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The Role of Genomic Information in Managing Inbreeding and Enhancing Dairy Catte Health and Performance

Discover how genomic inbreeding impacts livestock health and performance. Learn advanced methods to measure homozygosity and manage herds effectively. Curious? Read on.

Have you ever wondered why managing inbreeding is crucial for the health and performance of dairy cattle? The genetic makeup of these animals directly impacts their fitness, well-being, and productivity. Inbreeding, necessary for preserving desirable traits, can also lead to inbreeding depression, negatively affecting these factors. 

Understanding inbreeding is essential for protecting individual animals’ health and ensuring livestock production’s sustainability. High levels of homozygosity, where identical alleles come from both parents, can reveal hidden genetic flaws that otherwise stay unnoticed. 

“Inbreeding is double-edged; while it can amplify valuable traits, it often brings genetic weaknesses into the spotlight.”

Genomic information helps us better estimate and manage inbreeding. Advanced techniques using this data provide more accurate measures than traditional pedigree-based methods. One promising tool is the calculation of runs of homozygosity, offering a clearer picture of genetic makeup. 

This article explores traditional and modern measures of inbreeding, the effects of homozygosity on health and performance, and the latest advancements in genomic tools. By using this knowledge in breeding programs, we can balance genetic progress with sustained heterozygosity, improving the viability of dairy herds.

Pedigree-Based Inbreeding Coefficients: Tracking Lineage and Its Limitations

One traditional measure of inbreeding is using pedigree information to calculate inbreeding coefficients. This involves tracing an animal’s ancestry to find common ancestors and estimating the likelihood of inheriting identical alleles. While this method is popular because historical records are available, it has limitations. 

Firstly, pedigree-based coefficients depend on the accuracy of these records. Any errors or missing data can lead to incorrect estimates. They also assume equal allele transmission probability, ignoring factors like genetic drift and selection pressures. 

Additionally, these coefficients often miss recent inbreeding events, focusing on genetic identity over multiple generations. This can hinder real-time management of inbreeding levels in a herd. 

Another area for improvement is that pedigree-based methods only provide a probabilistic estimate, not a precise measure of actual homozygosity in the genome. This results in less accurate assessments of inbreeding’s effects on health and performance. 

In summary, while traditional pedigree-based inbreeding measures have their uses, they lack the precision needed for effective inbreeding management. This has led to the development of advanced genomic methods for a clearer, more accurate picture of inbreeding levels.

Advancements in Genomic Technologies have Revolutionized the Measurement of Inbreeding. 

Advancements in genomic technologies have revolutionized the measurement of inbreeding. One key innovation is the concept of runs of homozygosity (ROH). These are continuous stretches of identical DNA passed down from both parents, and they can be identified using high-density SNP panels such as the Illumina Infinium BovineHD BeadChip. 

CharacteristicPedigree-Based InbreedingGenomic-Based Inbreeding
Data SourceLineage recordsSNP panels (e.g., Illumina Infinium BovineHD BeadChip)
Measurement UnitInbreeding Coefficient (Fped)Genomic Inbreeding Coefficient (FROH)
AccuracyLess accurate due to reliance on historical recordsMore accurate due to direct assessment of genetic material
ResolutionLow; depends on the completeness and reliability of pedigree informationHigh; identifies specific genomic regions of homozygosity
ApplicabilityUseful for populations with extensive pedigree recordsApplicable regardless of the availability of pedigree information
Usage in ManagementCommon for traditional breeding programsIncreasingly important for modern genomic selection programs

Unlike traditional pedigree-based methods, which can be inaccurate, ROH offers a direct measure of a genome’s homozygosity. This provides a more precise estimate of autozygosity, giving a clearer picture of genetic inbreeding by examining the actual DNA. 

In a study of 68,127 dairy cows, ROH showed predictive solid power for identifying regions with high autozygosity. ROH proved a reliable indicator, as validated by Pearson correlations across SNP datasets. 

Integrating ROH into breeding programs can enhance mate selection and help avoid harmful homozygous regions. This approach maintains genetic diversity while improving livestock health and performance. In short, using ROH significantly advances understanding and managing inbreeding at the genomic level.

Unveiling the Impact of Homozygosity on Livestock Phenotypes: A Key to Health and Performance Management 

TraitCost of Inbreeding (%)
Milk Yield-2.5
Fertility-4.3
Longevity-3.6
Growth Rate-2.8
Health-3.1

Understanding the impact of homozygosity on phenotypes is essential for managing livestock health and performance. Inbreeding increases homozygosity, negatively affecting traits like health, fitness, and production levels

Health issues from inbreeding include more genetic disorders and disease susceptibility. This happens because harmful recessive alleles become more common in homozygous states. In dairy cows, inbreeding raises the frequency of stillbirths and hereditary conditions. 

Inbreeding also impacts the fitness of livestock. You might see declines in fertility, shorter lifespans, and reduced vigor. Studies link higher homozygosity to decreased reproductive success and lower calf survival rates. 

Inbreeding can significantly reduce milk yield, growth rates, and feed efficiency for production levels due to the loss of beneficial heterozygous genotypes. Research shows that as homozygosity increases, milk production often decreases. 

In short, the adverse effects of increased homozygosity due to inbreeding are widespread. They affect critical traits necessary for livestock viability and productivity. Strategically using genomic information can help mitigate these adverse effects and support sustainable breeding practices.

Inbreeding LevelCoefficient RangeImpact on HealthImpact on Performance
Low< 3%Minimal negative effectsOptimal productivity levels
Medium3% – 10%Increased susceptibility to diseasesModerate decline in production traits
High> 10%High risk of genetic disordersSignificant reduction in growth and output

Decoding Detrimental Haplotypes: Safeguarding Livestock Health and Performance 

Identifying detrimental homozygous haplotypes that negatively impact livestock health and performance requires precision. Researchers start by collecting extensive genotypic data from a large sample of animals, like the 68,127 dairy cows in this study, using high-density SNP panels such as the Illumina Infinium BovineHD BeadChip. 

Next, imputation fills in missing genetic data, estimating ungenotyped SNPs to create a comprehensive dataset. For instance, cows genotyped with medium-density SNP panels were imputing a higher density of 84,445 SNPs, which enhanced the accuracy of genomic inbreeding coefficients. 

Scientists then identify runs of homozygosity (ROH), continuous stretches of homozygous genotypes, which suggest common ancestry. Sophisticated algorithms and Pearson correlations validate these ROHs. 

The identified ROH regions are cross-referenced with phenotypic data to spot any detrimental effects linked to specific haplotypes. Calculations of correlations and regression coefficients ensure robust results. 

Researchers can incorporate this knowledge into breeding programs by pinpointing detrimental haplotypes and selectively managing animals to reduce negative impacts on future generations.

Genomic Mate Selection: Precision Breeding for Genetic Health 

Implementing genomic information in mate selection and breeding programs has revolutionized inbreeding management. Traditional methods used pedigree-based inbreeding coefficients, which lacked precision. Now, with genomic data like runs of homozygosity (ROH), breeders make more accurate decisions. 

Genomic mate selection programs estimate genetic potential and inbreeding risks using genomic information. This helps identify optimal mating pairs, balancing genetic gain with diversity, and promoting healthier livestock. For instance, data from 68,127 dairy cows helps predict breeding outcomes more precisely, aiding better decisions. 

Imputation methods further improve data accuracy. Medium-density (MD) SNP panels can be imputed to higher SNP densities, validated with 329 cows, enhancing the accuracy of genomic inbreeding coefficients. This enables better mapping of homozygous regions and detecting detrimental haplotypes, improving breeding outcomes. 

Integrating genomic measures in breeding programs combines pedigree and genomic info, offering a comprehensive tool for better mate selection. Studies using Illumina Infinium BovineHD BeadChip and GeneSeek Genomic Profiler HD-150K show these approaches sustain genetic progress while minimizing inbreeding effects. 

Overall, genomic data in breeding programs shifts livestock management towards sustainability, minimizing inbreeding’s detrimental effects, resulting in healthier herds and better performance.

Precision Breeding: Balancing Genetic Progress and Diversity for a Sustainable Dairy Industry

You can maintain genetic progress while managing homozygosity and keeping heterozygosity at acceptable levels. With advanced genomic tools, breeders can select traits like milk production and disease resistance more accurately. By using genomic inbreeding measures, such as runs of homozygosity, breeding programs can minimize the harmful effects of inbreeding while preserving valuable genetic diversity. 

