	39%	74%	79%	94%
WABASH-WAY EXPLODE-ET	83%	58%	87%	28%	96%
MR LOOKOUT P EMBARGO-ET	83%	84%	91%	43%	96%
CRACKHOLM FEVER	81%	33%	85%	42%	96%
STANTONS BOOKKEEPER	80%	84%	86%	53%	95%
SEAGULL-BAY SARGEANT-ET	80%	97%	62%	50%	94%
CO-OP O-STYLE OMAN JUST-ET	80%	66%	40%	66%	96%
CERVI PHONIC	80%	38%	48%	100%	94%
FARNEAR-TBR-BH CASHCOIN-ET	79%	92%	74%	41%	99%
CO-OP BOOKEM YUXI	78%	75%	95%	53%	93%
O-BEE MANFRED JUSTICE-ET	78%	85%	11%	50%	93%
DE-SU JEROD 1223-ET	77%	82%	83%	60%	93%
COYNE-FARMS DORCY YIM-ET	77%	61%	87%	65%	92%
GENERVATIONS LIQUID GOLD	77%	100%	79%	27%	98%
MR LOOKOUT PSC ALTADRUM-ET	77%	99%	55%	57%	97%
COYNE-FARMS BOLTON DOM-ET	76%	70%	70%	21%	95%
COYNE-FARMS JACEY CRI-ET	76%	82%	64%	69%	94%
GEN-I-BEQ BRAWLER	76%	56%	68%	18%	97%
WELCOME BOL LATHAM-ET	75%	93%	50%	7%	99%
SILDAHL JETT AIR-ET	75%	41%	79%	42%	96%
MORNINGVIEW LEVI	75%	86%	35%	35%	96%
DE-SU GILLESPY-ET	74%	72%	77%	0%	96%
COYNE-FARMS SHOTLE YANCE-ET	74%	87%	42%	37%	91%
DE-SU DISTINCTION 11130-ET	74%	92%	83%	40%	96%
REGANCREST ALTAIOTA-ET	73%	68%	49%	36%	97%
SYNERGY ALTAJENKINS	73%	47%	58%	67%	94%
S-S-I PEOTI MOWGLI-ET	73%	86%	61%	66%	95%
SULLY MCCORD 269-ET	72%	93%	69%	44%	94%
TOLLENAARS ALTAQUALITY	72%	54%	48%	67%	93%
S-S-I BOOKEM MORGAN-ET	71%	86%	65%	61%	95%
CROCKETT-ACRES EIGHT-ET	70%	79%	16%	29%	100%
S-S-I PEOTI MANSUR-ET	70%	88%	62%	53%	95%
GENERVATIONS FUZION	70%	88%	55%	52%	98%

Key Findings

One of the neat things we found in developing this index is that it is able to give a realistic comparison between sires from all countries.
Even more importantly it also gives a good comparison of genomic test sires versus proven sires. Four of the top ten sires are proven sires, as compared to most national indexes that, when combining the genomic sires and the proven sires would find that at least nine if not all ten would be genomic test sires.
Outside of MR LOOKOUT P ENFORCER most of the sires are very close and really do warrant that you make sure you use the corrective mating for your specific animal as opposed to just using the top 5 or 10 bulls.
Another finding was the ability for second crop sires to also compare favorably with genomic test sires. Besides Man-O-Man (LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN-ET) other second crop sires who come up high are UFM-DUBS ALTAESQUIRE-ET (BPI of 68%) and BRAEDALE GOLDWYN (BPI of 66%). This demonstrates that these high reliability sires very much still have value in many mating programs.

Highlights

There is no question that MR LOOKOUT P ENFORCER offers an extremely balanced package. His strong production numbers combined with his extreme type and longevity with good health and fertility traits will have him be a sire of sons worldwide. He may be hard to get your hands on as he is just one year old and he may only be released for contract matings. This Marbri Facebook son has the highest DGVs in the breed. Look for him to sire extreme component yields from strong dairy cattle with great feet and legs. One area to be cautious on using him is his body depth. Both his sire stack and his DGVs would say this area needs protecting.
There is no question that this last proof round Man-O-Man (LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN) stole the show. His outstanding second crop daughter numbers have many top index breeders going back and using him again. His extreme production numbers have him and his daughters in high demand. With many sons like UNO also coming on the scene and offering a more balanced offering, it’s important to make sure you use Man-O-Man or maybe GENERVATIONS LIQUID GOLD when looking for the splash of production for a high type, high health and fertility mating. However hold off, if you are looking to improve those areas. Use a more balanced sire like MR LOOKOUT P ENFORCER-ET or maybe SOUTHERN-HILLS BAYARD-ET.
Coming up strong, as he keeps adding daughter numbers, is COYNE-FARMS DORCY. Look for Dorcy to sire balanced dairy cattle that have great udders and very good feet & legs, though he will need to be protected for dairy strength, fat percent and, specifically, for his body depth and chest width.
Also catching our eye are a couple of Freddie sons – SOUTHERN-HILLS BAYARD and HAMMER-CREEK FRED KRUNCH. Both these sires offer a greater type and longevity option over their sire BADGER-BLUFF FANNY FREDDIE who suffers on our BPI index as his second and third dam’s classification and performance scores are low.
The top non- North American sire on our list is GOLDDAY. Goldday is a Goldwyn son from A-L-H DESTINY VG-87-3YR-USA DOM GMD. Destiny is of course the popular bull mother from Markwell Durham Daisy (Read more – Markwell Durham Daisy – 2012 Golden Dam Finalist), proven in Germany. Goldday is also the full brother to former #1 German sire Danillo. Look for Goldday to sire unbelievable udders and legs as well as long herd life. One area where you will want to protect Goldday is rump angle. Be cautious in using him on cattle that need production improvement.

The Bottom Line

It is difficult to keep track of all the top animals and compare them accurately. Trying to compare genomic sires with proven sires with each country having their own index with apparent bias makes it doubly hard. Having said that, comparisons are instructive for informed decision-making. That is why we developed the BPI formula. Contrary to popular belief that you need to be using 100% genomic sires to accelerate your genetic advancement, our analysis shows absolutely that there are proven sires that should be used in order to minimize your risk and still achieve the greatest results.

Stanton Brothers – Doing it right

· Comments (0)

Thursday, January 3rd, 2013

In my career I have had the good fortune of getting to know and work with Ken Blanchard, bestselling business author of all time and creator of The One Minute Manager. One of the great things that Ken has always said to me is that you cannot always be catching people doing things wrong, you also need to highlight when people are doing things right. It’s for that reason that since I did point out the recent challenges Stanton Brothers had been having in proving sires, that I also highlight when they are doing things right.

Under pressure from recent publicity, including an article here on the Bullvine that pointed out that since the introduction of genomics the average Stanton Brother proven sire had actual daughter performance approximately 712 LPI lower than their parent averages (Read more – The Hot House Effect on Sire Sampling), Stanton’s’ placed an ad in the recent Holstein Journal with some interesting Facts and Stats – as follows:

#1 Red Proven Sire
#1 GPA LPI Conformation Sire
#2 GPA LPI Sire Released in Canada
15 Cows on the Top 100 GLPI list
16 Heifers on the Top 100 GPA LPI Under 9 Month Old List
19 Heifers on the Top 100 GPA LPI Over 9 Month Old List
3 Heifers on the Top 12 GPA LPI Polled List
135 Head Over +2200 GTPI

I love that Stanton Brothers have taken this proactive approach. However, it did slightly miss the mark as most of these animals are still unproven and the publicity was about the inability to convert from unproven to proven. As well, many on this list are from recent purchases of females (Read more – Genetics by Design Crosses the $4,000,000 Mark) and not proven sires.

Nevertheless we commend Stanton Brothers for taking a proactive approach to managing their PR and continued investment in top genetics. Everyone needs an action plan for dealing with negative publicity. We would recommend the following five steps:

Look into the problem
Identify the cause, if it’s not obvious. Get experts to verify/debunk any claims/rumors before making a public statement. The best way to regain credibility is to quash unsubstantiated rumors with hard-hitting facts. If the bad publicity is based on facts as this is, best to move on to #2.
Acknowledge mistakes.
If you’re receiving negative publicity because you made a mistake, people will trust you more if you own up to any issues, rather than if you attempt to cover up what happened. “That way they understand that if there is ever [another] problem, they can trust that you can be approached about it.”
Get on Facebook
The vast majority of conversation these days is occurring on Facebook. Instead of just hitting the few thousand magazine subscribers, hit the tens of thousands that are online talking. It’s more than just having a Facebook page, it`s about joining the community and taking part in the conversation. (Read more – 7 Reasons Why Your Dairy Farm Needs to be on Facebook)
Enlist supporters to speak on your behalf.
You can’t underestimate the power of satisfied clients. When negative publicity surfaces, your loyal customers are often your best advocates. It is best if you can get these people to comment right at the source of the bad publicity. On the other hand, don`t leave them hanging out there on their own.
Follow up continually
After the initial storm has subsided, do not let up with re-building your image. Once dented, your image will be vulnerable to attacks for some time to come.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Negative publicity is never easy to deal with. With the introduction of social media things have greatly amplified (Read more – How Social Media is Changing The Holstein World). It’s no longer just a couple of people talking over the bulk tank, it’s thousands of people talking around the world. When bad publicity happens you need to act fast. Even for breeders who have not faced the challenge of negative publicity, it is still important to have a public relations strategy in order to promote your herd (Read more – Marketing Lessons from Glen Drummond Aero Flower). You absolutely must stay engaged!

To learn more about how to get your farm on Facebook download the Dairy Breeders Guide to Facebook

RF Goldwyn Hailey: Cash Cow or Cash Hog?

· Comments (0)

Thursday, December 20th, 2012

2012 was certainly an amazing year for RF Goldwyn Hailey and her owners Gen-Com Holsteins. There was a time that when winning Supreme Champion at both the World Dairy Expo (Read more – World Dairy Expo 2012 Holstein Show – A Battle for the Ages ) and The Royal (Read more – The 2012 Royal Winter fair Holstein Show – One of the greatest stories ever told!) would have been a license to print money. Your name would be legendary and you could milk that cash cow for years and years to come (Read more – The Story Behind How Two Full Sisters Dominated Expo Quebec). However, with recent changes in the marketplace (Read more – Who Killed the Market for Good Cattle? and the Insiders Guide to What Sells at the Big Dairy Auctions) the question becomes,”Is Hailey a cash cow or a cash hog?”

RF GOLDWYN HAILEY EX-97-2E (CAN)
GRAND QC INTERNATIONAL 2012
GRAND MADISON 2012
RES.GRAND ROYAL 2011

In years past a cow such as Hailey would have been a cash cow for her owners Gen-Com Holsteins. Today she appears to be more of a cash hog, not only is she not providing the rivers of cash that most would expect but actually she requires that capital/cash that being a show cow at the level of Hailey demands.

The Financial Numbers Behind Hailey

Before you think I am certifiably crazy, let’s take a closer look at the numbers. First of all consider the recent World Classic Sale at Madison. Hailey’s Sid daughter sold for $30,000 (Read more – World Classic 2012 Highlights). It is also well known that embryos are in high demand, so let’s put a value of $5,000 per embryo from Hailey. Now a couple of factors that make Hailey a little different from your average cow is that you cannot flush her as often and that she costs a lot to take care of. Often Hailey is housed a custom facility costing a lot more than your average housing. Using the Return on Investment Calculator, we plugged the follow numbers in using a conventional embryo transfer program:

Boarding expense per day $20
Years of productive embryo production – 3
Flushes per year – 4
Flush strike out ratio 25%
Base cost per flush $ 650.00
Cost per embryo $ 150.00
Recipient price $ 1,500.00
Conception rate of recipients 45%
Sale price per embryo $ 5,000.00
Sale price per live heifer $ 30,000.00
Advertising expense/year $ 5,000.00
Other promotion expense $ 10,000.00
Number of embryos per flush 8

What we find, when using Microsoft Excel’s Goal Seek function, is that the current break even value for RF Goldwyn Hailey is $212,808.40. This is what she is worth based on the sale price of her genetics currently. If you think using IVF makes things better think again, remember that you have about an extra $5,000 to $7,500 in expense in order to produce an IVF female (Read more – IVF: Boom or Bust for the Dairy Industry).

Why Pay So Much?

Now I know you’re saying, “Hey Hailey is the greatest show cow in the world, and we see cows like Cookview Goldwyn Monique EX-92 sell for $490,000 at the International Intrigue Sale (Read More – International Intrigue – The Secret Is Exposed).” Looking for answers, I figured I would go directly to the source. In our interview just before the Royal with Monique’s co-owner Jeff Butler of Butlerview Farms, Jeff made a very interesting comment that caught my attention. He pointed out that “Type brings the foot traffic to the farm. But genomics and pedigree get them buying.” (Read more Exciting Times at Butlerview).

COOKVIEW GOLDWYN MONIQUE VG-89-3YR-CAN
Show Winnings:
INT.CHAMP ROYAL 2012
INT.CHAMP MADISON 2012
RES.GRAND MADISON 2012

Think about it. Here is a guy who very clearly understands the marketplace and has invested in what is probably the best show string in the world today. With some of the prices they have paid, you wonder how they could ever make a profit on these animals. But then his comments start to make more sense to me. They don’t need to make their profit from each of these animals. Some of these animals are purchased to get people through the door.

It’s with that single change in thinking that everything becomes much clearer. It’s like having a great playmaker in Hockey. They may not score all the goals (i.e. make all the profits) but what they do is make every player around them play much better. You see you can have a team of super stars but if they can’t work together, you can’t win (Look at the NBA’s L.A. Lakers our Baseballs L.A. Dodgers). The same is true in the elite genomics world. Having a team of show super stars on their own will not make you rich. What you need, in addition to them, are cattle that you paid far less for, but since the super stars are attracting the attention, buyers are willing to pay more for the progeny of these other great animals.

In Butlerview’s case, this model still means buyers are accessing some of the best genomic animals in the world. Furthermore, instead of Butlerview having to spend that much more in marketing or advertising, the money spent on these top show cows helps decrease marketing expense of these Genomic animals, They drive up traffic and demand so that Butlerview can make their margins with the Genomic animals. When you start to look at it as a genetic operation as a whole and not so much on a cow by cow basis only, purchases like Monique make a lot of sense. Dollars and cents.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

There is no question that everyone loves to win, and that RF Goldwyn Hailey did a lot of that in 2012. It’s also important to make money. That is where the Butlerview model makes a lot of sense. Use the type super stars to get buyers through the door and have plenty of other high genomic and high pedigree animals right there to help convert that traffic into cash. It’s not that you make your money off the super star herself. You make your money from how much easier the super star makes it to sell the genetics from your other cattle. It’s at this point that I realize that some of these show super stars are not cash hogs, but actually agents for other cash cows.

Not sure how much to spend on that great 2 year old or heifer?
Want to make sure you are investing your money wisely?
Download our Dairy Cow Investment Calculator.

IVF: Boom or Bust for the Dairy Industry

· Comments (0)

Monday, December 17th, 2012

With the introduction of Genomics to the dairy industry the marketplace has greatly changed. And while this may be true, the silent factor that many don’t consider is in vitro fertilization (IVF). While Genomics is changing what the marketplace is looking for (Read more – An Insider’s Guide to What Sells at the Big Dairy Cattle Auctions), IVF has changed who in the marketplace are actually able to make money. Causing boom for a select few but a bust for many others.

Through IVF we can get way more progeny/genetics from the top cattle. This causes an abundance of supply in the marketplace. With greater supply at the top end but not equally greater demand, the prices for all sectors in the marketplace are forced downward.

In the past, when embryo exporters were looking to fill orders, they may be held to a threshold of +2500 LPI or +1,900 TPI. Now since there is so much more supply at the top end, their threshold has risen to +3,200 LPI or +2,500 TPI. Have a look at our recent analysis of the public auction of live cattle. You will see that the very top cattle draw the high prices and then the prices drop significantly (Read more – Who Killed the Market for Good Dairy Cattle?).

No big deal you say?

Well actually it is. When the threshold gets that high you are talking about less than the top 0.5% of the breed. This means that those at the very top who have that base can supply this market. All those others who used to do embryo transfer work, partly for genetic advancement of their herd and partly for profit, now have no market for their embryos. They are having to rethink whether they can even afford to do the embryo work in their herd, without the added revenue from embryo sales, it’s hard to justify the expense.

As pointed out in a recent Holstein International article, Genomics has certainly created a gold rush, but not for the breeders, but rather for the embryo transfer companies. During the gold rush, a few diggers struck it rich, while many others strike out (Just like those in the genomic market). The one sure way to have made money during the gold rush was to be a supplier of equipment, food, or clothing to the diggers. As Holstein International points out, the service provider in the Genomic gold rush is the embryo transfer industry and its range of advanced technologies.

These are Big Changes. Are they Good or Bad?

In our interview earlier this year with Mark Allen PhD, Director of Marketing and Genomics for Trans Ova (Read more – Fast Track Genetics: More Results in Less Time), a company that has performed ovum pickup aspirations on 8,668 in the first 8 months of this year alone, we asked Mark if these changes were good or bad for the industry. The following was his response:

“It is human nature, when presented with the latest greatest technology to look for the downside. You ask yourself, “What is the worst case scenario?” Some breeders may be concerned that the market is being flooded, leaving no room for the middle market cattle. To that comment, Dr. Allan gives this well-considered response, “Many technology improvements have led to dramatic increases in genetic improvement. One of the early changes that led to a giant leap in genetic gain was implementation of artificial insemination (AI) in the dairy industry. This technology is widely accepted today and used by producers large and small. Historically, each time a new technology has been introduced to the reproductive technology continuum, there has been some resistance and trepidation about how it will affect breeders. Changes in the marketplace may require that producers have to make a change in how they utilize their animals coupled with available technology. This may mean changing the current paradigm that exists for some segments of the industry.”

Are you ready to change?

One person who has seen this coming is the forward thinking David Dyment. While David is very well known for his work with Glen Drummond and Dymentholm Genetics, (Read more – Marketing Lessons from Glen Drummond Aero Flower) as well as being the Associate Judge at the 2012 World Dairy Expo (Read more – World Dairy Expo 2012 Holstein Show – A Battle for the Ages). David saw where the market was heading and in 2009 formed a partnership with Mike and Julie Ducket and established Genetic Futures. A 300-acre farm in Wisconsin that has became a satellite base Trans Ova, housing top donors and recipient services are provided.

I think it’s significant when a person like David Dyment, who has worked with high-end show cattle, high-end index animals and, as well, has run the roads filling commercial orders, is now focusing on being a supplier of the service and not the product. The market has changed drastically. Breeders are only left with three options:

You can either purchase and be the supplier of those top genetics, which is extremely costly to buy and almost equally as costly to produce;
You can do traditional embryo for personal use only and avoid the high cost of IVF;
You can go broke trying to compete in a market that is just too saturated.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

As long as breeders of the top genomic index animals continue to over supply the marketplace through technologies like IVF, there will only be a market for the very select few. So next time you decide to do a flush, make sure you are doing it for the right reasons. If it’s to advance the genetics in your own herd? Great! If it’s to get rich from embryo sales? Maybe you should think again.

Not sure how much to spend on that great 2 year old or heifer?
Want to make sure you are investing your money wisely?
Download our Dairy Cow Investment Calculator.