Genomic mate selection can optimize breeding decisions, balancing genetic merit and health. This precision breeding approach reduces the risk of inbreeding and boosts genetic progress. These advanced methods support the industry’s goals of improving productivity and animal welfare, fostering a sustainable, innovative dairy industry.

Harnessing Genomic Insights for Tailored Breeding Strategies: Maximizing Genetic Gains While Maintaining Diversity

One promising area in genomic inbreeding is achieving significant genetic progress. By integrating precise genomic measures, dairy farmers can enhance traits of interest and manage homozygosity more effectively. This ensures balanced heterozygosity, which is crucial for genetic diversity and herd health. Advanced tools allow for accurate identification of beneficial alleles, enabling selective breeding that boosts productivity while minimizing inbreeding impacts. Leveraging detailed genomic information offers a unique chance to tailor breeding strategies for sustained genetic improvement in dairy populations.

Exploring Future Directions: Enhancing Genomic Inbreeding Management Through Advanced Research 

While progress in managing genomic inbreeding has been substantial, many research areas still need exploring. Improving imputation accuracy and robustness in SNP data, as shown in studies with 329 cows, should be a priority. This could lead to better tools for predicting and managing inbreeding. 

Understanding how different SNP panel densities affect inbreeding estimates is also crucial. Correlation studies between FGRM and FROH with various SNP datasets can inform optimal panel designs. Further research into the effects of ancestral genotyping in different scenarios could provide valuable insights. 

Mapping detrimental homozygosity haplotypes remains critical. Technological advances could help identify these regions more precisely, allowing for targeted breeding strategies to mitigate their negative effects. 

Integrating machine learning and artificial intelligence in genomic prediction models could revolutionize precision breeding. Using large datasets, such as those of 68,127 dairy cows, these technologies can refine inbreeding depression predictions, improving mate selection and herd management. 

Interdisciplinary collaboration among geneticists, breeders, and data scientists is essential. Combining genetic insights with advanced computational methods will lead to new, practical tools for managing genomic inbreeding in livestock.

The Bottom Line

In conclusion, integrating genomic information into livestock breeding programs is essential. Traditional pedigree-based inbreeding coefficients, though important, have their limitations. Genomic technologies, such as runs of homozygosity, offer more accurate insights into autozygosity and its effects on health and performance. These tools allow breeders to manage genetic diversity better, identify harmful haplotypes, and make smarter mating decisions. This approach enhances animal fitness and productivity while supporting the dairy industry’s sustainability. Continued research to improve these genomic methods will lead to more robust and resilient livestock populations.

Key Takeaways:

  • Inbreeding Depreciation: Inbreeding negatively impacts animal fitness, health, and productivity, making it a pressing issue in livestock management.
  • Genomic Inbreeding Measures: Genomic information provides more precise estimates of inbreeding compared to traditional pedigree-based methods.
  • Runs of Homozygosity (ROH): Continuous stretches of homozygous genotypes provide a better estimate of autozygosity and genetic health at the genomic level.
  • Mate Selection Programs: Incorporating genomic information into breeding programs enhances the accuracy of mating decisions, reducing the negative effects of inbreeding.
  • Balancing Genetic Gains and Diversity: Using genomic insights can help maintain high genetic progress while managing homozygosity and sustaining heterozygosity.
  • Future Research Needs: Further research is essential to refine genomic inbreeding management methods and ensure sustainable livestock production.

Summary: Inbreeding is a critical factor in dairy cattle’s health and performance, affecting their fitness, well-being, and productivity. High levels of homozygosity can reveal hidden genetic flaws, affecting individual animals’ health and ensuring livestock production’s sustainability. Advancements in genomic technology have revolutionized inbreeding measurement, offering runs of homozygosity (ROH) as a direct measure of a genome’s homozygosity. Understanding the impact of homozygosity on phenotypes is crucial for managing livestock health and performance. Inbreeding increases homozygosity, negatively affecting traits like health, fitness, and production levels. Incorporating genomic information into breeding programs helps breeders make more accurate decisions, identifying optimal mating pairs, balancing genetic gain with diversity, and promoting healthier livestock. Precision breeding is essential for maintaining genetic progress while managing homozygosity and keeping heterozygosity at acceptable levels. Technological advances could help identify detrimental homozygosity haplotypes more precisely, allowing for targeted breeding strategies to mitigate their negative effects.

Does Your Sire Selection Need an Overhaul?

When was the last time you changed the traits on which you base your sire selection?  Was it this year or a decade ago?  Today’s dairy cattle are much different than what they were even three generations ago. Today there are many new genetic indexes that could be well worth your investigation.

Be Progressive – Identify Your Herd’s Limitations

Recently when speaking with two production focused herds, I heard the following on their genetic improvement needs.  Here is what they told me.

Herd #1

This Holstein and crossbred herd and is housed in two groups (mature and 1st/early 2nd lactation cows) and are milked by two robot stall milkers. The owner focuses his time on TMR preparation and feeding and caring for the 100-110 milking cows, dry cows, heifers and calves. Cows average 86 lbs. (39 kgs) of 4.2%F and 3.3%P with SCC 105,000 and pregnancy rate is 40%. The annual replacement rate is 28%. Heifers calve at 22-23 months, and cows are not rebred until they are 100 days in milk or are past their peak and are gaining back weight. All field and cropping work is hired out. The owner is considering purchasing an automated calf feeder. He gives credit to the data from his robot milker system for helping him to be a much better dairy farmer. His sire selection has been primarily based on the LPI sire index and calving ease (CA) for heifers. He uses 20% (sexed) proven, 40% genomic, 10% Brown Swiss and 30% beef sires. He still uses DHI but is contemplating not classifying as, as he says, “I do not sell breeding stock, classifiers do not do a good job of evaluating my feet and locomotion issues in my herd and, with robotic milking, udders are not a stressed”.

The owner manages the herd by himself with some relief help for times he needs to be away especially for family events, but he says he is continually tired from having to deal with herd health issues, equipment maintenance and heat checking. He stated that he does not have enough time to manage and plan. He feels that the sires that he has been using are not leaving what he calls trouble-free long-lived tough cows and his calves require too much attention, due to illness. He reached out to me to discuss sire indexes for functional traits including Immunity+.  “I feel that I need to improve the genetics in my herd for fitness and health traits.” He wants to be ready for when his son comes home from college, at which time they will add a third robot.

Herd #2

This 1000 milking cow (2x) Holstein herd is going through an ownership transition from parents to agricultural college-educated children – daughter (the next farm business manager) and son-in-law (manager for the herd and the cropping). The daughter contacted me via The Milk House to discuss sires they should be using and on-farm data systems that will provide them with the information they need to manage. They are planning to install a new milking parlor in about three years. An automated calf feeding system was installed six months ago, and they are very pleased with the reduction in calf diseases and excellent calf growth to weaning. This new calf program pleases the daughter a great deal as calves are her speciality and she wants to start her own family soon. Her parents are supportive and happy to have the farm continue in the family.

The daughter reported that “Dad always said he bred for high PTAT (show type) and fed for production”. In her words “that philosophy just won’t work for us in the future”. First calvers too often have at least some calving difficulty, resulting in both dam and calf getting off to a poor start. The herd is 70% first and second lactation cows, average production is 73 lbs. (33 kgs) 3.6%F and 2.9%P, SCC 200,000 and pregnancy rate 18%. Sires used have been 80% proven (PTAT >2.75) from popular cow families and 20% genomic from show cow families. The annual replacement rate is over 40% – it takes all the heifers born to replace the culls.

Her thoughts on the herd’s past genetic selection program included: 1) no selection for female fertility; 2) cows are large requiring more maintenance and are not mobile enough; 3) little attention has been paid to fat and protein yield, SCC and persistency of production; 4) too many animals are being culled at a young age; and 5) heifers first calving at 25-26 months is adding $300 per heifer in rearing costs.

“Yep, Dad liked a ‘good-looking cow’ so he could sell purebred breeding stock – but – that’s not happening any longer. Dad is not opposed to change and says it’s in my hands now”. Her husband calculates that it takes one extra staff member just to trim feet, care for metabolic / production limiting diseases problems, assisting with problem calvings and to medicate sick animals. In summary, this wife-husband team are planning for changes including a significant change in the breeding program.

Opportunity Exists to Select Sires Differently

It was great being able to address sire selection for these two progressive thinking dairy farms knowing over 90% of the genetic progress that can be made in a herd comes from the sires used.