Pine-Tree Monica Planeta Is the New Genomic Super Star Maker

· Comments (0)

Tuesday, December 11th, 2012

Sandy-Valley Farms, located in central Wisconsin, is owned and operated by three brothers, David, Patrick and Frank Bauer Jr. A fourth brother, Greg, helps with the breeding and marketing programs. Frank’s daughter Danae manages the calf program and assists Greg with the breeding and marketing programs. The Bauer family farms 1500 acres and milks 450 Holsteins in a free stall set-up. Embryo transfer and IVF are important tools in their program. We are already familiar with Sandy Valley families which include names like Sandy Valley Bolton, the outstanding sire with top daughters and now sons. It is exciting to talk with Greg about the future they are building toward at Sandy Valley.

Start with Clear Goals and Go Beyond

In talking about their success, Greg clarifies the breeding goals that are the basis they build from at Sandy Valley Farms. “We aim to breed a cow that can respected by the commercial dairymen, yet admired by the type enthusiast.” As simple as that sounds Greg acknowledges that it can be complicated. “When you set your breeding goals it is easy to play it safe. However it is going to take new genetic strategies to meet the needs of the new genetics marketplace.” He says with encouragement knowing that it is only by taking risks that Sandy Valley is making progress. Pine-Tree Monica Planeta-ET is an example of a foundation cow that has the potential to launch superstar generations.

PINE-TREE MONICA PLANETA-ET VG-85-2YR

Attracted by Planetas

Hindsight is always 20/20. That’s why it’s great to hear from breeders who have the good fortune to pick a winner. Greg ticks off the points that attracted Sandy Valley to Planeta: “She was from a proven sire; possessed a high genomic rank in comparison to age-mates and paternal sisters; and she was from a cow family that had has brought us success in the past.” Greg then describes why she fits so well with the Sandy Valley breeding goals, “Planeta is a modern freestall cow. Moderate in stature with plenty of strength and width. She has a nice spring to her rib, a silky hide and an attractive cut to her front end and shoulder. Her udder is soundly attached with great cleft and teat placement. She has somewhat more set to her rear leg than optimal but possesses a clean, flat bone.” He saves the best adjectives for last, “Planeta tracks beautifully and almost glides when she walks.”

New Genomic Stars at Sandy Valley Revolve Around Planeta

First let’s take a look at Planeta’s own record:

Pine-Tree Monica Planeta
Sire: Planet
VG-85 VVV+V @ 2-7 DOM
2-01 2x 184 15564 3.8 598 3.3 508 (incomplete)
GTPI +2239 gTPI 697 NM$ 2.88 PTAT
In August 2012, Planeta was the #12 GTPI cow and dam of the #2 GTPI heifer. She had 4 daughters over 2400G, a Numero Uno son over +2500 and a Sudan son over +2400 GTPI.
The starts in her orbit expanded with the December 2012 Proof Indexes. She now has 9 daughters over DGV LPI 3000: 5 Numero Unos; 2 Epics; 1 Armitage and 1 Banco daughter. Outstanding!

Planeta Daughters Start Their Own Outstanding Orbits

The numbers definitely proclaim that Numero Uno has been the best cross on Planeta. Looking at those first six daughters, there were three over +2400 gPA TPI.


*Penelope*	(Numero Uno)	+2647 gPA TPI +3.50 PTAT +3716 gPA LPI +4156 DGV LPI
*Paxton*	(Numero Uno)	++2524 gPA TPI +2.64 PTAT +3463 gPA LPI +3713 DGV LPI
*Precious*	(Numero Uno)	++2503 gPA TPI +3.22 PTAT +3509 gPA LPI +3892 DGV LPI
*Paisley*	(Numero Uno)	+2447 gPA TPI +3.30 PTAT +3282 gPA LPI +3483 DGV LPI

Planeta & Ammon-Peachey Shauna: These Genomic Hits are Both “Miss”es

Even while we stand in awe of the offspring of Planeta, research tells us that it really could or should have been expected because of Planeta’s shared lineage with the outstanding Ammon-Peachy Shauna (Read more – AMMON-PEACHEY SHAUNA – 2012 Golden Dam Finalist). Three generations back Shauna and Planeta trace their heritage to Wesswood MH Rudy Missy and her daughters, Miss Martha, in the case of Planeta, and Miss. Monica, for Shauna. They have the exact same sire stack: Planet x Shottle x Oman x Rudolph. Definitely Planeta is a fully functioning contributor to an all-star family.

PINE-TREE MONICA PLANETA VG-2YR-USA	AMMON-PEACHY SHAUNA VG-87-2YR-USA DOM
PINE-TREE MONICA SUELA VG-87 DOM	PINE-TREE MARTHA SHEEN VG-86-3YR-USADOM 1*
PINE-TREE MISSY MONICA VG-85-5YR-USA DOM GMD	PINE-TREE MISSY MARTHA VG-86-4YR-USA DOM
WESSWOOD-HC RUDY MISSY EX-92-3E-USA DOM GMD

Other Prominent Cow Families at Sandy Valley

You know that Sandy Valley has high goals in mind that includes establishing other great cow families. Greg lists them for us: “The Barbies, Dellias, Rudolph Missy, Ravens, Bolton Music, Terry Tory, Juror Faith, Cosmopolitans, and Oman 6121.

Using Genomics to Look Toward the Future

Greg has a simple viewpoint on why you should use young sires on top cow families. “Use young sires to maximize genetic progress.” He states emphatically and then looks into the future realistically, “Granted all high G young sires won’t stay high but then neither do all high proven bulls once their second crop is in the system.” Sandy Valley Farm looks for certain attributes for all young sires they use. “GTPI ranking and overall transmitting pattern are taken into account, as well as the cow family they stem from. We also prefer those out of proven sires such as “Freddie, Man-O-Man, Massey, Snowman and Super.” He notes that “We are currently using a wide variety of high G young sires and a few of the highest GPTI proven sires.

Advice for Those Seeking Sky High Success

Every great herd starts with a plan and Greg advises everyone to start with this end in mind. “Consider your goals. If you’re most interested in building a sound, functional herd with few ‘2yr old mistakes’ stay with proven sires, especially those with 2^nd crop information.” Greg then goes on to suggest another option. “If you’re interested in working at the cutting edge of genetic improvement, incorporate some of the high G young sires.” Like all other parts of the discussion, he rounds out the advice: “When using young sires, it’s often best to spread your risk and use more than just one.” Cautionary and visionary at the same time.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

It is always wonderful when we can benefit from the insights of great cattle breeding families. Sandy Valley Farm is building their success on a solid cow family foundation. We wish them well as they take Planeta and go where genomics has never gone before!

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Top BPI Heifers From Around the World

· Comments (2)

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

Since the DNA revolution (i.e. Genomics) AI organizations worldwide are more and more frequently using heifers as bull dams. With so many different countries and different systems it’s hard to determine just what heifers truly are the best in the world. We here at the Bullvine decided to bring some clarity. The following is our analysis.

There are many different indexes and each index offers “home field advantage” to animals that are tested and developed within that country. It is hard to compare animals from around the world on one single ranking. It seemed logical to develop the Bullvine Performance Index (BPI). In the BPI we use direct genomic values instead of parent averages and we also incorporate reliabilities, in order to account for animals whose indexes stand the best chance of being stable over time. As far as what traits we looked at, we have used an equally balanced weighting between production, longevity and health and fertility, as we see that emphasis represents where the market is heading. Instead of trying to be reactionary to the marketplace like most composite indexes, we are trying to be leading and ahead of the market. We also are publishing BPI as a percentage so that it is clear just how far apart each animal is from each other. Since this is a ranking index we felt it was more important to show the range between animals than to give a number that technically means nothing.

Top 50 BPI Heifers

Name	Country	Sire	MGS	BPI (%)
SANDY-VALLEY NU PENELOPE	USA	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	ENSENADA TABOO PLANET	100.0
DE-SU UNO 2145	USA	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	DE-SU OBSERVER	99.0
S-S-I UNO MARA 8395	USA	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	LADYS-MANOR PL SHAMROCK	95.1
SANDY-VALLEY UNO PAXTON	USA	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	ENSENADA TABOO PLANET	93.1
MS LOOKOUT PSC COBRABRYN	USA	WALHOWDON RUSSELL COBRA	LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN	92.8
DE-SU 1851	USA	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	CO-OP BOSSIDE MASSEY	91.6
LEVEL-PLAIN GONZO DEMI	USA	CURRAJUGLE GONZO	RIDGE-STAR JAMMER	91.6
SANDY-VALLEY NU PRECIOUS	USA	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	ENSENADA TABOO PLANET	90.1
S-S-I GARROLD MORT 7923	USA	WELCOME GARROLD	RAMOS	90.1
STE ODILE MOON MODEL AMALUNA	CAN	PELLERAT MOON	LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN	90.1
DE-SU 1451	USA	LADYS-MANOR PL SHAMROCK	LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN	89.9
DE-SU ECOYNE 2024	USA	ECOYNE ISY	RONELEE TOYSTORY DOMAIN	89.8
LOOKOUT PESCE PONDE KARLA	CAN	GENERVATIONS EPIC	LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN	89.5
MS MOVIESTAR SHAKER	USA	ROYLANE SOCRA ROBUST	ENSENADA TABOO PLANET	89.5
MS DAYA DAIRY QUEEN	USA	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	RONELEE TOYSTORY DOMAIN	89.0
STANTONS UNO EDDY	CAN	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	DE-SU OBSERVER	88.0
BLUE-HORIZON OSTYLE GEM	USA	BLUE-HORIZON OSTYLE GEM	ENSENADA TABOO PLANET	87.8
OCONNORS LAST HOPE	CAN	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	ENSENADA TABOO PLANET	87.4
LOOKOUT PESCE EPIC HUE	CAN	GENERVATIONS EPIC	LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN	87.3
DE-SU 1861	USA	VA-EARLY-DAWN SUDAN CRI	CHARLESDALE SUPERSTITION	87.3
S-S-I MOGUL SUPER 7913	USA	MOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL	CHARLESDALE SUPERSTITION	87.3
FUSTEAD MOGUL LILAC	USA	MOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL	SANDY-VALLEY BOLTON	87.2
DE-SU LARGE 2128	USA	GLEN-TOCTIN SUPER LARGE	DE-SU OBSERVER	86.6
SANDY-VALLEY HUNTER LUELLA	USA	COOKIECUTTER MOM HUNTER	ENSENADA TABOO PLANET	86.3
DE-SU 363	USA	DE-SU OBSERVER	PICSTON SHOTTLE	86.1
OCD IOTA BANDANA	USA	REGANCREST ALTAIOTA	ENSENADA TABOO PLANET	86.0
HFP LUCETTE	DEU	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	BRAEDALE GOLDWYN	85.9
SERIC EPIC MAYANA	CAN	GENERVATIONS EPIC	LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN	85.6
MAPEL WOOD SUDAN LICORICE	CAN	VA-EARLY-DAWN SUDAN CRI	LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN	85.4
MS DREARY DELOREAN	USA	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	END-ROAD PVF BOLIVER	85.2
WILLSBRO UNO PLAN EDDA	GBR	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	ENSENADA TABOO PLANET	85.1
LESPERRON UNO DAZZ	CAN	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	RONELEE TOYSTORY DOMAIN	85.0
T-SPRUCE UNO 7165	USA	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	CHARLESDALE SUPERSTITION	85.0
DE-SU PARADISE 2204	USA	REGANCREST PARADISE	DE-SU 521 BOOKEM	84.9
BOLDI V S G SUPERSONIC ALYSSA	CAN	MISTY SPRINGS SUPERSONIC	LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN	84.7
EDG DESIRE UNO DELLIA	USA	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	MAPLE-DOWNS-I G W ATWOOD	84.6
T-GEN-AC UNO ROSANA	USA	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	BOSSIDE ALTAROSS	84.4
DE-SU 1918 KOOL	USA	HAMMER-CREEK ALTAKOOL	LAESCHWAY JET BOWSER	84.2
S-S-I MCC EDEN 8290	USA	DE-SU BKM MCCUTCHEN 1174	PINE-TREE BRET MINOS	84.2
SKYREACH N O SANTA MARIA	CAN	AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO	DE-SU OBSERVER	83.9
DE-SU ECOYNE 1982	USA	ECOYNE ISY	RONELEE TOYSTORY DOMAIN	83.8
OCONNORS LIVING THE DREAM	CAN	GENERVATIONS EPIC	LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN	83.5
DE-SU LITHIUM 1960	USA	S-S-I DOMAIN LITHIUM	DE-SU OBSERVER	83.4
S-S-I MOGUL SALTS 8018	USA	MOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL	CHARLESDALE SUPERSTITION	83.3
S-S-I MOGUL MAYHEM 7963	USA	MOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL	RAMOS	83.2
BOMAZ ARMITAGE 5668	USA	RMW ARMITAGE	CHARLESDALE SUPERSTITION	83.1
CO-OP SHMRK YOPLAIT 6605	USA	LADYS-MANOR PL SHAMROCK	WA-DEL SEBASTIAN	82.9
CO-OP BLUMEN YANO 4156	USA	CO-OP UPD PLANET YANO	CO-OP TOYSTORY IRONIC	82.9
TAG-LANE 8383 YANO 6767	USA	CO-OP UPD PLANET YANO	REGANCREST-HHF MAC	82.8
KNS REALITY	DEU	GENERVATIONS EPIC	LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN	82.5

Key Findings

By far the leading breeder of the top 50 was De-Su with 11 heifers on the list, followed by Select Sires with 6 and Sandy Valley with 4. There is no question that De-Su has been pushing the genetic accelerator to the max and this dominance of the list demonstrates the success they have been having.
36 of the top 50 animals are from the USA and 9 of the top 10. Canada follows with 11 and Germany with 2. This is mostly an indicator of how the national indexes (TPI and LPI) differ. Since TPI and Net-Merit in the US have more health and fertility in them, and breeders tend to breed towards the national index, it’s understandable that the USA would dominate our list since we have put so much more emphasis on health and fertility.
Numero Uno leads the way with 17 daughters on our list including the top 4 animals. He is followed by Epic with 5 and Mogul with 4. Considering Numero Uno’s ability to consistently leave progeny whose DGV’s are higher than their parent averages and combining that with his high health and fertility and balanced genomic indexes, it’s not surprising that he would dominate the list.
Man-O-Man is the maternal grand sire of 10 animals on the list (Read more – Man-O-Man will he turn platinum?) followed by Planet with 9. It is interestingly to note that the 3^rd and 4^th on the list, Observer and Superstition would have been test sires at time of mating.

Highlights

Topping our list is SANDY-VALLEY NU PENELOPE. Penelope is the Uno daughter of the #12 GTPI cow in the USA PINE-TREE MONICA PLANETA-ET VG-85-2YR. Planeta is starting to become the next genomic superstar to join the likes of Ammon Peachy Shauna. She is consistently able to produce progeny that are chart toppers and well above their parent averages. In fact Planeta has 4 daughters on our list.
2^nd on our list comes from the Sully Shottle May family, DE-SU UNO 2145. 2145’s dam is an Observer daughter of May who just turned 2yrs old herself. 2145 is a great example of how De-Su is pushing the genetic advancement and, if we hadn’t incorporated reliabilities into our index, would have been #1 on our list. But since her dam is yet to score and produce a milk record and she has 2 generations of genomic sires, her reliabilities are lower than Penelope’s.
The top Canadian animal on our list is STE ODILE MOON MODEL AMALUNA. Amaluna recently sold in TAG’s Genomic Power Sale for $110,000 (Read more – TAG’s Genomic Power Sale Averages an Outstanding $30,167). Amaluna is the #5 GPA LPI heifer in Canada. Her Man-O-Man dam is due to calve in January 2013 but her 2nd dam is LES091 BAXTER MODEL RUBIS VG-87-3YR-CAN who is the #27 GLPI Cow in Canada. This heifer has it all – production, durability, health and fertility as well as a very advanced sire stack, Moon x Man-O-Man x Baxter x Goldwyn.
The top European animal on our list is HFP LUCETTE. From Denmark this heifer traces back to the Lou Etta family from the US. Lucette is also the #1 TPI animal from Europe and is actually only 76 gTPI points behind the #1 gTPI animal in the world De-Su 1438.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

With genomic indexes coming out monthly and each country having their own index with apparent bias, it can be very hard to keep track of all the top animals and compare them accurately. Comparisons are instructive for informed decision making. That is why we developed the BPI formula. As is evident from our analysis of the top heifers from around the world, there is no question that the USA is leading the way when it comes to the bull dams of the future and that breeding programs like De-Su, Select Sires and Sandy Valley are at the front of that charge.

An Insider’s Guide to What Sells at the Big Dairy Cattle Auctions

· Comments (0)

Friday, November 23rd, 2012

There is no question that most breeders buy on instinct as much as from anything else. They do their homework on the pedigree of the animal and take a close look at the conformation , but for the most part when determining just what that animal is worth, they rely on instinct as much as anything else. In trying to put numbers to this use of instinct we took a closer look at the recent most recent major cattle sales, Genetics By Design, Sale of Stars and Genomic Prospects Sale, and tried to see what trends appeared. The following is what we found.

Summary

Segment	#	Avg. LPI	Avg. Sale Price
Picks	74	2789	$28,622
Heifers	203	2528	$24,588
Cows	23	2330	$46,839
Total	300	2476	$27,289

We all know that cows sell for more than heifers and top picks can draw some good prices. We wanted to take a closer look at this so we broke down each group to see what trends came out.

What motivates buyers?

In looking to see what types of animals get the top prices, we looked at the results in the following segments >3000 LPI, <3000 but >2000 LPI, < 2000 LPI, R&W, Polled and show pedigree animals. The results are as follows:

Segment	#	Avg. LPI	Avg. Sale Price	Price/LPI Point
>3000LPI	80	3286	$60,021	$18.26
>2000 LPI <3000	164	2589	$16,384	$6.51
<2000 LPI	56	1637	$8,879	$5.42
R&W	26	2093	$24,600	$11.75
Polled	26	2275	$37,076	$16.30
Show Heifers or All-Canadian Pedigree	52	2005	$17,154	$8.56

It is significant, to say the least, by how much top index animals outsold all other purchase motivators. Animals that had GLPI’s over 3,000 outsold all other animals by a whopping 61%. Even though they only had on average LPI’s that were about 700 points higher than the group of animals between 2000 and 3000 LPI they outsold them by almost three times. This highlights the importance of being within striking distance of the top of the list (within 10% or 300 LPI points). Anything outside of that just doesn’t get the same level of demand.

Also interesting was how much having polled adds value to an animal. Even though on average the polled consignments had a lower LPI than the 2,000-3,000 LPI group, they attracted more than double the average sales price. This indicates that many breeders are seeing and responding to the demand for polled genetics (Read more- Polled Genetics: Way of the Future or Passing Fad?). It is especially noteworthy that Polled Genetics received 39% premium per LPI point compared to Red and White animals (Read more – Is Polled the NEW Red?).

Top Index Cows Draw Top Dollars

As the chart below indicates, the closer you get to having a over 3000 LPI cow the greater the price.

Segment	#	Average LPI	Average Sale Price	Price/LPI Point
Picks	27	3268	$40,056	$12.26
Heifers	50	3288	$63,004	$19.16
Cows	3	3426	$190,000	$55.46

What this also brings to light is just by how much high index cows outsell others. This trend continues in heifers as well.