With about 85-88% of the on-farm cost being associated with feeding (50-58%), replacements (14-17%), labor (14-17%) and veterinary/medications (2-6%) it comes down to selecting sires that can assist in reducing the costs for these four areas. There are function-fertility-fitness-health trait genetic indexes that can be selected for, and that will assist with helping to reduce on-farm costs and thereby to increase profit.

Herd #2 needs to give attention to revenue generation by selecting for fat and protein yields and component percentage.

 Traits Milk Producers Should Consider Beyond Production and Type

The following six groupings are ranked by this author’s order of importance for tomorrow’s North American dairy cattle populations. The function-fertility-fitness-health genetic indexes that apply to each category are listed. There are both public indexes and company proprietary indexes.

  1. Longevity – Cows that remain in the herd for five or more lactations are the most profitable. Sires PL Productive Life indexes should be >5.0 and HL – Herd Life should be >105 to genetically add to a herd’s longevity. In 2019 CDCB produced a new sire indexes Early First Calving (EFC) which breeders will be able to use to shorten the time to first calving.
  2. Animal Health – Many health genetic indexes currently exist, and more will be added in the future for breeders to use to change away from no genetic attention on health. It started with SCS, which is now being called Mastitis Resistance, others include Immunity+, (Cow) Wellness Traits$, Calf Wellness$, Wellness Pro, Hoof Health, Metabolic Disease Resistance, …etc. All helpful genetic tools to help breeders identify sires that should not be used.
  3. Fertility – Much attention has been and continues to be focused on genetically improving fertility. If possible, breeders should not use sires that are below average for fertility traits. Indexes include: DPR (select >2.0), DF (select >103), FI (select >0.0), CCR, HCR, BCS, Fertility Pro, Superior Settlers, …etc. Progress has been made in the population average genetic merit for fertility, but the selection of superior sires must be continued.
  4. Efficiencies – Presently, the attention is on feed conversion efficiency. Currently available are a direct measure index EcoFeed and indirectly calculated indexes FE and Feed Pro. CDCB and CDN/Lactanet are concluding their research so they can publish feed efficiency indexes in 2020. Although not being used at the genetic level producers and their feed advisors are making much use of Income Over Feed C … Expect to see genetic efficiency indexes in other areas – labor (animals not requiring human attention).
  5. Calving – Genetic indexes relating to calving time were started over forty years ago, and the genetic progress has been significant. Ratings include CA$ (CE + MCE), CA, DCA, Stillbirths, Gestation Length, identification of lethal recessives (Haploids), …etc. It is important to note that any matters negatively impacting calving can result in poor subsequent performance for both dam and calf and calf morbidity.
  6. Milking – Milking occurs 2 to 4 times per day, so anything affecting milking is important. Genetic indexes exist for Milking Speed, Milking Temperament (aka inter-action with the parlor environment), Robot Ready, Robot Pro, …etc.

Genomic evaluations have greatly assisted with increasing the accuracy of the indexes for these traits. The Canadian indexes are published on the 100 scale and a standard deviation of 5. US indexes are published on numerous scales and average is not always 0.00. Breeders using US indexes can look up details on the CDCB site for index averages and ranges.

It is essential for breeders to be aware that the heritability’s for these traits are low and accuracies for the indexes are lower than for production and some type traits. To make genetic improvement in a function-fertility-fitness-health trait, it must be selected for on a continual basis.

How to Select Sires

Just as there are no perfect sires, there is no perfect index that will place the correct emphasis on functions, fertility, fitness and health for an individual farm’s breeding program.

Table 1 shows the trait emphasis for North American Holsteins in the major total merit indexes. The variation is considerable, which provides the answer as to why sires rank differently from index to index. The trait emphasis is not published for Pro$ as it is based on an outcome-based cow profit approach.

Table 1 Trait Emphasis for North American Total Merit Indexes

           TPI          NM$       DWP$           LPI
Production 46% 45% 34% Production 40%
Conformation 26% 15% 10% Durability* 40%
Function/Fertility/ 28% 40% 56% Health / Fertility 20%

* The Durability portion of the LPI index contains both function and conformation traits

Relying solely on any one of the total merit indexes to rank the sires according to an individual breeder’s needs for function-fertility-fitness-health trait improvement is not a wise decision.

The Bullvine recommends that a breeder select the total merit index that suits their needs. Then eliminate the sires from the list that are not above average for the 3 or 4 function-fertility-fitness-health traits most in need of improvement in the herd. This will result in a list of sires best suited for the herd.

Note: 1) This list will vary from herd to herd depending herd genetic needs and plans; 2) Likely 70% of the top 100 sires on the total merit index will be eliminated; and 3) In developing the herd needs remember to account for weaknesses of sires used in the past – i.e. DPR (<0.00), PL (>2.0), CW$(<-10).

Star Function, Fitness, Fertility and Health Sires

A list of top sires (based on Aug 2019 indexes) follows:

  • Frazzled (7HO12788)            #1 DWP$, #4 TPI, #5 NM$ and high for F+P, PL, SCS/MS, LIV, MET, GL & EFC
  • Rubicon (151HO00681)          #3 TPI, #7 NM$ and high for F+P, PL, LIV, SCS, FLC, DCE, DSB
  • Rowdy (29HO17947)             #1 NM$, #5 TPI and high for F+P (200 lbs.), PL, LIV, DCE, DSB
  • Enzo (29HO18016)                 #12 TPI, top 50 NM$ and high for PL, SCS, DPR, LIV, UDC
  • Rio (7HO13866)                      A2A2, 2673 TPI, 799 NM$ and high for PL, SCS, DPR, LIV, UDC, DCE, DSB (Genomic)
  • Porter (200HO10532)            #2 LPI, #12Pro$ and high for F+P (yield & %), HL, HH, DF, DCA, Mammary, F&L
  • Detour (513HO03091)           #2 Pro$, #3 LPI and high for F+P, HL, HH, Milking Speed, DCA
  • Brewmaster (250HO01009)  A2A2, #11 LPI, #13 Pro$, #1 F% and high for F, HL, Persistency, DCA, R, F&L
  • AltaGlow (11HO15023)        A2A2, 3123 Pro$, 3639 LPI and high for F+P, HL, HH, Persistency, DF, CA, DCA (Genomic)
  • Almamater (200HO11665)   A2A2, 3629 LPI, 2744 Pro$ and F+P, HL, MasRes, MET, HH, DF, M Speed, DCA (Genomic)

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Total Merit Indexes do a very good job of ranking sires for overall genetic merit. However, breeders need to search deeper when it comes to finding sires that stand out from the pack for function-fertility- fitness-health traits.

Progressive breeders need to determine where their herd needs improvement for traits beyond production and type. Then they should use the best sires for improving function-fertility-fitness-health traits in order to have the genetics in their herds that will assist in reducing their farm’s cost of production.

 

 

 

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Four Steps to a Workable Herd Genetic Improvement Plan for Profit Focused Milk Producers

Dairy herd managers often express the view that reading bull books or searching for bulls on the Internet is not their forte. They are rightly focused on making a profit from harvesting quality feeds and converting them into wholesome milk.

The genetic data seems overwhelming. “So many sire numbers! Which ones are of most importance? How does a milk producer use them? What does a herd genetic audit look like? How can I make a workable breeding plan? Who can help me?” In this article, The Bullvine will attempt to address these concerns.

Steps to a Successful Solution

Here are four steps to success:

  1. Select an effective helper.
  2. Narrow your focus.
  3. Complete a genetic herd audit.
  4. Implement an action plan.

Who Can Help You?

A.I. companies have trained staff who are available to work with dairymen to conduct a herd genetic audit and develop a plan for which sires to buy and how to use those sires. In today’s genetics industry typically speaking 70% of the sires will have genomic indexes and 30% will be daughter proven sires. Reputable A.I. companies and semen salespeople want dairymen to be successful. They do not first want to make a sale for their own short-term gain. The first audit is to find the partner who has milk producer success as their #1 priority.

Are There Too Many Genetic Indexes?

Over fifty indexes are available for all sires.  Yes – too many for milk producers. Very few, if any, dairy breeders use all the genetic indexes. For milk production focused dairymen, most of the indexes can be set aside as they are of limited financial significance. 

No Focus No Improvement                              

After these two initial sorts, focus comes into the picture. Once a herd genetic audit is completed (we’ll cover that later in this article) a milk producer needs to narrow down the traits that need the most improvement on their farm. The Bullvine’s recommendation is that, for milk producers, that list should not exceed nine traits. Genetic improvement research has shown that going beyond 7-9 primary traits when selecting sires results in minimal, if any, genetic advancement for a herd.