Segment	#	AVG LPI	Avg Sale Price	Price/LPI Point
>3000LPI	50	3288	$63,004	$19.16
>2000 LPI <3000	103	2571	$13,221	$5.35
<2000 LPI	38	1514	$7,691	$5.08

Of interesting note is how this changed with picks. Picks from current show stars and polled picks actually attract similar dollars as the top genomics animals.

Segment	#	Average LPI	Average Sale Price	Price/LPI Point
>3000LPI	27	3268	$40,056	$12.26
>2000 LPI <3000	33	2739	$19,092	$6.97
R&W	12	2000	$27,542	$13.77
Polled	17	2298	$39,219	$17.07
Show Heifers or All-Canadian Pedigree	6	1666	$39,917	$23.96

Continuing a downward trend is how much less top show animals or progeny from top show animals are commanding at these sales. Top show cattle are still in demand, however, the recent sales performance would indicate that picks for cows that are showing this year command higher prices than those from years past.

Segment	#	Average Sale Price
Picks	6	$39,916
Heifers	41	$11,531
Cows	3	$35,940

Looking at what sires attracted the highest prices, we see daughters of Uno, Epic and Man-O-Man come to the top. While daughters sired by the limited supply sire, Snowman, and the outcross sire, Sudan, actually don’t seem to sell as well as equivalent LPI animals. A strong market also exists for the top polled sires, Earnhardt-P and Colt-P.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

There are many additional aspects for what drives the top dollars at sales, such as flush ability (Read more – What Comes First the Chicken or The Egg?),however, as we found out in our article 6 Ways to invest $50,000 in dairy cattle genetics, the numbers clearly support that you need to GO BIG OR GO HOME, when it comes to investing in the top genetics at sales today!

Not sure how much to spend on that great 2 year old or heifer?
Want to make sure you are investing your money wisely?
Download our Dairy Cow Investment Calculator.

How Genomics is Killing the Dairy Cattle Breeding Industry

· Comments (3)

Wednesday, October 10th, 2012

There is no question that the introduction of genomics to the dairy cattle industry has greatly accelerated the rate of genetic advancement (Read – The Genomic Advancement Rate – The Battle for Genetic Supremacy) and could kill the seed stock industry as we know it. Read on.

The Introduction

When artificial insemination companies first started using genomics to help identify which bulls had the genetics to excel and which bulls didn’t, it had the following effects

The number of young bulls needing to be sampled decreased.	The cost of procurement went up slightly since their are capped leases and actually less risk. Some bulls where still purchased outright
Bull sampling costs decreased due to needing to sample less bulls and not having to pay as many incentives.	Average semen price has increased greatly. As young sire semen prices have gone from being paid to use it, to costing as much as a daughter proven sire
Due to the increase in average semen price revenues have gone up sharply	With increased revenue (young sire semen price) and decreased expenses (cost of sampling) profits have gone up significantly

What will happen in March 2013

As of March 2013, breeders will have the ability to test their own bulls before negotiating the deal with the A.I. company, resulting in a much greater negotiating position for bull breeders. The estimated effects are as follows:

The number of young sires sampled will not change	The cost to actually sample a sire will stay low
With open ended leases and increased competition the cost of procurement could go way up and could even hit the $1M mark per proven bull.	Semen sales price will not change
Revenue will stay the same	With greatly increased procurement expenses profits will decrease drastically

How Will A.I. Companies React?

There are not substantial enough profit margins in the A.I. industry to support such a change in profitability. As a result, A.I. companies will be forced to do the following:

Increase semen price
Since they now have greater expenses, A.I. companies will be forced to increase price. As demonstrated in many other industries, the market will not respond favourably to this and ultimately will drive prices back down.
END RESULT: No change
Cap contracts
So if A.I. companies cannot increase revenues they will have to try and cut their costs. The procurement of sires will become the major expense they will look to control. One way to do this will be to cap bull contracts. However, as the NHL has shown us, even if they could introduce a cap, some members will break that rule and other breeders will not stand for it.
END RESULT: No change
Produce their own product line
If A.I. companies cannot buy the bulls at a cheaper price, then they will have to go and buy females and produce their own product. This will lead to cheaper acquisition costs. A.I. companies can now buy the females for $50,000 to $250,000 and only need to have that female produce one son. That will still be cheaper than leasing the sire on an open lease. This also allows them to have greater control of their bloodlines, accelerate their genetic advancement and develop their own distinctive product.
END RESULT: Cheaper product development costs and a distinctive product.

What does this mean to the average seed stock producer?

For the initial stage, when A.I. companies are buying into the female side, prices will rise. Once they have the base genetics, they will not need to buy any more and they will stop buying. (Read – Should A.I. Companies Own Females and Select Sires v.s. Semex – A Contrast In Cooperatives)

If you look at the current substantial increase in the prices of genomic heifers, you will notice that it is the current seed stock breeders who are buying and trying to get ahead. The money for this is not coming as much from the female side as it is from the current or future revenue potential from the semen lease deals. These people will be out of the market as more and more A.I. companies STOP leasing from these bull breeders because they are now producing their own genetics.

This will leave the seed stock breeder with a product or cattle that do not top the lists like they used to. Also, now the A.I. companies will not release their new high genomic sires until they have mated them on all their own females first. This will give A.I. companies a substantial advantage in generating list toppers. Bull breeders, on the other hand, will not have the lease deals that they currently enjoy, so they will not have any revenues from the sale of high index animals.

I believe that the show market will survive, since they are not as dependent on genetic advancement alone since they use a combination of genetics, management and chance. This is something I will explain further in a future article.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

The introduction of genomics first started off by generating greater profits for A.I. companies. Currently it is contributing to greater sales for seed stock producers. Ultimately it will lead to decreasing profits for A.I. companies and they will seek to regain control. The only way to do that will be to control product development —-it will either be do that or go broke. This will lead to the industry becoming dominated by whatever players are able to build the largest self-contained genetic pool and advance their genetics ahead of everyone else’s.

What can the average seed stock producer do? (Watch for the answer in a future article.)

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Does Genomics Belong in The Show Ring?

· Comments (0)

Friday, October 5th, 2012

In our recent article about the 7 Sires to Use In Order To Breed The Next World Dairy Expo Champion we highlighted six test sires and one proven sire as the best sires to use in order to breed the next generation of great show cattle. The response to this article has been insane. First from a readership perspective we had over 10,000 people reading the article in the first 2 days alone. Of even greater interest were the reactions that breeders had to this article (over 200 comments on Facebook, Twitter and our website). Many breeders felt that genomics had nothing to do with the show ring. Instead they felt that it was more important to stick to proven sires when mating their top type cattle.

Ignorance Is Not the Answer

This actually demonstrated to me that awareness of what genomics is and how to use it is desperately needed. Far too many breeders confuse genomics with the index system. Genomics is not a kin to Holstein USA’s TPI formula or the Canadian LPI formula. Rather, it is tool to use in order to predict each sires ability to transmit a certain trait.

Given that the genetic information for every animal is contained in its DNA, technology now makes it possible to predict a sire’s ability to transmit certain characteristics to their progeny. It has nothing to do with the relative weights or importance of one trait over another. Rather it is solely about a sire’s ability to transmit that specific trait. How you use that information and what weights you put on some traits over others is entirely up to you.

Less Science more Cow Talk

So that is all fine and good. It sounds very scientific but what does it mean at the show ring level? Let me take a stab at that in “show speak.” It doesn’t take much to know that some show cows are “managed” into greatness and others are bred for it. We have all seen the ones that on the average day look like they are a lucky to be “all-barn” let alone “all-world.” Those cows are the ones that I call managed into greatness. Then there are those other cows that have the complete package. They come from a strong type pedigree that and are sired by a sire who has proven to deliver top show cattle. These are the cattle that are bred to be great.

EASTSIDE LEWISDALE GOLD MISSY EX-95-CAN

A great example of this is last year’s World Dairy Expo Supreme Champion, EASTSIDE LEWISDALE GOLD MISSY EX-95-CAN. Missy comes from a strong type sire stack with a dam that has sired 35 daughters all have scored GP+, with 33 of them being VG+. No doubt that Missy’s dam, STADACONA OUTSIDE ABEL VG-88-4YR-CAN 29* is great at breading type cattle. In addition to that if you look at Missy’s own genomic test you will notice that she scores well above breed averages for type traits.

Another great example of a show cow that also has the genomic test to back it up are MD-DELIGHT DURHAM ATLEE EX-92-4YR-USA DOM GMD 2*. Of course, we all know Atlee as the All-American Sr. 3yr from 2005 where she also won Reserve Intermediate Champion at WDE. However, we also know Atlee as the dam of the top type sire MAPLE-DOWNS-I G W ATWOOD EX-90-4YR-USA. If you look at Atwood’s CDN type proof you see the following.

	Conformation	Mammary System	Feet & Legs	Dairy Strength	Rump
Official Proof	18	16	14	15	3
DGV	19	16	14	15	2
Parent Average	17	15	11	13	8
Estimated Daughter Performance	18	15	15	15	3

What you will notice is that his genomic test is the closest to his actual daughter performance. Rather than looking at the sires in his pedigree, or the performance of his maternal line (which by the way is one of the strongest type pedigrees in the world today), it’s his genomic test that would have accurately predicted that his rumps would not have been as strong as expected, and that his feet and legs would be better than expected. This is very valuable insight, when trying to breed the next great show cow.

So how does that help me breed a great one?

It’s great that we can show that genomics validates what we already know about sires like Atwood and great show cows like Missy and Atlee. However, how can we use that to help us to breed the next great show cow? To answer that question let’s take at two high genomic test type sires, MR ATWOOD BROKAW and CANYON-BREEZE AT AIRLIFT.

MR ATWOOD BROKAW

MR ATWOOD BROKAW is the Atwood son of REGANCREST MAC BIKASA VG-87-2YR-USA. In Brokaw you combine the two greatest type families in the breed today. No question that from all angles Brokaw has it all.

	Conformation	Mammary System	Feet & Legs	Dairy Strength	Rump
Official Proof	20	17	9	18	7
DGV	22	19	9	21	7
Parent Average	15	14	10	11	4

What we notice from his genomic test is that we can expect Brokaw to be far greater at transmitting dairy strength than his pedigree would indicate.

CANYON-BREEZE AT AIRLIFT

Then there is CANYON-BREEZE AT AIRLIFT the Atwood son from the same family as CANYON-BREEZE ALLEN.

	Conformation	Mammary System	Feet & Legs	Dairy Strength	Rump
Official Proof	17	12	18	16	16
DGV	19	12	21	18	21
Parent Average	15	12	11	13	4

What we notice here is that Airlift will sire rumps that are light years better than his pedigree would indicate while needing to be cautious on his mammary systems. Something that anyone who use enough Allen in their herd would attest to. What genomics does is it gives us this insight light years sooner that waiting for 100’s of daughters to help prove it out. That can be all the edge you need in breeding the next great show cow.

Do you think this is all hogwash?

Well let’s take a look at the current undisputed show ring champion BRAEDALE GOLDWYN GP-84-8YR-CAN EXTRA’05 GM’12. Here is a sire that by his own conformation would have never been considered potential for greatness in the show ring. A sire that by his maternal line of high classifying cattle had no great show history to them at all. So let’s look at the numbers:

	Conformation	Mammary System	Feet & Legs	Dairy Strength	Rump
Official Proof	12	11	13	7	3
DGV	10	9	13	6	4
Parent Average	5	5	-1	4	2
Estimated Daughter Performance	14	13	13	8	3

As you can see by the numbers, Goldwyn’s direct genomic values would have predicted his type prowess long before anyone would have suspected it. This is especially true in regards to feet & legs. Something no one would have expected from a James son.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

We all know that to win in the show ring it takes more than just great genetics. It takes genetics, management, and luck. Slacking on any parts of these means that you have to go “outside” the rules in order to make things happen. Instead of putting yourself in that precarious position, stick to what has been proven to work and use the best genomic sires available.

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Select Sires vs. Semex – A Contrast in Cooperatives

· Comments (4)

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

While many would think that all farmer-owned cooperatives would have the same challenges and the same mandates, there could no greater contrast than the approaches taken by Select Sires and Semex. Select Sires is a federation of nine farmer-owned-and-controlled cooperative and Semex is a partnership of three breeder owned cooperatives. So structurally they are quite similar with perhaps some significant differences in mandates. However these two artificial insemination companies are headed in very different directions when it comes to approaches to communications and product development.

The Art of Sire Sampling

GLEN-TOCTIN BOLT LUCILLE VG-87
one of the dams selected for the ART program and dam of S-S-I DOMAIN LITHIUM

There no question that how an AI company defines its genetic mission, contracts young sires and proves bulls will greatly affect the profitability of the company. In 2009, the Select Sires board saw the writing on the wall with genomics, the new tool on the scene. The Board directed management to find new and better ways of procuring additional high-ranking, uniquely bred genetics in the most cost effect manner possible. This lead to the development of Aggressive Reproductive Technologies (ART^TM), a program that involves the ownership of a small group of elite females (Read – Should A.I. Companies Own Females). The females were purchased with plans to purposely breed them to create new and unique genetics for Select Sires, a product that would help differentiate them in the marketplace.

While Select insist that “the bulls resulting from the ART program compliment, not replace, bull calves that we continue to purchase from seed-stock producers” explains Jeff Ziegler, Genomics Program Manager at Select Sires. Semex, on the other hand, have made it very clear that they have “no interest in owning females” and decided that they would stick to what they know best, sire sampling, and let the breeders specialize in breeding the cattle. That may be a great brand position with their traditional seed-stock breeders, but if they cannot procure and prove they have the top genetics, it will mean nothing and prove to be a very costly mistake.

The Golden Rule – He Who Has The Bulls Has The Power

S-S-I DOMAIN LITHIUM

So how has this been working out? Seventeen of the top new 200 new release females for October are members of the ART program at Select Sires (Read – Top 200 New Release Females for October). In fact, this is a growing trend with 10/200 in September and 8/200 in July. There are also early genomic young sires making their mark, including MOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL (purchased as an embryo) who is already being used as a sire of sons. Two recent success stories from the female ownership side of ART are S-S-I BOOKEM MORGAN and S-S-I LITHIUM. Both are top 10 bulls on Holstein USA’s August active genomic young sires for GTPI at +2495 and +2470,respectively.

However, Select Sires ability to perform at an A+ level does not just come from the ART program. In recent August 2012 sire summary, Select Sires leads the industry with 36 sires on Holstein USA’s Top 100 Total Performance Index^™ (TPI^™) list with at least 97 percent reliability for milk and type. In addition, Select Sires is home to 10 sires over +3.00 for PTAT including the new #1 Type sire, MAPLE-DOWNS-I G W ATWOOD EX-90. They own the No. 1 TPI sire above 97% reliability for milk and type, Ensenada Taboo Planet EX-90-GM. The future is also looking bright with 24 of the top 50 GTPI active genomic young sires coming from the Select Sires Super Sampler^TM lineup.

So how has Semex policy of partnering with top breeders instead of owning females being working for them? According to our analysis of the August 2012 New Release sires in Canada, a few of Semex’s partner herds have not been delivering the product. Two key Semex partner herds Stanton’s and Claynook saw nine sires proven with an average drop of 418 LPI points when compared to the GPA LPI’s. Those same two herds have seen an average drop of 635 points on over 40 bulls since the introduction of genomics back in August 2009 (Read – The Hot House Effect on Sire Sampling).

In fact, Select Sires owns the #1 LPI sire, Ensenada Taboo Planet EX-90-GM. Even in the market where Semex dominates in the number of young sires sampled it only have five out of the top 10 GPA LPI young sires from the August 2012 release. Remember they sample over 70% of the sires in Canada. and they only has three of the top 30 GPA TPI sires. By comparison GenerVations, which has been very active in the ownership of females, has four of the top 30 GPA LPI sires and they sample a small fraction of the sires that Semex does.

No Longer a Dictatorship –It Is Now A Two Way Conversation

In today’s business world, if you don’t have a better product, you had better do a great job of marketing your product. For years, Semex has been able to market and sell based on the ‘Canadian Kind’. However, genomic evaluations has pretty much all but removed any customer loyalty and regional advantages that may have existed for AI companies in the past. Breeding programs have been adjusted by most major AI companies so they can deliver product that will satisfy breeders individual breeding strategies. AI companies, the world over, have had to redefine their business model over the past few years and rebranding has had to be addressed. Recent print ads and website changes would suggest that without the top of the list product to sell Semex has started to rebrand itself.

Yet, as the world becomes more social, information, access to it and the ways the product will generate more customer profit as driving forces in today’s dairy cattle breeding world. It is no longer about control it is about accurate and new information. It’s about open two-way discussion. No longer can you dictate what people are to think, but rather you need to engage them in open honest conversations.

In the Bullvine’s recent articles about 7 Sires to Use in Order to Breed the Next World Dairy Expo Champion, The Top 12 Holstein Genomic Young Sires To Use for Maximum Genetic Gain and The Sensational 6 Top 6 North American Genomic Holsteins We Would Invest In, Select Sires not only allowed us to share it with their readers they actually posted it themselves on Facebook and Tweeted it as well. Semex either deleted our posts or did not even respond. It’s no wonder that Select Sires has the larger social following. Gone are the days when the one who pays the most control’s the media, as is evident by us here at the Bullvine.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

The marketing place is evolving, those companies that evolve and adjust will survive and thrive, those that don’t will fizzle out. I am not saying that Semex needs to run out and buy females, nor am I a saying that Select Sires is doing everything correctly. However, there are some significant differences in how these two companies procure and market their genetic products. These differences are leading the two companies in very different directions.

The Top 12 Holstein Genomic Young Sires To Use for Maximum Genetic Gain

· Comments (2)

Wednesday, September 19th, 2012

Confused on what group of genomic young sires to use for your breeding program? Not sure which sires are the real deals and which ones are just smoke and mirrors (read The Hot House Effect on Sire Sampling)? We decided to take a closer look at the top 100 genomic young sires from around the world to determine just which ones are worth using and which ones you are better forgetting.

Based on our analysis of the early genomic sires that received indexes, we first removed all sires from our list that didn’t have DGV’s available or higher than their parent average for the traits we judge as important (read 7 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Use Genomic Sires With DGV’s Lower Than Their Parent Averages). Then instead of just giving you the highest list based on their GPA TPI or GPA LPI we decided to look for sires that fit certain needs. They are overall performers, production, durability, health and fertility and conformation. The following are the results.

Overall Performance Improvement

AMMON-PEACHEY SHAUNA VG-87-2YR-USA dam of SEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE

While bulls like Amighetti Numero Uno may top the GPA TPI list, we are looking for a more needs approach. The following are the sires we would recommend when looking for a genomic young sire to provide overall performance improvement.

SEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE
This Robust son from 2012 Golden Dam Finalist AMMON-PEACHEY SHAUNA VG-87-2YR-USA, really is a genomic wonder. Not only does he have the highest genomic values in the breed for production but he also has great functional type and health traits to go with it. Here you have a sire that is over 2500 lbs. for milk, with positive component deviations, 2.50 for type, and over 7 for productive life. He really is the complete package.
VELTHUIS LET IT SNOW
From the LYLEHAVEN LILA Z EX-94-CAN 14* (also a 2012 Golden Dam Finalist) family comes, the CDN GPA LPI topper VELTHUIS LET IT SNOW. While possessing 500 lbs. less production and half the productive life of that of Supersire, this Snowman son has outstanding type composites and the genomic test to make up the difference for those of you that do not want to sacrifice overall type. I would protect Let It Snow on the health and fertility side a little.
ROSYLANE-LLC ALTALEO
I am always looking for sires whose genomic tests blow out their expected values, and ROSYLANE-LLC ALTALEO does that by almost 19%. AltaLeo does not top any GPA TPI or GPA LPI lists, but he does seem to far exceed the values you would expect from an AltaMeteor from a not very well known Nifty (Bombay x Zebo) daughter. For those of you who like to take flyers on bulls who just seem to be extreme, AltaLeo is the sire for you. While he does need to be protected on rump and dairy strength, for those that are willing to take the risk, they may find the reward is well worth it.

Production Improvement

MS CHARTROISE LORELEI VG-87-2YR-CAN dam of BOLDI V LIGHTSNOW

For those of you that are more commercially focused or maybe those of you who have not focused enough on production and the milk check is showing it, here are our recommendations other than Supersire for genomic young sires to use to gain the greatest production increase:

DE-SU PHOENIX 588
PHOENIX is a Planet from DE-SU 7902 GP-81-2YR-USA DOM, whose dam De-Su Oman 6121 VG-86-2YR-USA DOM GMD has over 20 daughters on the locator list and is the dam of De-Su Observer, one of the early top genomic sires. Phoenix combines outstanding production and components with strong conformation. Though a Planet x Bolton cross may raise some concerns about rumps, Phoenix should inherit his maternal line’s rumps and be okay. The area of strong concern that he does need protected on is his health and fertility traits, specifically his daughter fertility and milking speed.
BOLDI V LIGHTSNOW
Lightsnow also from the LYLEHAVEN LILA Z EX-94-CAN 14* family is a Snowman from the well-known Planet daughter MS CHARTROISE LORELEI VG-87-2YR-CAN. Lightsnow offers 160 lbs. of combined fat and protein, offering breeders a quick punch of components while not having to sacrifice production. While needing to be protected a little on some of the health and fertility traits, Lightsnow offers outstanding production improvement with a very balanced type offering.

Longevity Improvement

MS CHASSITY GOLDWYN CASH VG-87-2YR-CAN dam of FARNEAR-TBR-BH CASHMONEY

For those of you that are looking to breed cattle that last lactation after lactation or maybe you have having problems with your 2 year olds not coming back for a 2^nd lactation we recommend the genomic young sires:

BLUE-HORIZON ALTASUPLEX
As the #2 sire for productive life (NO-FLA AltaSecure is #1) BLUE-HORIZON ALTASUPLEX offers significant longevity improvement. Unlike AltaSecure this Super son combines that high productive life with over 1400lbs of milk, and 3.00 points on type. While he does need to be protected %F, dairy strength and rumps, AltaSuplex offers extreme functional conformation improvement that you would expect from a great grandson of BUDJON-JK ENCORE ELECTRA EX-95-2E-USA DOM GMD 3*.
VAL-BISSON DOORMAN
Following closely behind AltaSuplex for #2 on the top genomic longevity list is Doorman, a Bookem from a Shottle that completes 8 generations of VG+ with 31*. Doorman offers a more complete package with not needing protected on much as he is over 1300 kgs of Milk, plus on both his component deviations, and double digits for all major type traits. In fact his DGV for conformation and mammary system are among the very best in the breed at +22. While the family may not be a household name yet, Doorman could be the sire that changes that as he even converts well onto the US system with a GTPI of +2465, PTAT +4.72 and almost a 1000 lbs of Milk and over 100 lbs of combined fat and protein.
FARNEAR-TBR-BH CASHMONEY
There hasn’t been a better brood cow for type and longevity recently than 2012 Golden Dam Finalist REGANCREST-PR BARBIE EX-92-7YR-USA DOM GMD 3*. Now this trend continues with her grand daughter, and fellow 2012 Golden Dam Finalist REGANCREST S CHASSITY EX-92-4YR-USA DOM, and also Chassity’s Goldwyn daughter, and Cashmoney’s dam MS CHASSITY GOLDWYN CASH VG-87-2YR-CAN. Not only does Cashmoney have an extremely well known female side to his pedigree, his sire stack is nothing to laugh at either. He combines OBSERVER x GOLDWYN x SHOTTLE x CHAMPION x DURHAM, and from a longevity standpoint he’s the best there is on the list. Cashmoney really is the real deal though I would protect him on strength and rumps.

Health and Fertility Improvement

One area that is not getting enough attention by most breeders is health and fertility. While there is no question that every breeder knows that more pregnancies equals more profits many of the top ranking sires actually have negative values for health and fertility. The following are a couple of specialist sires that should help you change that:

S-S-I DOMAIN LITHIUM
Possessing no Planet, Shottle or Goldwyn in his pedigree S-S-I DOMAIN LITHIUM has some of the highest DGV’s for health and fertility. Lithium is from one of the top genomic cows in the breed, GLEN-TOCTIN BOLT LUCILLE VG-87-DOM. Combining high herd life, low Somatic Cell counts and high daughter fertility with over 1600 lbs of milk, 110 of fat and protein and 2.5 points on type makes Lithium a great choice when looking for improvement. It is interesting to note that his DGV’s for health and fertility are almost 8% higher than the next highest sire (BRANDT-VIEW ALTAOTIS) and 50% higher than his own official index, indicating that he really is the sire to use when wanting to address this area that has flown under the radar far too long.
HAMMER-CREEK FRED KRUNCH
With his low Somatic Cell Score (2.72), strong udders (2.54 Udder comp.), quick milking speed (106), and high daughter fertility (110 CDN 2 US) Krunch is a breed leader when it comes to health and fertility. Tracing back to WA-DEL RC BLCKSTR MARTHA EX-93-2E-USA GMD DOM 2* combines his strong female lineage with outstanding health and fertility sire stack Freddie x Goldwyn x Zade x Mtoto x Formation x Blackstar. Though he very much needs to be protected for strength and rumps.

Type Improvement

REGANCREST MAC BIKASA VG-87-2YR-USA dam of MR ATWOOD BROKAW

There is no question that some of us put too much emphasis on type improvement when it comes to selecting bulls, especially when many type traits have such low heritability (read Is Your Breeding Strategy A “Field of Dreams”?). The following sires in addition to Let It Snow and Doorman, will offer you the potential to breed a great show animal.

MR ATWOOD BROKAW
Tied with Doorman for some of the highest type genomics in the breed is MR ATWOOD BROKAW. Which should come as no surprise as in Brokaw you combine the two greatest type families in the breed today. On the paternal side you have Atwood and his dam MD-DELIGHT DURHAM ATLEE EX-92-4YR-USA DOM GMD 2*, 2012 Golden Dam finalist and reserve Int. Champion at Madison in 2005 followed by her grand dam being MS Kingstead Chief Adeen EX-94. On the maternal side you have REGANCREST MAC BIKASA VG-87-2YR-USA who is the daughter of REGANCREST-PR BARBIE EX-92-7YR-USA DOM GMD 3*, also a 2012 Golden Dam Finalist. Watch for Brokaw to sire extreme udders and dairy strength, but will need to be protected on rumps from time to time.
REGANCREST-GV S BRADNICK
Also from the of REGANCREST-PR BARBIE EX-92-7YR-USA DOM GMD 3* family, but this time from a VG-88-3YR-USA DOM 1* Shottle daughter REGANCREST BREYA, and sired by GEN-MARK STMATIC SANCHEZ EX-94-6YR-USA ST’12 comes Bradnick. Breya is the former #3 PTAT Cow in the breed and continues the strong legacy that Barbie started. In Bradnick you get a sire who is over 3 points on all composites except dairy comp. where he is at 2.92. In every major type trait Bradnick’s DGV’s are higher than expected and offers more balance than Brokaw who does need to be protected on Rumps.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Anyone can just pick a sire from a top of the GPA TPI or GPA LPI list and call themselves breeders. But there is more to it than that. Breeding great cattle is part art form part science and you need to have both parts in balance. It takes careful consideration generation after generation of corrective mating to breed great cow families. That is why instead of just giving you a list of the top 10 we tried to provide you the insight into which sires will provide you the maximum gain in each specific area.

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Young Sire Sampling: Are we headed in the correct direction?

· Comments (0)

Monday, September 17th, 2012

The Bullvine decided to take a closer look at the top (2012 August) 100 GLPI Canadian Holstein young bulls. To make it more informative the analysis is by groups of 25. It is important to recognize that the average reliability values for these genomically tested young bulls are between 64% and 69% almost as high as some new release bulls in the past. Behind us are the days when young bulls indexes were 33% to 37% reliable and posed a much greater risk due to low reliability.

Production – all breeders are also milk producers

Young Bulls Average Rating

GLPI Group	Milk (kgs)	Fat (kgs)	% Fat	Protein (kgs)	% Protein
All	+2054	+89	+0.13	+77	+0.10
1 to 25	+2303	+96	+0.10	+86	+0.11
26 to 50	+2016	+92	+0.17	+78	+0.12
51 to 75	+2012	+84	+0.09	+74	+0.09
76 to 100	+1885	+85	+0.13	+69	+0.10

The top 100 GLPI young bulls are truly an elite group with production index values compared to recently proven sires of 98%RK for milk, 99%RK for fat and 99% RK for protein yields. An interesting note is how the top twenty-five stand out ten percent above the others, while each group afterwards drops by about 5-6%. A much greater variation than all other traits.

Type – important to predicting durability

Young Bulls Average Rating

GLPI Group	CONF (overall)	Mammary	Feet & Legs	Dairy Strength	Rump
All	+10.9	+10.3	+8.1	+6.0	+6.0
1 to 25	+11.5	+11.1	+8.4	+6.5	+5.7
26 to 50	+9.9	+9.2	+6.9	+5.1	+5.8
51 to 75	+11.6	+10.7	+8.8	+6.8	+6.0
75 to 100	+10.6	+10.1	+8.1	+6.0	+6.8

On average the type indexes of these top 100 GLPI young bulls are very high. The equivalent to a 98%RK for CONF for the recently proven sires. Note that the 26 to 50 group have the lowest type trait indexes to go along with high fat and protein especially for % Fat and % protein. In many cases, the bulls in the 26 to 50 group are the full or half brothers to the 1 to 25 group, who may have gotten more components but are not as high for CONF and Mammary.

Functional Traits – important but they have lower heritability’s

Young Bulls Average Rating

GLPI Group	Herd Life	Daughter Fertility	SCS	Average H&F contribution to DGV LPI
All	110	100	2.70	89
1 to 25	110	99	2.67	57
26 to 50	110	100	2.71	85
51 to 75	110	100	2.73	88
76 to 100	111	101	2.70	124

The average Herd Life and SCS ratings for these bulls are very good, positively contributing to H&F augmenting the GLPI values. However it must be noted that the Daughter Fertility ratings are only average detracting from the overall GLPI values for these bulls. Daughter Fertility is a trait that is primarily affected by non-genetic factors, but has a significant impact on the bottom line of any operation. The breed needs to be concerned because daughter fertility is not likely to see any significant gain genetically by using these bulls. As we all know more pregnancies equals more profits. Definitely more attention and more research needs to be given to the genetic evaluations and genetic merit of the breed for Daughter Fertility.

GLPI – the combination of production, durability and health/fertility

Young Bulls Average Rating

GLPI Group	GLPI	DGV LPI	PA LPI	Sire DGV LPI	Dam DVG LPI
All	+2982	+3161	+2674	+3056	+2196
1 to 25	+3218	+3459	+2784	+3089	+2599
26 to 50	+2978	+3127	+2730	+3191	+2047
51 to 75	+2900	+3097	+2592	+2960	+2052
76 to 100	+2831	+2960	+2674	+3056	+2196

These top 100 GLPI young bulls are truly outstanding! They are exceeding by 982 LPI points the value required for a recently proven sire to get a 99%RK for GLPI. This was not even dreamed possible before there were genomic analysis using SNIP technology. Note that the Parent Average LPI’s are lower than GLPI’s and DGV LPI’s and are very close to being the same for all four groupings. It is in fact the young bulls DGV’s that put them in the top 100. They have full and half siblings that have lower DGV’s. This supports our previous analysis of 7 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Use Genomic Sires With DGV’s Lower Than Their Parent Average. The AI sire analysts have made very good use to the DGV’s after initially identifying bulls from their pedigrees, and then sampling those who’s DGV’s exceed their Parent Average LPI’s by a goodly amount. Think about it, the average of the top 100 young bulls at +2982 GLPI, and there is only one Canadian proven sire above that level. It should be noted that the dams/ DGV LPI’s for the first grouping far exceed the other three groupings. Even if you factor in for a slight decrease in values, the top 25 would still all rank higher than the highest current proven sire.

Pedigrees – more similar than desired

Inbreeding is a concern that must be addressed as the top 100 GLPI young bulls are from a limited number of parents (Read more – Inbreeding: Does Genomics Affect The Balancing Act?).

Sires of Young Bulls

The five sires with the most sons are:

Oman Oman 28%
Snowman 20%
Planet 10%
Observer 10%
Freddie 7%
Other 25%

With Oman Oman, Snowman and Freddie all Oman sons inbreeding must be watched. 82% of the young bulls are sired by daughter proven bulls and 22% are sired by genomic young sires.

Dams of Young Bulls

The sires of the young bulls’ dams most prevalent on the list are:

Planet 25%
Shottle 23%
Goldwyn 18%
Bolton 13%
Baxter 7%
Other 14%

The dams with the most young bulls are:

Gen-I-Beq Shottle Bombi – 5
Comestar Goldwyn Lilac – 4
Sandy-Valley Planet Sapphire – 3
Marbri Baxter Brandy – 3
Sully Planet Manitoba – 3
Ten dams with two young bulls each
Sixty-two dams with one young bull each

Definitely there is more pedigree variability amongst the dams than the sires of these young bulls. All dams are milking cows. Five dams are below +2000 GLPI, 33 dams are below +2000 DGV LPI and 6 dams do not have DGV LPIs as they reside outside North America.

Owners

The bull owners for the top 100 GLPI young bulls are:

Semex – 64%
Alta Genetics – 10%
Genervations – 10%
Select Sires – 6%
CRI – 5%
Other – 5%

NAAB – top 100 USA GTPI young bulls

The Bullvine is not able to do as extensive an analysis on the NAAB list as the DGV TPIs are not available for analysis. Below are the average ratings for the top 100 young bulls. Note this group is similar to the Canadian one hundred young bulls – again a significant concern is that fertility is not high.

Milk +1503 lbs.
Fat +71 lbs. +0.06%
Protein +55 lbs. +0.04%
PTAT +2.93
UDC +2.57
FLC +2.06
Productive Life +6.3
DPR 0.7
SCS 2.68
Net Merit +774
TPI +2395

The Bullvine Bottom Line

The use of genomic testing has provided a very significant opportunity to increase the rate of genetic improvement in herds that use North American sampled Holstein bulls (read more – The Genomic Advancement Race – The Battle For Genetic Supremacy). The top 100 GLPI young Canadian bulls are the equivalent to over 99%RK for recently proven sires. Congratulations to the breeders and breeding companies for using the genomic results to produce the young bulls. Thank you to the breeders who use the top young bulls. A bright future is ahead.

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

The Hot House Effect on Sire Sampling

· Comments (1)

Friday, September 14th, 2012

Since the Bullvine started in February (and even before), I have had many dedicated breeders ask me ‘Why do the Artificial Insemination companies keep going back to the same herds for young bulls when few if any bulls from those herds ever make it to active proven status?”’ That prompted me to ask – is that true?

Answering the tough questions

For many breeders it can be hard to determine which herds they should use young sires from and which ones they shouldn’t. For many AI companies, and sire analysts they have had their thoughts about which herds are hot and which ones are not, but never had the numbers to prove it. This has us asking has genomics truly eliminated the hothouse effect in sire sampling (read more – Has Genomics Knocked Out Hot House Herds). In true Bullvine style we decided to tackle this tough question to help breeders have confidence in which genomic tested young sires to use. We first took a look at all the herds that had more than one sire receive their first official proof in the August 2012 proof run.

Here is what we found:

Herd	Count	Official GLPI	DGV LPI	PA LPI	GPA LPI
Alta	4	1022	1085	969	1043
Claynook	3	969	982	1018	995
Comestar	3	1436	1368	1507	1418
Gen-I-Beq	5	1658	1701	1800	1737
Gillette	3	771	692	1045	819
Lorka	3	1239	1190	1181	1187
Stanton	6	781	737	1383	970
Velthuis	3	1369	1280	1756	1452

In comparing the columns here is what we found:

Herd	Count	DGV vs. Official	PA vs. Official	GPA Vs. Official
Alta	4	63	-53	21
Claynook	3	13	49	26
Comestar	3	-68	71	-18
Gen-I-Beq	5	43	142	79
Gillette	3	-79	273	48
Lorka	3	-49	-58	-52
Stanton	6	-43	603	189
Velthuis	3	-88	387	83

(For a complete listing of sires and calculations click here)

In wanting to see if the Aug ’12 results were just a point in time for these herds or if it was truly reflective, we decided to look at all the bulls proven since the introduction of genomics (Aug 2009) from these same eight herds. Here is what we found:

Herd	Count	Official GLPI	DGV LPI	PA LPI	GPA LPI
Alta	11	929	936	873	913
Claynook	14	-60	-42	535	166
Comestar	35	749	746	1030	848
Gen-I-Beq	22	1057	1092	1171	1120
Gillette	17	1337	1326	1442	1368
Lorka	7	419	396	749	523
Stanton	27	664	648	1319	889
Velthuis	4	1466	1421	1651	1504

Again comparing the columns here is what we found:

Herd	Count	DGV vs. Official	PA vs. Official	GPA Vs. Official
Alta	11	7	-55	-15
Claynook	14	18	595	226
Comestar	35	-3	281	99
Gen-I-Beq	22	35	114	64
Gillette	17	-11	105	30
Lorka	7	-24	330	104
Stanton	27	-16	656	226
Velthuis	4	-45	184	37

(For a complete listing of sires and calculations click here)

Let the numbers do the talking

In studying proven bulls we found that most of them fall within the range for difference between the individual bull’s parent averages and official proof of 150-200 LPI points. And for most of the herds hear falling within that same range.

To go deeper and identify which sires are the best sires to sample, and for breeders to use and which sires should not be sampled or used we took a closer look at how DGV’s, Parent Averages and GPA LPI’s compared to their Estimated Daughter Performance*. Here is what we found:

Herd	Count	EDP*	EDP vs. Official	DGV vs. EDP	PA vs. EDP	GPA vs. EDP
Alta	11	926	-2	9	-53	-13
Claynook	14	-148	-88	106	683	314
Comestar	35	720	-29	26	309	128
Gen-I-Beq	22	1003	-54	89	168	117
Gillette	17	1338	1	-12	104	29
Lorka	7	409	-10	-13	340	113
Stanton	27	607	-56	40	712	282
Velthuis	4	1498	32	-77	153	6

*Please note to calculate Estimated Daughter Performance we took each sire’s official proof and back solved considering his DGV and PA using the published CDN formulas and weightings.