Table 1 – Primary Selection Traits for Milk Producers

Table 1 contains The Bullvine’s suggested list for the 9 primary traits. This table also contains alternatives to the primary nine for milk producers to consider.

Category Trait Trait Label Alternate Traits
Production Fat Yield Fat FE*, EcoFeed**, %F
  Protein Yield Protein FE*, EcoFeed**, %P
Function Productive Life PL HL***, LIV
  Udder Depth UD UDC*, MS***, Teat Place & Length*, Udder Attach*
  Rear Legs Rear View RLRV Foot Angle*, FLC*, RLSV*, F&L***, Heel Depth***
  Daus Calving Ability DCE CA$, DCA***, Thurl Width*
Fertility Daus Preg Rate DPR FI*, DF***, HCR, CCR
Health Somatic Cell SCS WT$****, HLH$, Mastitis & Metabolic Disease Resistance***
  Calf Wellness CW$**** Immunity+*****, 

Notes: Data Source for all values/traits is CDCB/AIPL except where otherwise noted
* US Holstein
** STgen 
*** CDN
**** Zoetis
***** Semex

How to Do Your Herd’s Genetic Audit

Before conducting the audit all information on the animals in the herd should be sourced from breeds, herd recording agencies (DHI’s), genetic evaluation centres (CDCB/CDN) and DNA testing labs.

An audit can be either by year of birth of the females in the herd or by category of the females – calves, yearlings, 1st lactation, 2nd lactation and 3rd+ lactation. Either way works.  Using the latter sorting method, by categories, sorts by current life stage which is normally how dairymen think of their animals.

There are five indexing combinations that can be used to do the herd genetic audit:

  • Parent Averages Indexes;
  • Combined Parent Averages & Performance Indexes;
  • Genomic Indexes;
  • Combined Genomic & Performance Indexes; and
  • Three Nearest Sire Average Index.

The method to use depends on what information is available for the herd. #4 will be the most accurate method. However, very few milk producers are doing genomic testing so that eliminates methods #3 and #4. Most progressive milk producers measure the performance of their animals so method #2 would be available. For milk producers that do not do performance (milk) recording then method #5 will be the method to use. Females that are to be culled or that are being bred beef can be excluded from the audit as they will not be contributing to the genetics in the herd in the future.

Table 2 – Sample Herd Genetic Audit Report

Table 2 gives an example of what might be the herd genetic audit for a milk producer’s herd for the traits that The Bullvine has selected.

Female’s Average Genetic Indexes
Animal Group            Fat      Protein            PL    U Depth         RLRV           DCE          DPR          SCS           CW$
Calves 22 18 1.1 0.26 0.01 6.6 0.4 2.81 -17
Yearlings 18 14 0.2 0.31 0.09 6.9 0.1 2.86 -25
1st Lactation 12 9 1.1 0.27 -0.11 6.7 -1.1 2.91 -22
2nd Lactation 8 5 -0.9 0.19 -0.08 7.1 -1.4 2.99 -24
3rd + Lactation -1 0 -1.4 0.05 -0.22 6.9 -1.6 3.11 -26
Approx. Breed AVG 21 17   0.8 0.5       -12
Desired Value               3.5 +                < 5          3.5 +        < 2.80  

Note: For DCE and SCS a lower numbered is the desired

The Bullvine’s assessment of this example is that the herd has used sires that increased the herd’s genetic merit for fat, protein and SCS but not for the other traits.

Make and Use A Herd Genetic Plan

  • Goals are always an important part of any plan. Using Table 2 our example milk producer, working independently or with an advisor can set goals for the traits to be improved. In this example, the function and fertility categories need significant improvement. Reaching a herd average of PL +5.0, UD +1.25, RLRV +0.75, DCE 4.5, DPR +3.5 and CW$ 30 in 5 years is possible. It would be advisable to increase Fat to +50lbs. and Protein to +40lbs. as part of the plan. SCS could be improved but it is not necessary unless the milk processor would pay a premium for low somatic cell milk.
  • Sire selection will be the key to making genetic improvement in a milk production focused herd. 85-90% of the genetic improvement will come by using superior sires. The money invested in buying sexed semen from top sires will pay for itself many times over in five years.  Using sexed semen on all heifers and the top half of the milking herd will allow for adequate herd replacements. Extra replacement heifers cost $2,500 to raise but are only likely to bring $1,800 as newly calved first lactation cows so why raise them and take the $700 loss? The bottom half of the milk cows can be bred to beef sires and the calves can be sold at birth or raised for meat sales.
  • Buy semen from only elite sires for the traits to be improved as determined from the herd’s genetic audit. The initial sort for sires to use should be to sires that have a minimum index for NM$ or Pro$. Good minimum index values are: Genomic Holstein NM$ +800 (Pro$ 1800); Proven Holstein NM$ +700 (Pro$ 1600); Genomic Jersey NM$ +650 (Pro$ 1500); and Proven Jersey NM$ +575 (Pro$ 1300). Milk producers who sell to specialty processors or cheese makers should also consider selecting sires that are A2A2 Beta Casein and BB Kappa Casein. 

Table 3 – Sire Selection Levels for Milk Producers

Table 3 is a guide for milk producers to use when selecting sires for the nine traits in Table 1.

A. Initial Sire Sort – Minimum NM$ or Pro$*
      Min. NM$   Min. Pro$
  Holstein Genomic 800   2500
    Proven 700   2300
  Jersey Genomic 650   1500
    Proven 575   1300
B. Second Sire Sort – Recommended Minimum Sire Genetic Indexes**
  Average Proven Sire Indexes for Sires that Meet Initial Sort Criteria
Trait US Hol US Jer Trait CAN Hol CAN Jer
Fat       81 lbs.       74 lbs. Fat        76 kgs        57 kgs
Protein       58 lbs.       54 lbs. Protein        73 kgs        45 kgs
PL 5.1 4.6 HL 106 102
U Depth 0.88 1.5 U Depth 103 100
RLRV 0.61 FootAngle 0.6 RLRV 103 100
DCE 4.3   DCA 105 104
DPR 1.5 -0.01 DF 104 102
SCS 2.83 2.91 MastitisResist 104 104
CW$ -12        

* Sires below these levels should be eliminated from milk producers semen purchase lists

** Sires not meeting these levels should not be used more than 25% of the time

Remember before finally deciding to buy an individual sire, a check should be done to ensure that a sire is not below average for production, functional, fertility or health indexes traits.

Why Bother with a Herd Genetic Audit?

Every Milk producer has heard other dairy people question the value of genetic information and using only superior sires. The reason often given is that it is performance, not genetics that fills the bulk tank. That is a behind-the-times way of thinking. CDN studies have shown 50% of the productivity gains being made in Canadian dairy cattle comes as a result of genetics. Even if 33% of the productivity gains are genetic, 33% are nutritional and 33% are management, improving genetic merit of a herd is important. If a herd’s genetic level is not improved the herd will fall behind other herds and the dairyman will be at a disadvantage in the efficiencies that higher genetics bring with them.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Genetic improvement is important to all dairy farmers, no matter the focus on their farm. First comes a genetic audit of the present herd, then a plan for traits most in need of genetic improvement and then the use of sires that will achieve the herd’s genetic goals. Genetic improvement is permanent. Don’t delay. Don’t fall behind.

 

 

 

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Top Type Sires With the “WOW” Factor for the Tan Bark Trail

For many that are aspiring to breed the next great show cow or 97-point cow, there is no question that it is not all about the genomic tests.  Finding the WOW Factor is as much an art form as it is a science.  It can take generations of corrective matings to reach the ultimate goal of standing in the center of the ring at World Dairy Expo, The Royal or any of the other top shows around the world. That kind of success comes with careful selection of the right sires.  While indexes, like PTAT and CONF, are ideal for producing consistent barn cows, it takes an exceptional type of sire to stamp out daughters that can win on the Tanbark Trail.  With that in mind, we asked seven of the top show breeders and cattle dealers what sires were standing out for them. 

Our panel includes:

Ysabel Jacobs: Partner in Ferme Jacobs, a three-time Master Breeder herd that has been Premier Breeder at World Dairy Expo and The Royal Winter Fair several times. Their successful breeding philosophy is based on type. They have earned numerous show accolades and marketed cattle and embryos worldwide.  Ferme Jacobs has bred or owned some extreme notable cows, including World Dairy Expo Champion – BONACCUEIL MAYA GOLDWYN and Royal Winter Fair Grand Champion – JACOBS GOLD LIANN.  As well they breed and showed JACOBS GOLDWYN VALANA, Reserve Champion at WDE in 2015. (Read more: FERME JACOBS: SUCCESS IS ALL IN THE FAMILY! and FERME JACOBS 2013: A JOURNEY OF MAGIC, MAYA AND MASTERY!)