These results are consistent with our previous findings that DGV’s are by far the most accurate indicator of which sires you should use/sample. As well, why you should not use sires that have DGV’s below their parent averages (read more – 7 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Use Genomic Sires With DGV’s Lower Than Their Parent Averages)

The Bullvine Bottom Line

For both breeders and A.I. companies it can be very challenging trying to figure out which genomic tested sires to use and which breeding programs they should consider investing in. As we have found out the numbers tell the whole truth. Genomic results do give us very reliable information. While it may be true that for some of herds it can be said that they breed better female than male bloodlines. Nevertheless, that does not fully explain why A.I. companies have continued to sample bulls from some herds. It also does not justify why sire sampling herds should be asked to take on the risk in their herd improvement programs. As one of my breeder friends often tells me – use the best, cull or ignore the rest.

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

7 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Use Sires with DGV’s lower than Their Parent Averages

· Comments (1)

Friday, August 31st, 2012

In our recent article, Is the Genomic System Really Working? we pointed out that the early numbers indicate that the genomic system is a 27.1% improvement over the old system. In taking a closer look, we also noticed an interesting trend that sires with LPI DGV’s (Direct Genomic Values) lower than their parent average actually did a nose dive, when they added daughter information.

In God we trust. All others must bring data

Now some of you would say that the system is already putting too much weight on DGV’s and that it is too early. I get that. However, here are some actual facts from the most recent proof round (August 2012) for you to consider. (Again please note we use the CDN system as a result of being able to have access to the genomic information on it.):

For the sires who dropped more than 200 GLPI points from their genomic parent average index to their official proof, 96% (25/26) of them had DGV LPI’s lower than their parent averages. Note that 118 bulls received official proofs in the CDN system in August 2012.
For sires with DGV’s higher than PA’s, 33% (11/33) actually increased their LPI ratings with the addition of daughter data.
When we take a look at the 5 sires who took the biggest jump with the addition of daughter information when compared to their parent average (COMESTAR LAUTREC, L-RIDGEVIEW NOAK-ET, GEN-I-BEQ BRAWLER, OCONNORS JAY, FAVREAUTIERE GRIZZLY) we notice that they on average had DGV LPI’s that were on average 536 LPI points higher than their parent averages.
Conversely when we look at the 5 sires who dropped the most (BIG TIME WILTON, STANTONS BRAKE, EXPRESS DOLSUNN, STANTONS UNLIMITED, WEST PORT BRUTUS) we notice that on average they have DGV LPI values over 1000 points lower than that of their parent averages.
When you take the top 5 sires with the highest DGV LPI values (GEN-I-BEQ BRAWLER, OCONNORS JAY, MORSAN BORIS, EXPRESS BOLLY, COMESTAR LAUTREC) they on average had an increase of 151 LPI points with the addition of daughter information.
Of the 33 sires that increased with the addition of daughter information 30 of them had DGV’s higher than their parent averages. That compares to only 3 of the 83 sires who dropped having DGV LPI’s higher that their parent averages.
So then it comes to the question, “what if a sire has high genomic values but they are just below his parent averages?” To answer that, we looked at the sires that had GPA LPI’s of over 2000 and DGV’s lower than their parent averages (ARDROSS STERLING, STANTONS UNLIMITED, and STANTONS BRAKE).They dropped by an average of 787 points with the addition of daughter information. Conversely those sires that where over 2000 GPA LPI points and had DGV’s higher than their PA’s (GEN-I-BEQ BRAWLER and MORSAN BORIS) actually increased by an average of 134 over their GPA LPI values.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

While the numbers are still early, the facts clearly indicate the merits of only using sires who have DGV’s higher than their parent average. No matter how high they are. Breeders need to have access to the DGV LPI values for the young sires they help sample for breeding companies.

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Is the Genomic System Really Working?

· Comments (4)

Friday, August 24th, 2012

With Genomic sampled sires starting to get proofs, many breeders are finding themselves asking, “Is genomics really working?” Since it takes about 36 months for a sire to be sampled this is the first round we can start to evaluate the genomic system since its release in August 2009. To answer that question we decided to take a close look at how the system is working and if there are any early trends indicating if it is or not.

New Release Sire Performance over the past 2 Years

Probably this first place to look is how the young sire sampling programs are working proof round over proof round. (Due to the access of information, we are using the CDN system for this analysis).

Round	# of New Release	Average LPI*	# >2000 LPI
10-Aug	129	981	6
10-Dec	138	1013	7
11-Apr	133	996	6
11-Aug	127	1007	5
11-Nov	115	1041	7
12-Apr	111	957	2
12-Aug	119	981	3

*not base adjusted

Let`s start with the good news. The breed has been advancing when factoring in the base change. Now the not so good news, when compared to previous rounds at delivering top sires the numbers are not so pretty. As you can see by the table above, the last two proof rounds have not been so favorable for genetic advancement). We see the lowest average LPI from the sire sampling programs, with also the lowest number of elite sires being proven. This caused us great concern about the merits of the genomic system at delivering top sires and so we decided to look even deeper.

What’s going wrong? Or Right?

To get a better understanding of just why this last round was the 2nd lowest performing round in the past years (only behind Apr 2012) we decided to look at the group of young sires receiving proofs this round and discover whether it`s the system or how we`re using it.

In order to determine this we figured it would be best to compare the old system, top 10 parent average LPI (PA LPI) sires to the Top 10 Genomic sires (GPA LPI) and see how they stacked up. For the record her are the two groups.

TOP 10 PA LPI	TOP 10 GPA LPI
ARDROSS STERLING	GEN-I-BEQ BRAWLER
STANTONS BRAKE	OCONNORS JAY
MORSAN BORIS	MORSAN BORIS
STANTONS UNLIMITED	EXPRESS BOLLY
GEN-I-BEQ BRAWLER	COMESTAR LAUTREC
VELTHUIS S V B SAMPSON	ARDROSS STERLING
VELTHUIS SONAR	WALLACEVIEW PATTON
COMESTAR LAUTHIERY	DE-SU BURNISH-ET
GEN-I-BEQ LAVAL	BRYHILL LOYAL
STANTONS VISION	HARTLINE FOWLER-ET

The results are as follows:

	PA LPI	GPA LPI	Official LPI
TOP 10 PA LPI	1995	1720	606
Top 10 GPA LPI	1806	1968	2033

As you can see from the table above the GPA LPI sires outperformed the PA LPI sires by 27.1% indicating that the GPA system is a better indicator of estimated performance than the old PA system. In actuality, the top 10 GPA LPI sires actually increased their numbers by 3%, contrary to the expected drop. Even all 119 sires only averaged a drop of 89 points (9%) contrary to some other stats showing sires drop upwards of 20% from GPA LPI to the official LPI proof.

It’s also important to note that with an average official LPI proof of 2033 (445 points for base change) would have this group rank #5 behind the August 2009 proof round behind (Shottle, Justice, Goldwyn and Ashlar) with BRAWLER’s base adjusted proof (3083=2638+445) falling behind Shottle’s August 2009 proof of 3873.

So if it’s Not the System, What Is the Problem?

As the analysis of the PA LPI system vs. the GPA LPI system above indicates the issue is not the system. So then the question becomes, is it how we are using the system? Or are we just going through a lull? That question is tricky to answer. If we look at a longer period trend using currently available data from CDN we see that the two proof rounds before this period where even lower performing than the last two proof rounds.

Round	# of New Release	Average LPI	# >2000 LPI
10-Jan	135	738	1
10-Mar	130	686	1

It may also be that as an industry we are still very much learning how to use the Genomics system and sire selection practices have to adjust for these changes. When we look at the PA LPI list vs. the GPA LPI list we see two herds whose sires on average drop between 400 and 600 LPI points. Can we say hot house effect? (to read more Has Genomics Knocked Out Hot House Herds?)

The Bullvine Bottom Line

It is still early to weigh the success or failure of Genomics. The early indicators show that it is a 27.1% improvement over the old PA system. There is still much room for refinement and education on both the breeder side and the sire sampling side!

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Eight Proven Holstein Sires to Watch For or to Watch Out For

· Comments (0)

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012

Far too often many proven sires get missed. This can be for two reasons. Either their initial proof is lower than expected or everyone is so caught up in using the latest genomic release sires, that they miss some great ones. And then there are those new release sires that certainly seem to be amazing and then plummet to earth like a meteor. In order to help breeders understand which sires are which, we took a closer look at some of today’s top proven sires. Here is what we found.

(Please note: Due to the need to get DGV values all numbers are based on the Canadian System)

Sires to Watch for

ZANI BOLTON MASCALESE
With a dam that has MACE proof of over +4000 MLPI, it can be pretty scary for many breeders to use a MACE sire that is so high. Concerns that his proof is all parent average and genomics are not unusual. However, when it comes to MASACLESE his daughters are actually backing up what his family and genomics would indicate. His young sire proof estimates (65% Genomics and 35% Parent Average) would be +3019 MLPI and his MACE proof has him at+ 2972, telling you that, while his daughters are slightly lower, they are not far off.
UFM-DUBS ALTAESQUIRE
While no means a new release sire ALTAESQUIRE’s 2^nd crop daughters seem to be outperforming his first crop proof. Watch for ALTAESQUIRE to sire more production, components as well as better mammary systems than his current proof would indicate. Currently ALTAESQUIRE’s proof is held back significantly by his low parent average MLPI of +1763, that is 1171 points lower than his current official MLPI proof of +2934. With the addition of more daughters watch for his official CDN proof to have him among the top 2-3 LPI spots.
DE-SU ALTAGOALMAN
With so many sires from De-Su at the top of the genomics list, and breeders expecting that the top genomic sires will drop with the addition of daughter information, ALTAGOALMAN has actually outperformed his genomics and parent average. With a PA MLPI of +1960 and DGV MLPI of +2710, ALTAGOALMAN’s official proof MLPI is +2887, indicating that his daughters are significantly outperforming expectations for both type and production traits.
SHADYBANK SHOTTLE SANTANA
Unlike some sires that are significantly helped by their Parent Average’s SANTANA is actually significantly held back by his parent averages. With an official proof MLPI proof of +2854 that outperforms his strong DGV MLPI of +2778 and his not so strong PA MLPI of +1678, SANATANA’s daughters are performing significantly better than expected, especially for production and components.
GO-FARM ARTES
Here is one Goldwyn sire that I think many breeders might have missed. His lower DGV’s (DGV MLPI of +2024) and parent average of +1420 MLPI, do not spell breed topper. With an official MLPI proof of +2392, ARTES’s daughters are significantly outperforming expectations. While already among the breed leaders for type, watch for ARTES to be a significant type improver across all the major type traits, as well as giving significantly more production than expected.

Sires to Watch Out For

COYNE-FARMS DORCY
As we highlighted in our recent article The Effect Genomics Has On The August New Release Sires, DORCY’s current daughters are not performing as high as his Genomics (DGV MLPI of+ 2726) would indicate. Even when you factor in his lower parent average (PA MLPI of +2016) his expected young sire proof would have been +2477 MLPI higher than his current official proof of +2305 MLPI, indicating that his daughters are currently performing below his parent average.
WABASH-WAY EXPLODE
Living up to expectations can be very challenging, especially for sires that come from extreme families. That is the challenge EXPLODE finds himself in. With high genomics (DGV MLPI of +2333) and parent average (PA MLPI of +2127), EXPLODE falls short of what his young sire evaluation would be (YS MLPI +2261), with an official MLPI proof of 2183. Specific areas to watch out for are his feet and legs and rumps, based on current daughter performance.
O-MAN END-STORY
When his first proof came out END-STORY was not genomically tested. Being a late Oman son and internationally proven, many breeders were hesitant to use END-STORY, fearing that his numbers would not hold up. His daughters are significantly outperforming his DGV’s (DGV MLPI of +2419) and PA MLPI of +1504, with an official proof of +2502 MLPI. The hesitation factor is that with 57 daughters in 39 herds, there is plenty of potential for END-STORY’s proof to go in either direction. If the daughters live up to the numbers, he may have many breeders thinking twice and those that took the risk looking pretty smart.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

While we are not saying don’t use bulls like DORCY or EXPLODE, what we are saying is to use them with some level of caution, as current daughter performance has them below their DVG’s and parent averages. This does not absolutely mean they will drop with the addition of more daughters, but, if the additional daughters maintain current daughter performance, then a drop is in their future.

CATTLE BREEDING: If we don’t change we don’t grow

· Comments (0)

Tuesday, August 21st, 2012

The Art of Livestock Breeding: It starts with a need

The breeding of domesticated livestock has long been considered to be an art practiced by food producers of the world. It is has definitely not been static. It started with observant farmers seeing an opportunity to improve the attributes of their stock. Initially this meant fixing the characteristics of their stock and establishing breeds. Breed purity was the primary focus which often meant coat colour in cattle or ability to pull heavy loads in horses; reproduction rates in pigs’, egg production volume in chickens; ability to find their way home in carrier pigeons and so on as the need or goal was established.

Dairy Cattle Breeding: The cream rises to the top

Over the centuries species and breeds have evolved. In cattle it meant animals that were developed for draught, meat and milk production. Milk has achieved special designation and has been recognized as nature’s most perfect food. Over time, there have been hundreds of attempts at developing breeds of cattle for their milk producing ability. That progressed to the point where there were only a few. Today Holstein and Jersey are the major survivors. These breeds were developed in temperate regions of Europe each with their own characteristics.

Advancement of North American Breeding: No decade stands still

Over the twentieth century dairy farmers in North America have molded their dairy cattle into what they are today by taking many steps. A brief and not all inclusive synopsis of some of those changes by decade are:

Early 1900’s	Milk recording groups formed to authenticate volumes and milk quality
1920’s	Type Classification programs started
1930’s	With electricity came the start of machine milking, larger herds and the need for teats to point to ground and be close together
1940’s	Artificial insemination, the painting of breed True Type pictures and the need for milk not to carry diseases humans could contact
1950’s	Mechanization of field work resulted in farms specialization, improved forage quality, off farm processing of milk and sire daughter raw averages
1960’s	Sire proving coops were formed, milk recording started to be used for more than just animal authentication purposes and farmer marketing coops were established
1970’s	Greatly expanded numbers of young sires being sampled, BLUP analysis technique and genetic indexes for both bulls and cows
1980’s	Significant changes in genetic indexing methodologies, breeds and breeding companies with specified breeding strategies, the practise of on-farm preventive medicine programs by veterinary practices and amalgamation of farmer coops for recording, breeding and milk marketing
1990’s	Dairy cattle breeding adopted more finely tuned breeding formula’s (TPI, LPI and Net Merit), total mixed rations, on-farm least cost feeding, increased on-farm management practises including computer software programs, data analysis to better predict genetic merit, and in Canada governments , due to budgetary constraints removed themselves from the provision of milk recording and genetic indexing services
2000’s	Greatly enhanced rates of genetic advancement, capture of data for auxiliary and functional traits, refinements in breeding strategies to consider more than milk and conformation, routine use computerized farm management for both production and economics, greatly expanded herd sizes,management took on greater importance on all farms and researchers started to consider if the DNA make-up of an animal could be used for genetic advancement

Finding a New Path: Adding Genomics

Very definitely the move about five years ago by a few AI companies and the USDA to compare the DNA snips results with the genetic evaluations for dairy bulls proven in the USA and Canada was significant. However the decision not only to study but to make the results openly available to breeders was a gigantic step. Breeders could know the genomic results for bulls and cows. This meant that breeders were central to the genetic future of their animals and their industry. Compare that to the swine and poultry industries where relatively few breeding companies own the genetics of the world. Now in 2012 all dairy cattle breeding regions of the world are using, or are about to use, genomics to evaluate their animals’ genetic composition.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

I have always noticed that people who make a difference are the ones who, not only don’t resist change, but welcome it. It is important that producers through their breed societies and breeding coops continue to have open minds and collectively research and develop the genetics of their dairy cattle. If breeders are to govern their destinies, they need to make sure that their elected and organization officials are objective and dynamic in how they approach changes to cattle breeding such as genomics. Many changes are yet to be thought of. We always need to remember that, “When you are through changing, you are through.”

Genetic Evaluations – August 2012

· Comments (0)

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

With some countries not releasing proofs till next week, here is a break down of the North American Proofs for August.

USA

Massey Jumps to #1
Moving up from his debut at #3 in April is Co-Op Bosside Massey. With an increase in his production ratings as well as all major conformation composites Massey passes the well respected Man-O-Man (now #2).
Dorcy New #3
Debuting at the #3 spot is the popular genomic sire Coyne-Farms Dorcy. Siring outstanding udders and feet and legs with strong production, Dorcy is ideal for commercial environments. While needing to be protected on strength traits, Dorcy excels in herd life and calving ease.
Freddie Drops to #4
While actually increasing his TPI by 6 points, Freddie drops in ranking to the #4 spot.
Three New Cows in the Top GTPI ranks
Moving into the top 10 is MS PRIDE PLNT TASKET 788 (#3) and SEAGULL-BAY OMAN MIRROR (#9). Tasket is from the Genesis breeding program and has been a breed leader for Lifetime Net Merit, but now joins the top GTPI cattle as well. Mirror is the granddaughter of the brood cow extraordinaire Lynmead Celcius Minnow-ET EX-91 GMD DOM and moves up from her #11 spot in April. Debuting in the top 10 is COOKIECUTTER MOM HALO (#4). Hola is the maternal sister to Heineken at ABS and Henry at Accelerated as well as full sister to Hefty at Semex. Her Epic daughter topped the National Convention Sales at $76,000.

Canada

Plant Drops but still maintains #1 Spot
Although Esenada Taboo Planet loses 216 LPI points this round, he retains his stronghold as #1 LPI with a lead of 363 points.
Top New Release & #2 LPI– Gen-I-Beq Brawler
Gen-I-Beq Brawler is the highest among the first group of Baxter sons progeny proven in Canada and is also the oldest of 50 registered progeny of his outstanding dam, Gen-I-Beq Shottle Barbi, a granddaughter of Braedale Baler Twine. Brawler’s LPI is over 600 points above his parent average but within 30 points of his DGV. Since Brawler was popular as a genomic young sire and already has over 2,200 registered daughters in Canada.
Other Top Newcomers – Jay & Boris
Coming in at #6 LPI and the #2 new release sire is OConnors Jay. Jay is a Bolton from an EX 6* Durham and then a EX 2E Marcis Marvelous. An extreme feet and leg improver, Jay is almost 600 points over his parent average but only 33 points over his DGV’s. Following Jay as the #3 new release sire and the #10 LPI sire is Morsan Boris. Boris is also a Bolton x Durham cross, coming from the world renowned Ocean-View Durham Doris. Much like many of the descendants of Snow-N Denises Dellia, Boris sires outstanding conformation with strong components and herd life. Boris is just 100 LPI points over his PA and 36 points below his DGV.
Those Heading In The Wrong Direction
High ranking active sires that lose ground include Butoise Bahamas (from #4 to #13 LPI), UFM-DUBS Olegant-ET (from #6 to #29 LPI), Kilobyte (from #7 to #19 LPI), Velthuis Solstice (from #18 to #52 LPI) and B-Crest Shadow-ET (from #24 to #93 LPI).
New #1 LPI Cow
With her first official GLPI, OConnors Planet Lucia is crowned Queen of the Breed at #1 GLPI combining high yields and components with desired conformation (#1 Protein, tied #10 conformation). Lucia is a daughter of Comestar Goldwyn Lilac (#29 GLPI) and granddaughter of the famous Lylehaven Lila Z. As is consistent in this family, Lucia is well above her outstanding parent average by over 800 points, and is also over 300 LPI points above her DGV. Lucia sells in the upcoming Genetics by Design Sale on November 6^th.
Two New Top 10 LPI descendants from Crockett-Acres Mtot Elly
The dam of the #8 LPI sires (Eight) also has 2 new descendants on the top cow list. The first is Calbrett Planet Eve debuting tied at #7 GLPI (maternal line is Wabash-Way Evett-ET by Shottle x Crockett-Acres Elita-ET x Elly). The second is the only of the three cows who are entering the Top 10 GLPI that is not a Planet daughter, namely Stantons Manoman Ezra at #10 spot (her dam is Crockett-Acres Echo- ET, a daughter of Elly by Outside).

For more information check out our Genetic Evaluation Resource Center.

Genetic Evaluations – Why the Sky Is Not Falling

· Comments (2)

Wednesday, August 8th, 2012

As more and more early high genomic young sires are getting their daughter proofs in next week, I am sure we are going to hear that the sky is falling. And yes, while there is much certainty that the bulls may drop, that in no way indicates that genomics does not work.

As early proofs have indicated, the large majority of genomic sires will drop. But that should not have everyone running for the hills. Instead, what you should do is look at 2 key metrics: 1) How they compare to the proven sires that where available at the same time as the breeding 2) The percentage that are returned to service.

Why genomic bulls may drop

While critics would say that any drop is not acceptable, that just shows that they do not understand how the system works. There are other reasons that bulls may drop that most breeders may not consider; here are a few reasons:

Hot House Effect
While we all would like to believe that the system is faultless, that is just not the case. It’s important to remember that proofs are first and foremost based on herd variation and genetic gain over their parents. So if a genomic sire is used on a dam who maybe lost a teat, or was sick as a calf and did not develop to her full genetic potential, this will have a huge advantage for the genomic sire. Same is true if breeders are looking to work that system. By that, I mean they are going to have other genomic cattle in the herd that do not receive the same level of attention as the families that they are working to have succeeded. (read more here: Has Genomics Knocked Out The Hot House Effect)
Higher Quality Dams
In the past, young sires were used on G and the odd time a GP dam, but never on your high scoring 2yr olds. But with genomics, we see sires being used on VG 2 yr olds. Unless the progeny can score higher than the dam (not account for herd variance), it will be next to impossible for that bull to receive a positive type proof, let alone one that will allow them to be a breed leader. However, the potential for these sires to have the exact opposite effect is very possible, for instance, they were used on a VG-87 2yr old and her resulting progeny ending up a GP-80 2yr old. The sire will actually receive a much lower type score as a result. In reality, it is better to compare and note the similarities between a genomic sires daughter proof to a 2^nd crop proof of the past.
System Improvements
As mentioned in the hot house bullet above, the system is not perfect. These early proofs are based on the best educated guess that the geneticist could do given the data provided. As more data is available it will be possible to refine the system. The most useful data they will get will be these early genomic sires with daughter proofs. This will allow them to see how effects such as being used on higher quality dams will have and how they can adjust the system to account for this.

Does it matter?

The critics will say that the AI companies could care less if the bulls drop. They have sold so much semen on these young sires at such high rates that they have already made their profit. And yes, this is partly true. There is no question that a high genomic young sire will probably become a significant profit as compared to the past when they were a $50,000 investment. And then there is still the issue of credibility. It does not take long or many sires killing pedigrees before the clients of these AI companies will start losing business. The other part of the equation is that often these same AI companies have used these sires as sires of sons in their own programs, resulting in a significant risk for their programs and future profits as well.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

What breeders need to remember is, yes, genomic sires may drop. But instead of running around like Chicken Little announcing the sky is falling, what they need to do is compare those same sires to the proven sires that were at the top of list at the time when they made the breeding decision. From a systems perspective, it is better to look at what percentage of these genomic young sires are return to service. This will indicate if the system is working or not.

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

What Happens If Genomics Doesn’t Work?

· Comments (5)

Friday, July 27th, 2012

There has be so much talk lately, The Bullvine included, about how much the dairy breeding world has changed since the introduction of Genomics, that it has me thinking, “What if genomics doesn’t pan out. What if it doesn’t work as well as predicted?”

History is full of trends and inventions that the world thought would be amazing that in the end seemed nothing more than hype. In recent history there has been foursquare (location based social network) and the Snuggie that, due to great marketing and an audience starved for something new, saw immediate rapid growth but lacked staying power. Are genomics no better than the Snuggie?

While I must admit, I am sure there has been way more research and development behind genomics than there was behind the Snuggie, there are some significant areas that we have had to assume as musts that may turn out to bite us in the butt. Such as:

Not a Perfect Science
Because genomics are so new, this means that we have to operate on a number of assumptions. As time goes on and more and more animals are tested, I am sure the accuracy will improve.
Limited Data
While the ability to have genetic evaluations and recording systems provides genomics the ability to more accurately predict genetics merit far ahead of genomics in other animals or humans, it’s still in its infancy. As more and more cattle are tested there will be more and more data to work from providing geneticists with greater accuracy in the systems they produce.
Hot House Effect
While even we have written about how genomics has removed the hothouse effect (Has Genomics Knocked Out Hot House Herds?), does it really mean that it has been removed, or maybe it has just changed the game? Maybe “shady” breeders just need to think of new ways to work the new system.

Is It Genomics or Is It You?

History is littered with wide scale aversion to new, disruptive technologies. Thomas Edison turned down the radio because it had no commercial value; Western Union turned down the telephone because management thought ‘it will never be more than a toy’. Can you believe that Thomas J. Watson Sr., founder and head of IBM, turned down the computer; and Kodak turned down the Xerox copier. This makes me think of how many old school breeders are pissing on genomics (Old School Dairy Breeders – STOP PISSING ON GENOMICS) maybe more because of fear of change, than anything else.

May be you should also stop listening to the radio, talking on the telephone or taking pictures? Now tell me how many cattle you’ll be marketing?

The Bullvine Bottom Line

There are no guarantees in life (well, I guess I should say with the exceptions of death, taxes) and genomics is no different. Genomics is not a perfect science, yet. However, it does have a very sound scientific basis that, as time goes on, can be refined and enhanced. For those who are afraid of genomics I ask you, are you afraid of genomics, or are you afraid of change?

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

GENOMIC HEIFERS: Understanding who is on top

· Comments (0)

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

Adding genomics to genetic evaluations brings more attention to young heifers. There is increased accuracy to heifer indexes and new population benchmarks. Even more significant are the Direct Genetic Values (DGVs) that are generated from the DNA results. As you will see, the the very top heifers increase their genetic indexes significantly, while their full sisters, without high DGVs are not on the list. The DGV value makes the difference.

The Bullvine continually receives the question, “Why are the top heifers at the top?” In order to assist the industry to better know how high is great, the Bullvine has done an analysis of the top 25 Canadian Holstein heifers published in April 2012 by Canadian Dairy Network.

What do the average for the Top 25 look like?

[csv2table source=”https://www.thebullvine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/genomic-heifers.csv” icons=”false”]

This is a truly exceptional group. What other Top 25 female list would be able to boast of an average value of 192 kg. for fat plus protein and 13 for conformation on their Parent Average Genetic Indexes? And look at their DGVs. They are even higher at 203 kgs. for fat plus protein and 13.8 for conformation.

Digging Deeper

Average numbers are a good place to start, but there are additional facts that can assist us in understanding the Top 25.

21 were less than 1 year of age and 4 were over 12 months of age. Obviously, the heifers on this list are young.
The prominent cow families represented on this list are: Lila Z (24%); Lead Mae (24%); Gypsy Grand (16%) and Laurie Sheik (8%).
The heifers’ sires are 48% daughter proven bulls and 52% genomic young sires.
The heifers’ dams are 40% with performance of their own and 60% with PA GLPIs only.
96% of the heifers have DGVs higher than their PA GLPI.
The most significant fact is that the top 25 heifers on average have DGVs 228 LPI points higher than their PA GLPI. They are what are commonly referred to as high outliers. Most of these heifers have full sisters who are not as high for DGV. Previously, they would have been considered equals.

In future articles, The Bullvine will be bringing forward ideas on the genetic needs of dairy cattle and strategies to use in selecting and breeding.

THE BULLVINE BOTTOM LINE

When deciding to invest in a high genomics heifer, it is important to study both the heifer’s PA GLPI and her DGV. Although 25 may be too small a group to depend on for everything. Nevertheless from this small snapshot we get a clearer picture of the potential that genomics and DGVs provide. The Bullvine is excited to provide this perspective on an ongoing basis.

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Old School Dairy Breeders – Stop Pissing On Genomics

· Comments (1)

Monday, July 16th, 2012

Recently as part of our weekend humor series we published the picture seen at the right. In publishing the image we knew we would get a reaction, but we were surprised at the way breeders interpreted it. While we intended to show how old school breeders are dissing on genomics, but instead it seemed to become a rallying cry for old school dairy breeders.

The conversation that has stemmed from it has been very interesting. As you can see, there are still many breeders who don’t totally understand the merits of using top genomic young sires. In an effort to help educate, or maybe just bang my head against the wall, we have prepared the following details. .

Proven vs. Young Sire – Who wins in the long run?

Let’s take a comparison of the top 10 Genomics Young Sires vs. the Top 10 Proven sires from the April 2012 proof run. Of course we all know that the genomic young sires will have higher breeding values, but we need to account for the expected drop. Our analysis of the NAAB genomic sires’ proofs vs. their later daughter proven proofs currently shows a 13.8% drop on TPI. (Note: we are actually tracking the drop on LPI sires, TPI sires and PLI sires, and so far we see them dropping 9.7%, 13.8%, and 13.5% respectively.)

The following table shows where the current top genomic sires would rank compared to the proven sires options available currently.

[csv2table source=”https://www.thebullvine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/PROVENVSGENOMIC.csv” icons=”true”]

What Does This Mean?

What you notice is that three of the top current genomic young sires (Numero Uno, Supersire, and McCutchen) would all rank among the top 10 proven sires. In fact, 25 of the top 50 sires would be genomic young sires. This is not to say that they will all drop the 13.8% that the average sire has already. They could drop more or less. However, what it does show is that these young genomic sires have a much higher predictability than in the past. You can now use a group of these young sires with much greater confidence than in the past.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Are all the top genomic sires, going to end up on the top of the proven sires list, when they have daughter progeny? No, of course not. But what we have been finding is that only about 10% of them drop off the top list, and many of them hold pretty strong. We have even found some genomic sires that actually go up with daughter information. What it does mean? Use genomic sires that are within 10% of the top sires. If they have GTPI values of 2,300 or greater, you will end up ahead of where you would have been, if you had not used any genomic sires at all. Just remember this is an average. The movement will not be exactly the same for all sires, hence the need to spread out your young sire usage.

For all those old school breeders, who are pissing on genomics, well what can I say? I don’t expect to change your mind. However, it is foolish to piss on something that you don’t understand. Might I recommend that you read our free guide – The Dairy Breeders “No BS” Guide to Genomics.

Also be sure to check out our other fun links on Facebook

The most nevus day in most breeders lives.

Some decisions are just too hard to make….

“You been Flushing Long”

It’s a good thing dairy breeders don’t look at woman the way they do dairy cattle!!!

When you’re having a bad day. Just think……

GENOMICS: Big Dollar Opportunities are Adding Up

· Comments (2)

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

Is the glass half-full or half empty? The comment is often heard that genomics has yet to prove itself. When index breeding for production traits came on the scene forty years ago, it too was seen as the new kid on the block. In response, The Bullvine has decided to compile a list of points could be considered significant dollar opportunities Please note that these dollar values are derived from the Canadian situation but the general principles can be applied elsewhere.

Sample Only the Best Young Sires

Eliminating the need to sample the bottom 60% of 550 young sires (all breeds) will save the Canadian industry $16.5 M per year. Add to that, eliminating the loss that producers bear when they must cull daughters of low genetic merit young sires and it is over $20M in savings by genomically testing all young sires and only sampling the top sires.

Turning Generations

Generation interval is extremely important in determining the rate of genetic advancement in a population of food producing livestock. Shortening the generation interval, by using genomics to more accurately identify the top heifers and young bulls, will decrease the generation interval by one year, when 30% of the population is bred to young genomically tested young sires. That will increase the rate of genetic advancement by 25% per year. However the rate of usage of genomically tested young sires is fast approaching 50% which equates to a reduction in generation interval of two years. This results in a 60% gain in genetic advancement. Research has shown that that 60% gain is worth $30M annually for the traits that are currently included in the LPI formula.

Increased Accuracy

When considering the accuracy, with which we know the breeding values of the animal in a population, there are many points to consider:

Conducting a low density panel test on all heifer calves in a population of cows has a cost. It also has the benefit of having a totally accurate herdbook, no wrong assignments of parents and these help in genetic evaluations.
Knowing the genomic values for all females means that those genetic merit females can be used as recipients or can be fattened and sold for meat.

Identifying the elite females in a population greatly enhances the rewards that can be reaped from using only the best as dams of the next generation. Putting a dollar value on increased accuracy on the female side of a population is not easy to do but by The Bullvine’s calculation it would yield $20M per year in net terms for Canada’s dairy farmers.

Beyond Canada there are great populations of dairy cattle that contribute to the advancement of the genetic merit of dairy cattle everywhere. Knowing the genomic values of these animals will greatly help North America advance their populations, especially for breeds with numerically smaller numbers.

Traits under Selection

As The Bullvine has reported (read Is Your Breeding Strategy a Field of Dreams) selecting for traits beyond milk, fat, protein, SCC and conformation will become possible with the use of genomics. Already The Bullvine has learned from our followers that they look forward to knowing in genetic terms details for feed efficiency, production limiting disease resistance, calf health and liveability, reproduction traits and more. Putting an industry dollar value on knowing the growth of those additional traits is not possible at this time. But it will be quite a significant number.

Inbreeding

This article will not spend time addressing inbreeding as it has been addressed previously in The Bullvine (read Inbreeding: Does Genomics Affect The Balancing Act). Suffice to say at this time inbreeding can be handled when selection uses genomic values. Not previously mentioned by the Bullvine on inbreeding is the fact that in dairy cattle populations beyond Holsteins there is considerable benefit to using genomics to select semen and embryos from outside a country’s borders.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

So far in this article, The Bullvine has been able to identify over $70M to $100M in annual benefit to Canadian dairy breeders alone from the use of genomics. That means $10,000 annually for each and every breeder. So is the glass half full or half empty when it comes to using genomics? How do you see it?

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Dairy Cattle Genomics: Have we taken it too far?

· Comments (7)

Thursday, July 5th, 2012

When you look at the top 10 GTPI heifers you see that 9 of them are from heifers themselves with only one coming from a scored and milk producing dam. In addition 9 of them are from one sire (Shamrock), which instead of widening the genetic pool is actually shrinking it. Looking at the top GLPI list reveals that three out of every four in the top 100 are from un-calved heifers. While, on paper, cutting the genetic interval makes sense (read The Genomic Advancement Race – The Battle for Genetic Supremacy), long term, have breeders and AI companies started to take it too far?

In the new genomic world the previous gold standard of a proven sire stack and string of VG+ is no longer required. In any given pedigree you can now find GP cattle (read Is Good Plus Good Enough) or sires that you never have heard of.

Does Classification Even Matter?

While GP-84-2YR used to be the kiss of death for many marketing and genetic programs, genomics has changed the game. With genomics, we are seeing many GP 83 or 84 cows used as dams that would have never been touched before. While many will increase in score later in life, others do not, and yet that does not seem to be as big a factor. Many A.I. companies and breeders are more concerned about their genomic values than that of the actual classification scores.

There could be many reasons why that potential bull mother did not score very good. It could be management, it could be an accident that happened. Also, it could be that she is just not that good. It brings into question the relevance of classification. While the index system relies on having a large data set in order to map the genomes to the potential performance of each trait, it has me thinking do we need to score cattle anymore or can we just use their genomic values? Then I snap back to reality and realize that it’s one thing to look good on paper and another to deliver in reality.

Have We Forgotten Sire stack?

At one time, if there was a non -known sire in the pedigree, A.I. would not touch it. The marketability of that pedigree was next to nothing. No matter what the classification score was, or what the family was behind that animal, sire stack carried significant weight. Now I find myself having to do as much homework on the sire of the new top young sires, as I do on the young sires themselves. That may be because most of them are still young sires themselves. However, it is also because a young sire that did not turn out can still sometimes be better than a previous Top 10 proven sire.

For example, let’s say the proven sire has a TPI of 2300 at the time of mating and the young sire being used as sire of sons has a TPI of 2900. By the time the resulting progeny is being sampled the proven sire may have a TPI of 1750, and the young sire that was being used as a sire of sons may have a TPI of 1850. While that young sire may not be a list topper anymore, he is still higher than the proven sire that could have been used at the time.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

The dairy cattle industry has seen more change in the selection of parents in the past four years than at in any other period in its history. Genomics has changed the name of the game, and while many breeders have been apprehensive in embracing it, others have taken it and are running full force. I would not be surprised to see more significance in the future put on Direct Genomic Values (DGV’s) than on the weighted GLPI or GTPI. With everything that is new, there is a learning curve and, as we discover how to use this tool better, I am sure we will find better ways to apply the information. However, there is no question that genomics is here to stay and it is greatly changing the rate of genetic gain.

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

You Can’t Drive To The Future Using Rear View Mirrors!

· Comments (1)

Thursday, June 21st, 2012

By definition, being strategic requires that you look forward — identifying trends, opportunities, and threats. That’s how good drivers drive on super highways and it’s how good breeders keep moving forward too. You can choose the less risky route of staying in the parking lot but you won’t get anywhere. Here are a few ways to keep your herd moving toward the future.

Check out your blind spot

By the end of next year, even the skeptics will have to admit that genomics, smart phones and tablets are here to stay. The early adopters and best-practice breeders are using these devices. They love being able to see all incoming e-mail, social messaging, text messaging, and voice and video messaging in a single place. They`re using them as the new resource to learn about and manage almost every aspect of cattle breeding.

Traditional Marketing will Decrease. New Marketing will skyrocket.

As dairy breeders zero in on genomics, finding the leaders, at the right price in the right location and instantly … will change the face of dairy cattle marketing. The twice a year showcase or the every three to five years reduction sale will gradually give way to a marketplace that is in “sell” mode 24-7 and 365 days of the year. Sellers will move beyond single page ads, special events and the cattle ring for promotion as a whole new breed (pun intended) of niche players will be born with the intention of providing the best results from your advertising dollars. The days of a few key players topping the markets with their well orchestrated, for-your-eyes only live marketing events will gradually give way to on line live video interviews, marketing and promotion one-on-one. Rather than the traditional “one-size-fits-all” advertising strategy, a targeted personalized approach will be required if you expect to have a reasonable chance to sell in the new marketplace.