Aaron Eaton: along with my wife Caitlin and daughters Avery & Evelyn own and operate Eaton Holsteins in Syracuse, NY. Where they currently milk 30 elite type registered Holsteins and a select group of jerseys. Their main objective is developing, marketing and caring for these special individuals daily along with an additional 35 head of young stock and dry cows. Over the past 5 years they have made boarding elite show cattle for others a huge part of their business as well, approximately 30% of the cattle residing at their farm are board cattle. Their herd currently holds the #1 Rank for BAA in NY, 114.8 ( top 10 Nationally) consisting of 18 EX and 14VG, of those Ex cows 13 are max scored, 2 at 95pts and 1 @96pts. Over the past 8 years they have had many success stories in the show ring garnering numerous All American and/or All Canadian Nominations as well as having 3 jerseys go on for new owners to become national champions, 3 Royal Winter Fair Holstein Jr championships and also two Holstein cows named Intermediate champion or reserve at World Dairy Expo. Aaron has since had the opportunity to judge many state and regional shows over the past 5 years. Prior to farming full time, Aaron spent 10 years as a cattle fitter traveling to many shows across the US, Canada, South America and Europe.

Ari Ekstein : Ari is a partner in Quality Farms with his father, Their focus is to breed and exhibit a combination of the best typed and pedigree cows in the world. They presently milk 72 cows and own approximately 220 head. They believe in the true modern dairy cow that combines balance, strength, and style with a natural will to milk from great udders. They use a combination of high type genomic bulls and proven bulls that have the ability to consistently breed the type of cow they want to work with every day. They choose their bulls based on a combination of numbers, maternal line, and sire stack. They have a long history of breeding and exhibiting many All Canadians. They are very proud of one of their most recent accomplishments. Bosdale Gold Luster and Quality Solomon Lust were both class winners at last year’s Royal Winter Fair. This All Canadian dam and daughter pair are a perfect example of what they love to work with and breed from. (Read more:  QUALITY HOLSTEINS – WELL-DESERVED CONGRATULATIONSQUALITY CATTLE LOOK GOOD EVERY DAY and QUALITY HOLSTEINS – NUMBERS THAT STILL COUNT – DAIRY BREEDER INTERVIEW)

Barclay Phoenix: He bred his first All-Canadian Nomination in 2012- Phoenix GoGo Sanchez. Barclay is also heavily involved in showing and merchandising elite Holstein cattle. Barclay has had or has merchandised over 170 All-Canadian or All-American nominations in the past 17 years. In 2001 he was co-owner of the Reserve Champion at the World Dairy Expo. In 2004 and 2005, he and his partners exhibited Junior Champion and Intermediate Champion at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, Toronto. He was also co-winner of the Premier Exhibitor Banner at the Royal in 2004, co-owned the Junior Champion at the 2008 World Dairy Expo, and the Reserve Intermediate Champion at the 2012 Red and White Royal Winter Fair. (Read more: TAG – YOU ARE IT! HOW AND WHY TAG DAIRY SALES ARE SUCCESSFUL)

Ethan McMillan: With his family, Ethan operates two-time Master Breeder herd, Kingsway Holsteins. Kingsway has taken home many Premier Junior and Senior Breeder Banners at World Dairy Expo and The Royal Winter Fair. Much of Kingsway’s success comes from the  Kingsway Terrason Allie EX95-2E-*4 family, responsible for 47 nominations in All-Canadian, All-American and All-Britain contests since 2006.  Another influential family that has helped build the herd is that of Kingsway Lheros Chelsie VG89-2YR-*4, with five generations of All-Canadian nominations, all tracing back to Chelsie in their pedigrees. Kingsway Mark Chief EX-6E-*12 is another influential family. One recently notable descendant of that family is Kingsway Airlift Gosling VG-88-2yr, the stunning white heifer that captured attention when she won All-Canadian Intermediate Yearling honors in 2015.

Michael Heath: Michael has made a living as a cattle merchandizer and breeder. He started as a cattle fitter which enabled him to have the contacts to start in his cattle marketing business. Heath has managed many sales over the years, most recently ‘Rendezvous at River Valley’ which was the 2nd highest Jersey sale average of all time. In the beginning, two Holstein cows got Heath up and going in the Holstein business: Freundly Acres Linjet Murphy, EX96 and Kingstead Cheif Adeen, EX94. On top of this Michael has owned and sold many All-Canadian and All-American Nominations over the years. Currently, Heath owns approximately 75 head of Holsteins and 60 head of Jerseys. Heath has judged Shows Internationally in Switzerland, Ireland, Australia, Holland, Mexico, Brazil and Canada, Argentina, and the UK.

Simon Lalande: Owner of Ferme Blondin, Simon Lalande is the 6th generation on the farm with his sons now the 7th generation. Blondin is currently milking around 135 head of Holsteins with an additional 500 head of heifers on the farm. This extra number of animals is due to extensive flushing being done on the farm and the constant need for recipients. Ferme Blondin attends 7-8 shows per year including World Dairy Expo and the Royal Winter Fair. Blondin sells over 600 head of fresh young cows per year. Whether for the freestall environment or for that special show cow, they are always buying and selling animals. Because of this Simon spends a great deal of time on the road, looking for recipients or for that next great one! Annually he logs thousands of miles through numerous provinces and states. In March Ferme Blondin started the construction of a new 265 head freestall It will house the milking herd along with all show animals. (Read more: FERME BLONDIN “PASSION WITH A PURPOSE BUILDS SUCCESS”FERME BLONDIN – “BUILT ON TEAMWORK” – DAIRY BREEDER VIDEO INTERVIEWS and COGENT BREEDING ANNOUNCES IMPORTANT PARTNERSHIP WITH BLONDIN SIRES INC)

What bulls are siring the heifers that are standing out in heifer pens? 

QUALITY SOLOMON LUST

While impressive type numbers and an excellent pedigree are nice, nothing compares to seeing the heifers from the top sires to determine if they have what it takes.  The first test of this comes when the calves hit the ground and start to develop.  One sire that is certainly impressing is Walnutlawn SOLOMON.  This Doorman son for the GLEN DRUMMOND SPLENDOR family (Read more: Marketing Lessons from Glen Drummond Aero Flower) has certainly impressed many breeders with his stylish daughters.  One such daughter is the Royal Winter Fair winner and 2016 Breeders Choice Award Winner, QUALITY SOLOMON LUST from Quality Holsteins (Read more: 2016 BREEDERS CHOICE AWARDS – TANBARK TRAIL EDITION RESULTS).  Ari Ekstein comments “The Solomon heifers are extremely balanced heifers with tremendous rumps and a great combination of style and strength.”   Simon Lalande from Ferme Blondin adds “Solomon is one of our favorite sires of heifers at the farm. They are hard topped and have a beautiful side profile.”   “Solomon is definitely the bull that stood out the most in the heifer pens right now. They are long, with great bone quality and great legs. They look so feminine” comments Ysabel Jacobs.  Ethan McMillan comments “The best heifers in our heifer pens are Goldwyns and Solomons. They are the most growthy calves, and they have correct rump structure with style and balance.” 

KHW REGIMENT APPLE-RED

Another sire that is catching the eyes of our panel is Dymentholm Mr Apples AVALANCHE.  Avalanche is a McCutchen from a clone of KHW REGIMENT APPLE-RED.  (Read more: KHW REGIMENT APPLE-RED – BEAUTY, PERFORMANCE, AND EVEN MORE RECORD ACCOMPLISHMENTS) Barclay Phoenix notes that “Avalanche is siring heifers that jump right out in the heifer pens all over the country.  They are long necked and have dairy strength with great feet and legs.” Ari Ekstein adds “The Avalanche heifers are young but are definite standouts, when they come out of the hutches.”  Aaron Eaton reports that Avalanche daughters “are long framed, balanced and dairy with good feet and legs for the most part.”

Some other sires that are starting to turn the heads of our panel are Mr Ansly ADDICTION-P-RED.  A Red, polled grandson of KHW REGIMENT APPLE-RED, “Addiction P heifers also look like they have great udder makeup and they have lots of style” comments Barclay Phoenix. “I also like the look of BEEMERS – they are square cut with lots of width, great foot and have great thurl placement.  I think they could make long-lasting cows.”  Ari Ekstein seconds Barclay’s comments about Pol Butte Mc BEEMER daughters “The Beemer heifers are consistently stylish with beautiful long necks with a dairy cut.” 

  • Aaron Eaton
    • Dymentholm Mr Apples AVALANCHE
    • Stantons HIGH OCTANE
    • Walnutlawn SOLOMON
    • Mr Ansly ADDICTION-P-RED
    • Cycle Doorman JACOBY
  • Ari Ekstein 
    • Walnutlawn SOLOMON
    • Quality Doorman MARIO
    • Pol Butte Mc BEEMER
    • Stantons HIGH OCTANE
    • Butz-Butler Atwood BRADY
    • Maple-Downs-I G W ATWOOD
    • Dymentholm Mr Apples AVALANCHE
  • Barclay Phoenix
    • Dymentholm Mr Apples AVALANCHE
    • Pol Butte Mc BEEMER
    • Mr Ansly ADDICTION-P-RED
  • Ethan McMillan
    • Walnutlawn SOLOMON
    • Braedale GOLDWYN
  • Michael Heath
    • Val-Bisson DOORMAN
    • Dymentholm Mr Apples AVALANCHE
    • Mr D Apple DIAMONDBACK
    • Stantons HIGH OCTANE
    • Walnutlawn SOLOMON
    • Pol Butte Mc BEEMER
    • Mr Ansly ADDICTION-P-RED
    • Lirr Drew DEMPSEY
    • Mr Chassity GOLD CHIP
    • Oh-River-Syc BYWAY
  • Simon Lalande
    • Dymentholm Mr Apples AVALANCHE
    • Cycle Doorman JACOBY
    • Walnutlawn SOLOMON
    • KH CINDERDOOR
  • Ysabel Jacobs
    • Walnutlawn SOLOMON
    • Lirr Drew DEMPSEY
    • KH CINDERDOOR
    • Mr Chassity GOLD CHIP

What sires daughters are catching your eye as they are calving in/maturing?

Comestar Lamadona Doorman

While Val-Bisson DOORMAN daughters were certainly impressive as heifers, they are now starting to impress our panel members in milking form.    (Read more: SIRE REPORT: VAL-BISSON DOORMAN – OPPORTUNITY IS KNOCKING) Aaron Eaton comments that “I really like some of the second crop Doormans. The ones I’ve seen are balanced and good uddered. I know some people were skeptical about milking speed, but for me, the ones that are out of the better cows are calving now, and it’s hard to deny he is going to make some great young cows”.  Ari Ekstein adds “Most of our Doorman’s are out of Goldwyn’s and the Goldwyn’s help transmit the dairy quality that some of the Doorman’s can lack.”   Simon Lalande adds  “Doorman adds the strength and width that many cows need with the Goldwyn blood. He is also low SCS which every breeder likes.”

A sire that has impressed with his second crop daughters is Lirr Drew DEMPSEY.  Simon Lalande notes that “He can make some very special ones. We did not use a lot of him, but the ones we have seen are very special. Great udders! “ Barclay Phoenix adds “Dempsey’s seem to be long lasting rugged cows with lots of dairy strength.“  

Jacobs Gold Liann

Rounding out the top sires, that are impressing our panel, is Mr Chassity GOLD CHIP.  A sire that certainly worked well for Ferme Jacobs producing last year’s Royal Winter Fair Grand Champion, Jacobs Gold Liann. (Read more: THE 2016 ROYAL WINTER FAIR HOLSTEIN SHOW – THE SHOW EVERYONE WILL REMEMBER FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS)  Ysabel Jacobs comments “We love those dairy heads and necks that are feminine all the way throughout. They have excellent udders on them and great rump and legs.  It all comes down to the same thing. If you can make a cow with a good rump, good legs and udder, she should last for you. When a cow as an excellent udder you can go everywhere… you need that excellent udder to sell a cow, not a huge frame.”  Barclay Phoenix comments that “I like the way that Gold Chips are developing as second and third calvers.” While Michael Heath adds that he “loves the Gold Chip bred heifers and young cows.”

  • Aaron Eaton
    • Val-Bisson DOORMAN
    • Stantons HIGH OCTANE
  • Ari Ekstein 
    • Maple-Downs-I G W ATWOOD
    • Pine-Tree SID
    • Val-Bisson DOORMAN
  • Barclay Phoenix
    • Mr Chassity GOLD CHIP
    • Lirr Drew DEMPSEY
    • Croteau Lesperron UNIX
  • Ethan McMillan
    • Lirr Drew DEMPSEY
    • Val-Bisson DOORMAN
  • Michael Heath
    • Lirr Drew DEMPSEY
    • Mr Chassity GOLD CHIP
    • Ms Atlees Sht AFTERSHOCK
  • Simon Lalande
    • Val-Bisson DOORMAN
    • Lirr Drew DEMPSEY
    • Braedale GOLDWYN
  • Ysabel Jacobs
    • Monument IMPRESSION
    • Mr Chassity GOLD CHIP
    • Gillette WINDBROOK
    • Regancrest REGINALD

What bulls are you currently using?

For many breeders looking to breed the next great one, the proof comes when the calves hit the ground. It is not surprising that Walnutlawn SOLOMON tops the list of sires currently in use.  His impressive calve,s combined with a cow family that has consistently sired outstanding udders, he has the promise and the proof in sync.  It’s also not surprising that some early Solomon sons make our list, like Blondin Zimmer CAPTURE.  “He is the first available Solomon son, his genomics are outstanding for type, and he should make the special kind,” comments Simon Lalande.  Another Doorman son that is getting attention is KH CINDERDOOR.  Ysabel Jacobs says that “early Cinderdoor daughters look a lot like Solomon daughters but maybe with a little more rib.”

Wendon Dempsey Prude

Many of the breeders on our panel are also going back and using Lirr Drew DEMPSEY. Michael Heath comments that “It seems like Dempsey from Sids is a really good cross.”  Ysabel Jacobs adds that Dempsey is a “builder bull, so we have been using him. We use him because we found our breed has a problem with their thurl’s too far back. So now we use a bull like Dempsey to help with that.”

Since Goldwyn on Dundee has proven to be a magic cross, Aaron Eaton has gone back and used Dundee on a few Goldwyn’s and Gold Chip’s. “I don’t think you can go wrong with balanced breeding while maintaining great udders, balance, dairyness and good feet and legs.” Comments Eaton. 

  • Aaron Eaton
    • Val-Bisson DOORMAN
    • Walnutlawn SOLOMON
    • Cycle Doorman JACOBY
    • Walnutlawn SLATER
    • Braedale GOLDWYN
    • Regancrest DUNDEE
  • Ari Ekstein 
    • Walnutlawn SOLOMON (sexed)
    • Quality Doorman MARIO
    • Maple-Downs-I G W ATWOOD (sexed)
    • Dymentholm Mr Apples AVALANCHE
    • Toc-Farm FITZ
    • Pine-Tree SID (sexed)
    • Cycle Doorman JACOBY (sexed)
    • Stantons HIGH OCTANE
    • Lirr Drew DEMPSEY
    • Ocd 1stclass CALLEN
  • Ethan McMillan
    • Walnutlawn SOLOMON
    • Lirr Drew DEMPSEY
    • Croteau Lesperron UNIX
    • Morningview Mcc KINGBOY
    • High Genomic Type Sires (For problem breeders)
  • Simon Lalande
    • Walnutlawn SOLOMON
    • Blondin Zimmer CAPTURE
    • Val-Bisson DOORMAN
    • Crasdale CHILL
    • Woodcrest King DOC
    • Cycle Mcgucci JORDY-RED
    • Farnear-Tbr BH 1ST GRADE
    • Stantons CHIEF
  • Ysabel Jacobs
    • Monument IMPRESSION
    • Jk Eder-I CONTROL
    • Stantons HIGH OCTANE
    • Lirr Drew DEMPSEY
    • Minnigan-Hills DAY

 

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Figuring out exactly what sire to use can be a tough decision.  For many pedigree breeders, the goal is to consistently produce great cows that have show ring appeal.  While genomic type numbers can help you narrow down the list, the real proof comes when you see the daughters.  The challenge for most breeders is getting the opportunity to see many different daughters in different herds. It can be really hard to do.  Thanks to the contributions of our panel members, we are able to get some critical insight into some of the top sires. We have learned how are being used and how they are performing on top cattle.  While some sires can make an average cow better, the real question becomes “Which sires can make great daughters from good cows?”  That is the question these panel members have helped us to answer.