Genomics will increase its impact by becoming more focused and data driven

Most dairy breeders recognize that genomics is a tool to improve selection. As results become more refined and defined the potential impact will have even more converts. Global economic issues will be with us for years to come and that too will drive genomics development to target more and better ways to breed great cattle to their highest potentially in the fastest, healthiest and most economical way possible.

The Global Marketplace has attracted the Big Players

The continued growth of technology, social media, and easy communications now makes it possible a dairy breeder in China to come to your barn, see your cows and complete a sale with no middle men, expensive “tire-kicking” trips or costly international time zone, travel and financial issues. Today it’s take-a-look and complete-the-deal. With the whole world able to look over your shoulder in your barn, big business definitely sees the potential and is ready to grab a piece of the pie.

Dairy cattle research is picking up speed

Remember the good old days (that would be 10 years ago) when we had to sit through breeder meetings and association animal meetings and hear about the difficulties of getting the right research done at the right time and at a reasonable cost? Industry and government were supposed to be pulling together to fund research that would have an impact on more than the scientific community. Sometimes breeders were skeptical, or unaware, of the practical applications. Remember CAAB? Genomics has changed all that. Now not only are the money streams more accessible and flowing, the really big players with the really big bucks are ready and willing to become the new best friends of the cattle breeding industry.

Farm Branding is the Express Lane to Success

You can no longer hope that a few expensive colour layouts in a magazine will give you the profile you’re looking for to sell those also expensive genetics that you’re investing in. Having good genetics, a great work ethic and savvy cow sense, is no longer enough to have you speeding through the rapidly expanding crowd where everybody says, “Been there. Bred that!” The increased use of social media and digital marketing will be the new way for the cream to rise to the top.

The Buyer Experience

In the past, you knew who the “players” were and the rest didn’t blip on your radar. Today, you’ve got one chance to make a good first impression. You never know when someone’s phone will capture a video and or audio of your inventory (is that what she “really” looks like?) and share it around the world. You could try keeping your doors selectively closed but that will send a message too and it could be a negative one! You are caught between the camera and a hot place!

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Forward-looking decision-making: Although hindsight is 20/20, if you’re moving ahead you cannot spend your time looking backward at what happened in the past. The dairy business of the future is following the growth signs: market supply and demand; new dairying technologies and genomics to name a few. This forward-looking focus will not only improve decision-making but will lead the way to a future that is built on the past but moving way faster than we ever though possible. Keep moving on the dairy industry express lane or you could be stuck on the off-road ramp or, even worse, left in the parking lot!

Will there ever be another distinct bloodline?

· Comments (0)

Wednesday, June 20th, 2012

Before the recent Kueffner Kows at Cowtown Sale Horace Backus, commented that he had never seen anything like it in all his years! “The quality of every animal and the homebred breeding was just so good. Just before the sale started, I took a moment to walk through one of the lines of cows while it was quiet and everyone was already gathered in the tent. I stood looking at a line of maybe 40 animals, and thought I was standing at Madison seeing that many great cows all together.” These comments reminded me of the ones he made before the 1998 Hanover Hill Dispersal where Horace said, “In the history of the Holstein Breed, there have only been four or five herds that have created a distinct blood herd. Today we are selling a distinct bloodline herd.” This got me think will there ever be another distinct bloodline herd?

Over the years, the marketplace has changed greatly. The improvements in technology have been incredible. It is now easier than ever to market, compare and transport your genetics to anywhere in the world. To get a better understanding how each of these will play into the potential of having another distinct bloodline, we decided to take a closer look at each one.

Marketing to the World

In the era of Hanover Hill era buyers did come in person from around the world. The world has changed greatly with the Internet. I often wonder what a great marketer like Peter Heffering would have done in today’s time. The ability to market to a much larger audience through the internet and Facebook is expanding the marketplace. You are no longer just selling to the person next door or in the same country or the few who are able to travel to buy. You are often selling to people half way around the world. And more importantly than where they are, is how quickly and easily you can reach them. You no longer have to run magazine ads in each country’s major breed magazine. Today you simply post a quick smartphone picture, or better yet video, on your Facebook page and share it with the world.

Cross Country Comparisons

One of the things that contributed greatly to each country or region having its own distinct bloodlines was that the ability to compare performance data on in each country presented challenges. In previous generations, it was hard enough getting everyone to talk in the same units (ex. Lbs. vs. kgs.) let alone the fact that they had different methods of evaluating things. Then came Interbull and MACE proofs. That started to open up the marketplace, but for some the confidence in the MACE system was not there and for the most part most countries still had regionalized breeding and evaluating systems. Then came genomics that has given breeders around the world the confidence no matter where the bull was proven to use him on their cattle. We now see that there is no longer a negative stigma in North America on foreign proven bulls. Moreover, many of the great international cow families are gaining significant respect in the North American marketplace, especially as sons of these cattle have proven themselves well on the North American genetic base.

Transportation of Genetics

All the great marketing and evaluation systems in the world mean nothing if you cannot get the genetics to the consumers. Artificial insemination had a drastic impact on the ability of breeders to develop distinct bloodlines. Instead of just running your own breeding program where you sell the odd breeding bull, artificial insemination meant that when you sold that bull to an AI center, he would now be able to reach the world market. With AI companies also becoming less regional or country focused and more world focused, that meant you could sell a bull in Chicoutimi Quebec and his semen could be used in Kamifurano Japan. Breeders no longer had to develop their own bloodlines and could draw on the best bloodlines from around the world. Furthermore, as embryo transfer technology advanced you could also import and export embryos and further accelerate your breeding programs.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Today breeding herds like De-Su limit the amount of genetics they sell and AI organizations like Select Sires are entering the female animal ownership side in order to develop a distinct product in the marketplace. Nevertheless, I truly feel that with the overall changes in the global marketplace we have a much more level playing field through evaluation systems and technology and, therefore, it is highly unlikely that we will see the achievement of a distinct bloodline at the level reached by Hanover Hill.

What Will The Cow of The Future Look Like?

· Comments (0)

Wednesday, June 13th, 2012

Will she score 95 points? Will she produce 40,000lbs per year? Will the cow of the future be polled? Will she produce less methane gas? In the future, consumer demand will shape everything about dairy farming, including what the dairy cow will look like. Dairy consumption in emerging economies is rising fast. In China alone it will triple by 2020. As rice-paddies turn to pasture, breeder goals and ultimately the makeup of the modern dairy cow will change.

Over the past decade in North America, total milk production has increased in concert with the increased demand for dairy products from growing populations and increasing exports. This increase in production was achieved without increasing cow numbers, which have held steady, or slightly decreased, for nearly two decades. Production efficiency has therefore increased substantially with average production currently at 21,000 lbs. per cow per year.

While many things have contributed to the gain in production efficiency, one key area has been genetics. One of the biggest changes in the genetics market has been the use of genomics. Genomics has brought greatly increased reliability to estimated breeding values and is drastically decreasing the interval between generations (To read more check out The Genomic Advancement Race – The Battle for Genetic Supremacy). The next steps will be health traits and profitability and not just the ones that we are currently evaluating. We are getting ready to delve into better understanding of reproductive issues such as which cows are more efficient at converting feed to milk production (To read more check out Holstein vs. Jersey: Which Breed is More Profitable). Also rising on the priority list will be disease resistance (to read more check out Your Cattle Are Under Attack) and ultimately which cows are the healthiest, trouble free and most profitable.

As the revered management guru, Peter Drucker, says, “You cannot improve what you cannot measure.” Even though the dairy industry has a great system for evaluation production and conformation, there is much needed improvement in the areas of profitability and herd health. These areas were once thought to be low heritability however, with genomics, traits such as somatic cell, and immune response can greatly impacted at the genomic level. With Pfizer a company very focused on animal health now offering genomic testing, it’s only a matter of time before there is greater measurement in these areas.

This first steps in any effective improvement program requires accurate measurement. While many conformation traits and overall production traits are measured intensely when you look at overall measurement of cow –by-cow profitability, there are some major gaps. One of the biggest is accurate feed conversion metrics. While there have been studies by breed vs. breed comparison, there is a much greater need to take this analysis to the cow by cow and ultimately the genetics evaluation level.

The other day I was talking with a human geneticist about the use of genomics and ultimately the ability for genomic manipulation of a population. One of the key things he pointed out to me was how the dairy cattle industry really has the ability to lead the way when it comes to genomic advancements. Not because of the ethics issues, which we will leave for another forum, but rather because the dairy industry already has such a system in place for evaluation of the progeny. This ability to measure the exact effects of the manipulation will greatly accelerate the advancement process.

The Bottom Line

Over the years we have started to see less emphasis on stature, and increased focus on feet and legs and mammary systems. The cow of the future, will not just be about their conformation, but rather their ability to efficiently convert feed and their resistance to disease. With companies with the size and resources of Pfizer or their newly formed Zeotis entering the marketplace offering genomic tests, and maybe ultimately genomically modified cattle, the future may come much quicker than most breeders expect. So what will the cow of the future look like? We do not know exactly, but she will no doubt be the one that returns the most profit to her owners. All this will be driven by consumer demand.

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

ACCURATE GENETIC EVALUATIONS: Can We Hit the Bull’s-eye?

· Comments (1)

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

Nobody wants to make decisions based on the wrong information. Good breeders know that accuracy is the key to making successful breeding decisions. Wouldn`t it be wonderful to have perfect data at our fingertips? There`s nothing wrong with dreaming the impossible dream but, realistically, in the business of cattle breeding, you can’t wait for that golden sunrise when perfection is a sure thing and 100% repeatable.

THE PAST: Almost-Perfect

Whenever we look back at animal-breeding history, a rosy glow settles over our perception of the past. For more than fifty years, we have constantly improved our North American genetic evaluation methods and models, proudly proclaiming them to be, if not perfect, at least the very best. Many of us felt we were destined to be at the top in cattle breeding forever. Then, the very success we reveled in spread our success and our genetics to everyone else. Accuracy was harder to ensure. Genetic evaluation methods and models are based on accurate recording of pedigree and performance data and all international input data is not created equal from country to country. Nevertheless we trusted the Animal Model (1989), the Test Day Model (Canada 1999) and Interbull (the international proof system). And it was still good.

AND THEN CAME GENOMICS: New Dart! New Target!

Hardly a decade into the 21^st Century and Genomics comes along and changes our perception of the future. Here is a revolutionary new tool or dart, if you will, to take genetic aim with. Now there can be more focused selection much earlier in the bull or heifer’s life. Since that first official genomic evaluation in August 2009 accuracy has increased. Great! But now even the genetic target has changed. It is bigger. Now we don’t only target selection of proven bulls and performance recorded cows, but selection of young bulls and heifers, shortly after their birth. The full potential of what we can aim for has yet to be imagined.

TODAY CLOSE ONLY COUNTS in Horseshoes, Hand Grenades AND GENOMICS

In the interest of accurate information, it is important to look at everything that may be a negative influence on achieving this goal. In a May 2012 article entitled, “The Ongoing Challenge of Accurate Genomic Evaluations” Brian VanDoormal (CDN) points out those things that make precision targeting harder to achieve:

Non-random usage
MACE evaluations
Parent Average less accurate when the parents are foreign
Estimating unbiased proofs for foreign sires
High priced foreign proven sire semen used on higher quality females in higher quality herds.
Differential treatment adds to bias of non-random usage
Non-random usage of elite progeny proven sires
Non-random usage of high ranking genomic young bulls

VanDoormaal goes on to report that, “ CDN is actively researching methods to reduce or eliminate such biases and to better incorporate MACE evaluations of foreign sires and bull dams into Canadian genomic estimations and officially published proofs.” He emphasizes, “One immediate area of importance being researched is the development of methods to reduce bias in evaluations for foreign sires and bull dams.”

GENETIC EVALUATION ACCURACY: A Hard Target with Collateral Benefits

Each step that increases accuracy increases the trust that breeders can place in the information. In fine tuning genetic evaluations we benefit from increased accuracy in predicting other traits that previously we didn`t have data on: calf health; fertility; resistance to disease; specific components of milk; hoof health.

Not only has the arrival of genomics changed how genetic evaluations are calculated but it has also significantly changed male and female selection strategies by A.I. companies and breeders as well as semen usage trends by producers. Even breeders who do not use AI will benefit from genomics because they will have available to them bulls that test genomically high but that were not selected for AI. Previously there was a wider range of bulls sampled at great expense. With genomics, the entire gene pool of sires is being much more accurately identified for their genetic merit.

GENETIC EVALUATION ACCURACY is a MOVING TARGET

For more than 100 years cattle breeders have moved the industry ahead by selecting for the traits they felt were most important. There was a progressive emphasis as the focus changed or was expanded: amount of milk in a single day; total milk in a liftetime; butterfat; protein; and conformation. New models and young sire programs were developed. All of these had an impact but the potential for genomics impact is far greater. With genomics, large numbers of young bulls can be tested and eliminated with an enormous reduction in time and cost to the breeder and the industry. This adds to the burden of responsibility for genetic evaluations to be accurate and account for non-random selection and/or under-evaluated progeny proofs.

THE BULLVINE BOTTOM LINE

Will Genetic Evaluations ever achieve 100% accuracy? Only time will tell. The challenge we face now is to keep the system steadily improving for the impact having accurate information can have not only for cattle breeding today but for generations to come.

For more information check out our Genetic Evaluation Resource Center.

Your Cattle Are Under Attack!

· Comments (0)

Monday, June 4th, 2012

In the fight against cattle diseases it feels like dairy breeders are constantly dodging shrapnel. Where will BSE or TB strike next? Have you been hit with mastitis, ketosis or metritis? Also, it is becoming harder and harder to fight back since there is a worldwide concerted effort to limit the use of antibiotics, particularly in food producing livestock. On top of that, animals are developing antibiotic resistance, making that course of action less and less effective.

After years of focusing on measurable traits – conformation, milk yield, protein yield – the dairy industry has started to take aim at health issues by recording somatic cell score evaluations. It is a small start in waging defense against disease. We must now take aim at an even bigger animal health picture, when looking at the future of our herds and our dairy industry.

You Already Have the Ultimate Weapon

The real fact is we already have the best disease defeating weapon at our disposal. It is the immune system of cattle. Animals with superior immune systems can do it all:

Reduce disease
Increase farm profit
Improve milk quality
Increase animal well being

DISEASE WARS – DNA Strikes Back!

Researchers at Ontario Veterinary College at Guelph University have identified that, when it comes to fighting disease, “One of the most attractive options available is to make use of the animal’s own immune response genes to select for healthier animals with naturally superior immunity.” The OVC group refers to these individuals as High Immune Responders. The really great news is that beyond the idea, the research and the studies is the fact that they have developed a patented test system to quickly identify these animals within dairy herds. This method is referred to as the High Immune Response (HIR) technology and they report that this approach can work well on both conventional and organic dairy farms.

HIR is FIGHTING BACK

The OVC group reports that there is clear evidence in cattle that it is possible to selectively breed for high (H), average (A) or low (L) – immune responsiveness and that H-responders can positively influence resistance to infectious disease. “In fact, early research by our group showed health and production benefits following genetic identification of cattle and pigs for enhanced IR. This included lower occurrence of mastitis in high immune responders in 2 out of 3 dairy herds tested, as well as improved response to vaccination and colostrum quality. “

We Have the Technology

The OVC group refers to these individuals with both higher and more optimally balanced antibody and cell-mediated immune responses, as High Immune Responders, and goes on to report that they have developed a patented test system to quickly identify these animals within dairy herds.

The HIR technology is designed to identify those cows and calves with robust and unbiased immune responsiveness that can be kept for future breeding to improve herd health, while low immune responders may be culled from the herd.

It is worth noting that, in general, a calf identified as a high responder will maintain that classification as a mature lactating cow. Therefore animals only need to be tested and classified based on their IR breeding value once in their lifetime.

Breeders Want HIR!

Qualitative market research using a cross section of focus groups was conducted by an independent firm, Agri-Studies (Guelph, Ontario). Results showed significant interest among dairy producers to use HIR to identify calves or cows with High Immune Response (75% of producers). The key benefit they saw was the ability to cull animals as calves and save the cost of raising animal that later may have significant health issues. They also saw the value of using sires that were classified as HIR to improve the health of their herds. Further market assessment and beta testing of dairy herds is now underway to finalize the transferability of the technology to the marketplace.

It’s All About Results

In 2010, 690 cows from 58 herds across Canada were immunized using the patented system to evaluate their IR profiles. In this study approximately 15% of cows were high, 15% were low, and 70% were average immune responders with some slight differences between provinces

Health
Preliminary results show that among all cases of clinical mastitis in the cows across Canada that were tested for immune response, cows classified as HIR had the lowest occurrence of coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS).
Production
Results to date have shown that breeding for optimal high immune response based on both antibody and cell-mediated immune responses would not compromise production.
Profit
In Canada, it costs the dairy producer $110 to $320 per case of mastitis, and it has been estimated that almost 1 out of every 5 dairy quarters in Canada is infected with a mastitis-causing pathogen

High Immune Response (HIR) Animals Are Naturally Immune

HIR is a patented evaluation technology developed to identify dairy cattle with high adaptive immune response capability. Identification is safe, fast and effective.

Benefits include:

Lower disease occurrence and severity
Reduced treatment and veterinary costs
Increased response to vaccines
Increased colostrum quality
Cows as young as 2 months can be tested
Animals only need to be tested once in a lifetime
Testing is safe and does not interfere with any other diagnostic testing
Cost benefit analysis show significant savings to producers who identify HIR cows in their herd.

The Future is Now!

Further market assessment and beta testing of dairy herds is now underway to finalize the transferability of the technology to the marketplace.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

No matter how scary the news makes the latest livestock health threat out to be, your herd’s natural immune defense system is the ultimate response.

Is Good Plus Good Enough?

· Comments (12)

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

For years GP-84-2YR was the kiss of death when it came to marketing and selling genetics. However, along comes genomics and it seems that GP is good enough. Nevertheless, the question it has me asking is “Is Good Plus Good Enough?”

I can still remember when Summershade Icebreak Luke, was the #1 LPI cow in Canada. The problem was she was scored GP-83-2YR. The A.I. companies where not sure if they should even sample bulls from her and how would they convince their members to use them in their young sire programs. Then came along Summershade Igniter and Summershade Inquirer and A.I. companies took the chance. While hindsight is 20/20, maybe they should have passed. On the female side, Icebreak had 34 daughters classified and only 7 of them going VG. We ourselves had one of those daughters Summershade Icemarti. While she did score VG, it was not until her 2^nd lactation, long past her peak marketing time. In the past, we have purchased many daughters out of GP 83 and 84 two year olds, expecting them to go VG before our purchase calved in. It has proven to be a risky move, but one that could have paid off big time. On the male side Icebreak had six sons enter A.I. service but none where ever returned to service.

On the flip side, I can also remember when we first purchased into the Braedale Gypsy Grand family and many people around us had concerns about her GP-83-2YR dam. While there was a very good reason why Moonriver never went VG, we still found ourselves having to explain things many times. Then along came Second Cut, Baler Twine, Freelance and Goodluck and we found that changed everything.

As we all know genomics has changed the name of the game, and we now see A.I. companies sampling high genomic sires irrelevant of their score or the score of their dam. With that in mind, I decided to take a look at the current high index dams that are NOT scored VG. The following is what I found.