 

 

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Are You Really Sure You Are Using The Correct Breeding Index For Your Herd?

Usually, the Bullvine does not come back quickly to a topic just covered. But when specifically asked to add further light on a topic, we leap at the opportunity to add clarity with further information. After publishing the article “Which Breeding Index is right for you? we received questions and comments from readers and Facebook friends that stimulated us to dig deeper.

Readers’ Questions

  1. Can you provide analysis on Jerseys, as they are gaining in popularity?
  2. What about comparisons of bull index groupings for Canadian sires?
  3. How significant are the differences between the bull index categories?
  4. I live in the UK and use both US and Canadian sires, I would be interested in knowing if I can use TPI and LPI and NM$ and Pro$ interchangeably?

These are all excellent questions?

Study Premise

Let’s recall the premise of the original article. Our premise was “the average of a group of bulls, selected using a particular total merit index, will be what a breeder can expect to obtain in the genetic merit of their herd when that certain index is used over a period.”

Of course, a breeder will pick and choose sires and will not use all the sires in any grouping. Therefore the results obtained can and will differ from the average. However, the average will be a very good indication of the results from using any particular total merit index.

Total Merit Indexes Studied

Some dairy cattle breeders follow only one breeding strategy, others use more than one strategy in their herd, but almost all breeders use the facts and figures to help them achieve their goals and objectives.

To assist breeders, we choose four total merit indexes to compare expected results:

  1. Conformation/ Type Index (when selection is based on type only)
  2. Production Indexes (Fat + Protein Yield, as 70% of milk goes into milk products)
  3. Breed recommended Total Merit Indexes (TPI, JPI, LPI, …)
  4. Economically Weighted Total Merit Indexes (NM$, CM$, Pro$, …)

Sire Average Index Comparisons

The tables that follow are the average proofs for the top active US and Canadian Holstein and Jersey proven sires, with semen available for sale, as ranked and published in December 2016. Table 1 is a replication of the table contained in our first article. The number color coding is: red = lowest/worst; and blue = highest/best. The scale of and range in proofs depends on the base used for the publication of proofs.

Table 1 Average Proof for Top Twenty Active US Proven Holstein Sires (Dec’16)

Table 2 Average Proof for Top Ten Active US Proven Jersey Sires (Dec’16)

Table 3 Average Proof For Top Twenty Active Canadian Holstein Sires (Dec’16)

Table 4 Average Proof For Top Ten Active Canadian Proven Jersey Sires (Dec’16)

 

The Take Home Messages on Indexes

Holstein Sires: The highest sires for breed and economic indexes came out superior most often. Highest production sires did not rank lowest for traits as often as most top type sires. With management, health and longevity traits receiving the focus in 2017, NM$, CM$ and Pro$ indexes are recommended as the total merit indexes to use when doing the first sort for sires to use.

  • Jersey Sires: Since the number of Jersey sires being proven is not as large, the averages and comparisons may not be As with Holsteins, the breed and economic indexes come out on top more often. In the US JPI and CM$ are very similar. However, in Canada Pro$ is superior to LPI when it comes to the Jersey sire proof averages. The high type sires definitely are inferior for production and most important management traits. The highest production sires do not have the longevity and management traits that most commercial breeders want to have in their herds.
  • Highest Type Sires: These sires will satisfy breeders wanting to breed for the niche show market. Otherwise, breeders using high type sires will continue to quickly fall behind for production, fertility, DCE and other management traits. Significantly increased stature (and size) comes with selecting for type for both breeds in both US and Canada. Compared to other total merit indexing alternatives, when a sire’s type proof is used as the primary selection number, breeders can expect to fall behind the progress being made by breeders using the highest sires for production, breed index or economic index.
  • Highest Production Sires: No doubt about it these sires leave the most production. However, with breeders today wanting animals that are longer lived and more trouble free, these sires are only likely to be the ones of choice for breeders with extremely good management and that have the labor force that can identify problems quickly. The highest production sires were most often below average for reproduction and other management traits.
  • Highest Breed Index Sires: TPI, JPI, and LPI have stood the test of time as indexes that identify top sires. TPI and LPI put direct and indirect emphasis on traits that many commercial breeders consider as frills (i.e. stature, balance, and style). Sires that rank highest for breed indexes are usually at or near the top for all traits we studied. All Holstein and Canadian Jersey breeders wanting the little extra in type should feel confident in using their breed indexes when sorting sires. On the other hand, US Jersey breeders cannot expect as much type but more production from following JPI as their index of choice.
  • Highest Economic Index Sires: For Holstein and Jersey breeders focused on milk for their revenue source with cows that are healthy, fertile and trouble free then NM$, CM$, and Pro$ are the best ways to compare and choose sires. These indexes are at or near the top for most traits and overall come out on top as compared to the other three ranking systems that we studied. Breeders wanting to reverse the trend for larger and larger cows will find these indexes will do the best job.
  • Indexes for Young Sires: With anywhere from 50% to 70% of semen sold coming from genomically evaluated sires, the selection of sires not yet daughter proven is an important matter. The Bullvine recommends that the same rationale be used for proven or genomically evaluated sires when it comes to which total merit index to use. And as has been written and often said, for genomically evaluated sires do not ‘put all your eggs in one basket’ – in other words, use 5-20 doses from any one young sire and then move on to other young sires.
  • Overall Use of Total Merit Indexing Alternatives: Step #1 is to objectively predict the genetic merit your herd should have in three and then ten years. Their years corresponds to daughters of the sires being used just now. Step #2 is to have a plan for what you wish to achieve from your breeding program (Read more: What’s the plan? And Flukes and Pukes – What Happens When You Don’t Have a Plan) Step #3 is to then match the total merit index option to your plan. Choosing the incorrect total merit index alternative for your needs could mean that the cows in your herd in a decade are totally wrong. We have seen it where the son or daughter taking over the herd from their parents have cows that do not do a very good job for the next generation. Foresight is important. Breeding involves a considerable amount of vision.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

From this study, The Bullvine can recommend that breeders can expect similar results from using the current national US or Canadian total merit indexes. The challenge ahead will be for breeders to keep up as more total merit indexes that include new and novel traits come into use. Our best advice to progressive breeders is to work closely with a trusted genetics supplier and have them advise you when it comes to the total merit index that is best for you. For the majority of dairy farms using an economic index will fit their program best.

 

 

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The 12 Sires Available In 2017 That You Should Be Using in Your Breeding Program to Achieve Maximum Genetic Gain

Picking the correct sires for your breeding program can be one of the most challenging yet still important decisions that you can make.  With new sires coming out almost every week, many breeders just don’t have the time to stay up to date. Add to that the challenge of knowing what sires are available and it can be a real challenge to pick your short list.  With that in mind, we have developed a list of 12 sires for you to take a closer look at and that should be available in most markets. To make it easier, we have broken our lists into four major categories to help you do quick corrective matings.

Balanced Breeding   

When looking for the sire that will help improve your herd across the board, we looked for sires that have a balance of production and longevity and, most importantly, a pedigree that ensures that their performance will last. We also wanted high health and fertility traits that will deliver a low maintenance cow (Read more – Fact vs. Fantasy: A realistic approach to sire selection). Here are our top three:

Mountfield SSI Dcy MOGUL
Dorcy BY x Marsh x O Man
007HO11314

Pedigree:
Sire: Coyne-Farms Dorcy-ET BY TV TL
Dam: Mountfield Marsh Maxine-ET VG-88 DOM, 02-03 2x 159d 14320m 4.3 611f 3.2 454p
MGS: Pasen Marsh-ET TR TV TL TY
MGD: Pine-Tree Missy Miranda-ET VG-86 DOM, 03-08 3x 365d 35550m 4.9 1730f 3.7 1325p
MGGS: O-Bee Manfred Justice-ET TR TV TL TD EX-94
MGGD: Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy-ET TV EX-92 3E GMD DOM, 04-11 3x 365d 40880m 4.1 1665f 3.2 1308p

It’s almost impossible to talk about modern impactful sires and not lead off with MOGUL.  This sire has dominated the genetics market for the past four years.  Today’s combination of Genomic testing and IVF has contributed to MOGUL now having great great grandsons entering AI units.  As one of the first ART program bulls from Select Sires, MOGUL has certainly helped deliver on the promise that that program expected.  Mogul is one of the all-around sires that has solid numbers in all aspects of both his genomic evaluation and daughter performance. This accounts for his popularity as a sire of sons and bull mothers.  While he will not be siring many show winners, he does offer a balanced type evaluation with all composites over 2 points.  MOGUL does need to be protected on Daughter Pregnancy Rate and straightness of rear legs.