The Story in the US

In the US, there are three GP cows on the Top 25 GTPI Cows List (GP-83-or Higher). Leading the way is BEN-AKERS PLANET LUISE26-ET, she the #3 GTPI cow and the #1 NM cow scored over 83 points. While Luise is from the Ricecrest Luke Lisa family and has solid type numbers, her genomic values for type are actually lower than her parent average and yet she still has a son at Alta Genetics, Ben-Akers AltaRazzle. Joining Luise on the top GTPI list at #18 is SURE-VIEW MP PLANET LEXI. Lexi is from the M&M-Pond-Hill Leadman Luba family and is scored GP-83-2YR. Similar to Luise, Lexi has high genomic values compared to her parent average but yet again has conformation scores that just meet expectations. Unlike Luise, it appears to this point that Lexi does not have any sons currently in A.I.. The third member of the list is SULLY PLANET MANITOBA , this GP-83-2YR is out of the great brood cow, Sully Shottle May the former #1 GTPI and GLPI cow of the breed. Of course May is believed to have more offspring genomic tested over 2200 & 2300 GPTI than any other cow in the breed. Unlike the other two GP 2yr olds on the top list, Manitoba has outstanding type numbers and her genomic values are actually higher than her parent average. It’s these outstanding values that have her with at least three sons currently in A.I., SULLY HART MERIDIAN-ET and SULLY HART MUNICH-ET at Semex, and SULLY ALTABRANDON-ET at Alta Genetics.

The Canadian Story

Much like the US list the #3 spot on the Canadian List is held by a GP-83-2YR, Benner Planet Jakova-ET. Being a Planet from a Goldwyn, Jakova has strong parent average for type and has strong genomic values as well. Coming from the Benner Luke Jean family, Jokava has yet to put a son into A.I.. Joining Jokova on the list is Delaberge Planet Lulu. However, on April 25^th Lulu was raised to VG-85-2YR, 244 days fresh. Lulu comes from the Bryhill Lindy Lilly family and already has a son at Semex, DONNANDALE LUMI. The third member on the list is Alexerin Oman 993. Of interesting note about 993 is that there are no VG dams anywhere in her pedigree, she has mostly production sires and yet her parent average for conformation is five and her genomic value is a six. Not surprisingly, 993 does not have any sons currently in A.I. The last member on the list is Calbrett Planet Empress. Much like Lulu, Empress has since been moved to VG-86-2YR later in lactation. Empress is from the WABASH-WAY EVETT dam of the popular genomic sire Genervations Eclipse and the same family as Epic and Highway. Given the strong maternal pedigree, Empress has PA of +10 for conformation and actually exceeds that with a +12 for her direct genomic value. Given her increase in score and strong maternal pedigree it is just a matter of time before she has sons in A.I..

The Bullvine Bottom Line

While GP-84-2YR use to be the kiss of death for many marketing and genetic programs, genomics has changed the game. With genomics, we are seeing many GP 83 or 84 cattle used as dams that would have never been touched before. While many will increase in score later in life, many do not, and yet that does not seem to be as big a factor. Many A.I. companies and breeders are more concerned about their genomic values than that of their actual classification score.

Not sure how much to spend on that great 2 year old?
Want to make sure you are investing your money wisely?
Download our Dairy Cow Investment Calculator.

INBREEDING: Does Genomics Affect the Balancing Act?

· Comments (0)

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

If you are like many of us you are alternately amazed, overwhelmed and confused by the barrage of information that is fed to you through your breed organizations, cattle committees and industry publications. As part of The Bullvine`s commitment to be an informative and understandable resource for cattle breeders, I have spent considerable time trying to get my non-scientific head around the 2011 paper in the Journal of Dairy Science entitled, “Novel strategies to minimize progeny inbreeding while maximizing genetic gain using genomic information.” Was it worth the bother? Yes. Definitely.

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

We can all agree that Genomic information is a tremendous breakthrough for cattle breeding. With all the potential, it didn’t take long for the concern to arise that greater rates of genetic gain could lead to higher annual rates of inbreeding. My wild imagination skipped to a picture of everyone breeding to the top bulls and ending up with a single family. Even if that seems outrageous, it is definitely possible that generation intervals could be halved through taking advantage of the accurate GEBV’s available at birth and this could increase the inbreeding per year. Therefore, I definitely wanted to find out from this paper published by Pryce, Hayes and Goddard in Australia on how genomic information offers possibilities to control the level of progeny inbreeding.

Concern: Are we moving from homogenized milk to homozygous cows?

Let’s take a look at the indicators that might lead us to believe the answer is, “Yes!”

Genomic predictions are both cost effective and highly accurate. Therefore there is the very definite potential to accelerate the rate of genetic gain beyond that achieved through progeny testing.
Shorter generation intervals could result in large numbers of animals who are similar in genetic makeup due to the sires used.
It’s human nature to aim for the best. The uptake of genomics has been beyond anything previously predicted or imagined. Not only is the playing field being leveled it is being dramatically narrowed down.

Strategies to Control the Rate of Inbreeding

An important part of this Australian study was to evaluate the effect of the three strategies tested on the homozygosity of deleterious recessives. In other words, what can breeders do to limit the potential for negative effects of inbreeding? Before, we go further, it is interesting to note, that these researchers referenced more than twenty other research papers. The focus on this subject is concentrated and that can only be good for the eventual outcome for breeder decision making.

The main limitation of comparing methods to predict progeny inbreeding is that, at this time, there is no best practice for measuring inbreeding. Pedigree is flawed by errors and gaps and often, particularly in commercial herds, the depth of pedigree. Genomic relationships calculated using SNP data could have errors from incorrect identification of samples.

The goal of these researchers was to compare 3 strategies for controlling progeny inbreeding in mating plans:

Pedigree inbreeding coefficients
Genomic relationships
Shared runs of homozygosity.

The Good News Is….

I know this all sounds very complex, but relax there is good news. The study found that both genomic relationships and pedigree relationships were successful strategies to control the rate of inbreeding under genomic selection. They also concluded that using genomic relationships instead of pedigree relationships “appears to be better at constraining genomic inbreeding under genomic selection.” The unique part of their study was that they went a step further and proposed “using runs of homozygosity to control the rate of inbreeding.”

Again I know sounds very complex. So let’s try and break it down. One of the underlying processes of inbreeding is that it increases the frequency of both favorable and deleterious homozygotes. ROH stands for run of homozygosity. If the occurrence of deleterious homozygotes is more likely to arise as a consequence of recent inbreeding (which is the potential of heavy use of genomics) then strategies to minimize ROH could be a way of reducing them. A novel approach, don’t you agree?

What did they do?

In the research simulation they used 300 cows with 20 sires available for mating, replicated 50 times. Each of the 300 individuals allocated as dams were matched to 1 of 20 sires to maximize genetic merit minus the penalty for estimated progeny inbreeding and given the restriction that the sire could not be mated to more than 10% of the cows. In the discussion part of the paper, which, of course, is the easiest part to understand they offer this: “The results presented here show that using A GRM instead of pedigree in a mating plan is an effective way to reduce the expected inbreeding in progeny, with minimal effect on the genetic gain for the inbreeding objective.” The breeding objective in Australia is expressed as APR and in Canada it is LPI and in the US is TPI.

What can YOU do Today?

Before we go on to look at the financial aspect of this discussion, you should refer to the Genomic Evaluation Details which are available from CDN (Canadian Dairy Network) or from your breed association. In the CDN report there is a column that gives the percentage inbreeding (%ING) numbers for the Sire; Dam and MGS. In general it could be agreed that 0-8 is good; 8 to 10 is okay: 11 to 14 watch and 15 or more take action.

What is the Dollar Difference of Inbreeding?

Inbreeding affects profitability by adversely affecting traits related to fitness and production. Data from the US reported that the current cost of inbreeding over an average cow’s lifetime was US$24. For this study a conservative value of $5 per year was used as the economic value per 1% increase in inbreeding. “These results demonstrate that using GRM information, a 1% reduction in progeny inbreeding (valued at around $5 per cow) can be made with very little compromise in the overall breeding objective. These results and the availability of low-cost, low –density genotyping make it attractive to apply mating plans that use genomic information in commercial herds.”

By itself this economic benefit does not currently justify the investment in whole herd genotyping, if one considers that pedigree information is free and appears to do a pretty good job of controlling inbreeding, However, it may be economically worthwhile for dairy farmers to invest in whole-herd low-density genotyping in conjunction with other uses of genotyping. Examples could include confirming parentage, selecting the best heifer calves to keep as herd replacements, managing genetic defects, flushing and selling high-value pedigree stock. These researchers conclude: “Based on our calculations the value of genotyping to control inbreeding could be worth between $5 and $10 per cow.” You do the math.

THE BULLVINE BOTTOM LINE

So this is my untrained, non-scientific understanding of this single paper on a subject that is growing faster than gossip on a grapevine. Having said that, it is each dairy breeder’s job to be informed. Use your network to find out who has the best answers to this question because when it comes down to the affect of inbreeding on YOUR breeding bottom line it’s YOUR money!

Not sure what all this hype about genomics is all about?

Want to learn what it is and what it means to your breeding program?

Download this free guide.

Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave?

· Comments (9)

Monday, May 28th, 2012

For some time now the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding (CDCB) has been working to establish a “Cooperative Agreement” with the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) pertaining to the transfer of the USDA-‐ARS dairy genetic evaluation service to the CDCB. This has culminated in the recent release of a draft Cooperative Agreement for public comment. The problem is that the draft lacks some of the core values that makes America great, specifically the ability for everyone to operate on a level playing field (access to information) and to be led by brave leadership driving toward a better future.

With these changes come many questions. Some key issues follow.

Will everyone have access to the information?

Reading the agreement may require having a law degree to fully understand it. This may be by intention, but it really doesn’t make for light reading. Some of the language in the proposed agreement is very confusing. It talks about how the CDCB will have ownership and control of the information. One of the reasons that the USA has been able to become the mega world power that it is was because it was founded on the belief that everyone is created equal and has equal opportunity to achieve success. Looking at how the use of genomic information was handled in the past does not bode well for how everyone will get free access to the information. Many smaller organizations are concerned that this will lead to a monopoly for a few A.I. studs.

The proposed wording is in stark contrast to allowing free access to the information for all those involved. This actually causes a double edged sword. On one side, the powers that be are limiting the small guy from competing at the same level. However, there is also the interest about keeping much larger players, such as say Pfizer from entering. In Canada, Pfizer is already offering genomic testing and what’s to stop them from using their many resources to use that information in new ways (read Are You Ready for Genetically Modified Cattle).

How do we maintain our integrity with breeders worldwide?

Similar to the views expressed by Greg Anderson of Seagull Bay Dairy, many breeders are concerned about the perceived integrity that comes from going away from a government organization (USDA) to a private entity. Vice President of Holstein USA Glen Brown and Director Bill Wright also express these concerns, Both men are also dairy breeders and call for the need to develop strong business plan, in the following video

While I do understand this concern, there are many examples worldwide, such as the Canadian Dairy Network (CDN), which has been able to maintain integrity and do it without the political hurdles that come with government involvement.

One of the lessons learned from the CDN model is that you need equal representation from all parties involved, not just those who put up the most money. CDN is majority funded by Industry and specifically A.I., but its board has equal representation from breed associations, breeders, and industry. This is necessary in order to maintain the integrity of the organization and also to provide effective direction for the future. One thing is for sure, it will take bold leadership through these times. This makes me remember when Murray Hunt (Dad for disclosure sake) backed by the Canadian Genetic Evaluation Board, was facing a similar challenge in Canada. At the time he made some bold moves, hiring of Paola Rossi, and Gerald Jansen, Canadians working in Italy to do Canadian genetic evaluations, long before there was the full business plan, but rather had the agreement in principle. Yes, this was putting the cart before the horse, but it also lead to the formation of the Canadian Dairy Network (CDN).

Who pays the bills?

As Holstein USA Director and dairy breeder Leroy Eggink, points out in the video above, it has been a great scenario for US breeders having taxpayers foot the bill. But, that gravy train is over. In Canada when that ship sailed, it left industry footing the bill. Since A.I. represents the most direct profitable gain from genetic evaluations, that means they are left holding the bag. Ultimately, this cost is passed on to the breeders. And while the response comes that we pay for all the systems that track and record this information, there is still the cost to convert that raw data into actionable information (bull proofs).

The one area the CDCB needs to remember is that all costs should be expensed equally and should not play favorites with the larger A.I. centers, as happened with Genomic information. In an interview with Ron Flatness, Flatness International, he repeatedly expressed the concerns around price for the smaller competitors and protecting against un-needed additional fees. (Following comments are that of the writer and not Ron) Instead of higher membership fees that will limit the involvement of smaller organizations or independent breeders, all costs need to be handled equally. One standard price per sire sampled vs. a much larger membership fees, would be fair to everyone.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Be careful what you ask for. While many breeders want 100% free access to information, it isn’t always a good thing. While there are many questions that still need to be answered, regarding a business plan, ownership of information and how to be as transparent as possible, I ask the question, “Is this a move to keep, not smaller players, but much larger players out of the marketplace?”

Here are some more great resources:

Dairy producers will have 29 days to comment on the Cooperative Agreement (May 7 to June 4).

If you have questions please contact any of the CDCB officers.

Ole Meland, Chair
Jay Mattison, Vice Chair
Becky Payne, Secretary
Gordon Doak, Recording Secretary

Contact information for USDA representatives:

Steve Kappes, PhD Senior Advisor and Deputy Administrator
George Wiggans, PhD Research Geneticist
Joseph Spence, PhD Area Director

Are You Ready For Genetically Modified Cattle?

· Comments (6)

Friday, May 18th, 2012

The recent announcement by Canadian Dairy Network, Holstein Canada, Pfizer Animal Health, The Semex Alliance and its owner partners to support delivery of genetic services to the Canadian dairy industry got me thinking about what the future holds for the dairy breeding industry. This alliance has me drawing parallels to what has occurred in the corn industry and the effects that had on consumers as well as producers.

While the announcement just covers the identification of genetic markers that has already revolutionized the dairy breeding industry, the part that catches my attention is a company the size of Pfizer entering into the marketplace. When Monsanto entered into the corn breeding industry, it not only became a competitor to the other established players but it also used its vast resources to take the process to a completely new level. While Monsanto had been a market leader for many years in the sale of herbicides this research gave them the ability to apply their expertise on the genetic level.

With Pfizer entering the genomics game, does that mean that we will start to see them offer their own genetics available for sale that have been bred or rather modified to be disease resistant or even worse modified to produce more milk, or have better feet and legs. If you thought the manipulation of photos to make cattle look better was an issue (read more here Has Photo Enhancement Gone Too Far), what happens when they can do it on the genomic level? While the practical side of me sees how having cattle that are more disease resistant, that is polled and milk 20,000 kgs, for 10+ lacations would be beneficial, the breeder in me has concerns. Part of what makes animal breeding great is the fact that it’s an art form. What happens when that art form is handed over to science?

One thing that you will know for sure is that the sale of animal genetics will become a commoditized market place dominated by the big players such as Pfizer, Monsanto, and other multinational conglomerates. While there is no question that these conglomerates will dominate over the average breeder, they will also dominate over the current major A.I. companies. It has me asking myself “Is this move by Semex a step in building a partnership because they see the future coming?” If so good on them for at least being proactive and at least trying to sustain their long-term viability.

If it’s more by chance, as I think it is, I think the whole industry needs to look at what the future holds and maybe have a wakeup call to where this is all heading. Animal breeding is becoming big business, as evidenced by companies like Select Sires that have expanded their breeding programs to include owning females (read more about this at Should A.I. Companies Own Females?). As the ability to deliver predictable results at a lower cost of development continues, larger and larger companies will enter the marketplace and begin to dominate the current players.

In the past, dairy cattle breeding has benefited from great moves, such as happened when T.B. Macauley, an insurance executive, started Montvic, when J. Rockafeller Prentice, from oil and banking fame, started A.B.S. and, likewise, when Peter Heffering, using outside industry investors, collected great cows and started Hanover Hill Holsteins.

There is also the consumer side to this equation. We all witnessed consumer reaction to the use of rBST. Over time while there has remained a small portion of the marketplace that actively buys non-rBST milk. However, for the most part the issue has died off. In the same way, the GMO corn issue has died off and much of the general public is not even aware that it exists. Thus, there may be uproar as this “new technology” enters the marketplace, however, in time, the result will be the same for this commoditized product. As long as the cost to consumer is lower, they will buy it.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

On the one hand, Thanks to genomics, the future of the animal breeding industry has never look brighter. On the other hand, it also may be facing its greatest risk. Genomics has taken animal breeding from an art form to a science. Furthermore, science will continue to define and refine the process. With companies like Pfizer entering the marketplace this process will be accelerated at a completely new pace. Those players that have the most resources available will also dominate it. This means that the average breeder, as well as the current A.I. companies, need to realistically consider what the future holds as this happens.

So my question to you is, are you ready for GMC (Genetically Modified Cattle)?

Search

Archive for Genomics – Page 2

Single Trait – Fat

Females in Your Barn

Sires

Index of Calves

Rate of Genetic Gain

The Bullvine Bottomline

Other posts you might like:

1. THE FOUNDATION: Start with the Right Team

2. LEADING EDGE IDEA. Make it Work.

3. FAMILY MATTERS. That’s Where We’re Going.

4. GROWTH IS A GIVEN. Build More.

5. A WORLD VIEW: Key in On It

6. MAKE THE COWS MAKE THE DIFFERENCE. Make it Fast

7. GENOMICS. Go for it NOW.

8. GENOMICS. The Game Changer.

9. CHANGE IS HERE. Be Part of it

10. GET GOOD ADVICE. Grow With It

THE BULLVINE BOTTOM LINE

Other posts you might like:

His side of the story (XY)

Her side the story (XX)

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Other posts you might like:

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Other posts you might like:

Industry vs. Breeders – Whose Fault Is It?

It Started Slowly, but Got Rolling Quickly

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Other posts you might like:

Heifer Costs TODAY

What’s it WORTH to YOU?

A Closer Look at SEMEN

What’s the DIFFERENCE?

What Is The Sexed Payback?

Proven Semen: Show Me The Money?

You Could Get EVEN MORE MONEY.

Can You Bank On It?

Low Cost Semen Actually Costs More Money

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Other posts you might like:

Does random sampling still exist?

Why do daughters receive preferential treatment?

Does the current system account for preferential treatment?

How to identify preferential treatment?

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Other posts you might like:

Top 50 BPI Sires

Key Findings

Highlights

The Bottom Line

Other posts you might like:

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Other posts you might like:

The Financial Numbers Behind Hailey

Why Pay So Much?

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Other posts you might like:

No big deal you say?

These are Big Changes. Are they Good or Bad?

Are you ready to change?

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Other posts you might like:

Start with Clear Goals and Go Beyond

Attracted by Planetas

New Genomic Stars at Sandy Valley Revolve Around Planeta

Planeta Daughters Start Their Own Outstanding Orbits

Planeta & Ammon-Peachey Shauna: These Genomic Hits are Both “Miss”es

Other Prominent Cow Families at Sandy Valley

Using Genomics to Look Toward the Future

Advice for Those Seeking Sky High Success

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Other posts you might like:

Top 50 BPI Heifers

Key Findings

Highlights

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Other posts you might like:

Summary