Bacon-Hill Pety MODESTY
Pety x Supersire x Bolton
507HO12600

Sire: Siemers Mogul Pety
Dam: Bacon-Hill Suprs Modesty-ET VG-85 DOM
MGS: Seagull-Bay Supersire-ET TV TL TY TD
MGD: Unique-Style Bolton Money EX-93 2E GMD DOM, 03-01 3x 365d 38430m 4.2 1614f 3.2 1247p
MGGS: Sandy-Valley Bolton-ET BY TV TL EX-90
MGGD: Pasen Rolex Mummy VG-88, 06-02 2x 365d 26160m 4.0 1043f 3.2 848p

With a strong, balanced pedigree and many of the breeds’ most impactful sires on both his maternal and paternal side, it’s no surprise that MODESTY tops the balanced breeding genomic lists.  With many young MODESTY sons starting to appear on the top list at under one year of age, MODESTY is showing that he has what it takes to pass it on to both his sons and daughters.  MODESTY is not an outcross sire, given the fact that his sire Pety is a Mogul son from a Mac from Welcome Goldwyn Penya. His dam is sired by Supersire and then a Bolton behind that. Modesty’s dam is a medium sized cow, but strong with width of front end and produces large volumes of milk with ease.  Given that he has almost 2000 lbs of Milk with plus components, over 2 points on type, and great health and fertility traits (+8.2 PL, +3.8 Liv, 2.7 DPR) MODESTY is very balanced in his breeding abilities.  He will need to be watched for his SCS (+3.02) as well as protected on his strength, body depth, and pin width.

Endco The ANSWER-PO 
Montross x Earnhardt P x Robust
534HO00056

Sire: Bacon-Hill Montross-ET
Dam: Bryhill Earnhardt Mint P, 02-02 2x 121d 9960m 4.3 424f 3.0 294p
MGS: Da-So-Burn Mom Earnhardt P TR PO TV TL TY T
MGD: Sully Robust 720-ET GP-83, 02-1 2x 365d 33360m 4.0 1325f 3.4 1140p
MGGS: Roylane Socra Robust-ET TR TV TL TD VG-88 GM
MGGD: Sully Planet Manitoba-ET GP-83 DOM, 02-03 2x 365d 33290m 3.9 1306f 3.1 1041p

For those breeders that have gotten on board with the polled revolution, the answer is clear. (Read more: From the Sidelines to the Headlines, Polled is Going Mainline!) Answer-PO is the #1 NM$ polled sire currently over a year of age. With his sire, Montross, coming out with a strong official proof, Answer-PO takes a significant jump to the top of the list. He comes from the Sully Planet Manitoba-ET GP-83 DOM family.  His grand dam, Manitoba, is a sister to Meridian and the dam of AltaMerci.  Look for Answer-PO to sire significant production improvement with strong components especially fat improvement. His daughters should be easy calving with solid temperament and will be long lasting.  He is a solid type sire but will need to be protected on his teat length and body depth.

Production

It might be easy just to choose sires from the top milk lists.  Instead, we wanted to look at a more balanced approach to overall production, so we looked at Energy Corrected Milk (ECM) Production, as well as not totally neglecting health and durability.  ECM determines the amount of milk produced and adjusted to 3.5 percent fat and 3.2 percent protein.

Bacon-Hill MONTROSS
Mogul x Bolton x AltaRolex
007HO12165

Sire: Mountfield Ssi Dcy Mogul-ET TR TV TL TY TD
Dam: Unique-Style Bolton Money EX-93 2E GMD DOM, 03-01 3x 365d 38430m 4.2 1614f 3.2 1247p
MGS: Sandy-Valley Bolton-ET BY TV TL EX-90
MGD: Pasen Rolex Mummy VG-88, 06-02 2x 365d 26160m 4.0 1043f 3.2 848p
MGGS: Latuch Rolex-ET TV TL EX-92
MGGD: Pasen Trent Mermaid-ET VG-85, 03-04 2x 305d 24240m 3.8 909f 3.3 805p

You really cannot even start to talk about overall production and components, without first looking at MONTROSS.  MONTROSS takes extreme production to a whole new level.  When you consider that the seven sires for energy adjusted milk are either MONTROSS sons or MONTROSS himself, he really dominates this list.  The fact that MONTROSS has become such an impactful sire of sons is not surprising, considering his sire stack that has sires like Elton, Leadman, and Rudolph several times in his pedigree.  His maternal side also has many instances of Elevation and Valiant contributing to the potency of MONTROSS, not only as a sire but also as a sire of sons.  In fact, there was a time we considered MONTROSS an outcross sire, but he has been such a potent producer of high genomic females and males, he has now become one of the sires that dominates the lists himself. (Read More: 12 Outcross Sires to Help Control Inbreeding). He is on pace to unseat his sire, Mogul, as the number 1 selling genomic sire of all time, as he was the youngest bull at Select Sires to reach the 100,00 units mark and his popularity continues to soar.  MONTROSS’s dam is the granddam of Modesty. MONTROSS will offer an excellent production kick and have enough durability, health, and fertility to last. MONTROSS has strong functional type with moderate stature, angular frames, good depth of rib and tremendous rear udders, but should be protected for straightness of rear legs and overall frame and capacity traits. However, as we have seen from research in the past, you don’t need extreme frame traits, in order to achieve extreme lifetime production. (Read more: She Ain’t Pretty – She Just Milks That Way!).

Ronland JEP
Montross x Sherac x Niagra
014HO07703

Sire: Bacon-Hill Montross-ET
Dam: Ronland Sherac Jill-ET GP-82, 03-00 2x 310d 27590m 4.2 1160f 3.5 957p
MGS: Ufm-Dubs Sherac-ET TV TL TY
MGD: Ronland Niagra Jurist-ET GP-80 DOM, 03-02 2x 316d 28370m 4.3 1216f 3.2 902p
MGGS: Ri-Val-Re 2338 Niagra-ET TR TV TL TD
MGGD: Ronland Jackie Journey VG-88, 04-00 2x 365d 35960m 3.9 1409f 2.9 1053p

For those of you looking to use a Montross son that offers something a little different from the Montross X Supersire x Snowman sire stack that many of the top energy adjusted production sires possess, there is JEP. JEP’s maternal side includes many Aerostar descendants including Goldwyn, Rudolph, Shottle, Jordan & Patron Allie.  While JEP’s maternal line may not read like a who’s who of the top females, what it does have is generation after generation of strong consistent performers who keep improving with age. JEP is an extreme production sire, who might just surprise some with how durable and low maintenance they are.  While they will not be winning shows any time soon, they will have great dairy strength, average stature, with high wide rear udders, but will need to be protected on udder depth.   For those looking to breed high production, low maintenance cows that will fit in any facility, JEP should be at the top of your list.

Dudoc STETSON P
Superman x Mccutchen x Magna-P*RC BY
200HO10716

Sire: RH Superman-ET
Dam: Dudoc Mccutchen Rancune P
MGS: De-Su Bkm Mccutchen 1174-ET TV TL TY TD
MGD: Dudoc Magna Requiem P-ET, 01-11 2x 365d 28754m 4.8 1366f 3.4 981p
MGGS: Arron Doon West Port Magna P RC PO TV TL TD VG-88
MGGD: Dudoc Shottle Rhizotomie

For those of you looking for a polled production sire and if you want something with a bit of an outcross from the Montross son Answer PO, then check out STETSON P.  While STETSON P may not blow you away with his overall production (+2041 kgs, 1955 lbs.) where he will wow you is with his components (92 lbs/111 kgs Fat, 58 lbs/ 86 kgs Protein).  A quick look at STETSON P’s pedigree and you see the strong influence sires like Blackstar, Prelude and Aerostar have had, especially with the heavy Shottle influence on his maternal line.  He is a great component sire, with strong durability and great health and fertility. STETSON P is an extreme sire for heel depth but will need to be protected on his thurl placement.

Longevity Improvement

While some would try to tell you that high type equals longevity, that is not necessarily the case.    When it comes to longevity, it’s hard to argue with actual performance indices like Herd Life, Productive Life and Cow Livability.  (Read more: COW LIVABILITY: BREEDING FOR COWS THAT STAY IN THE HERD) With that in mind, we looked for those sires the excel in producing durable long lasting cows, while not totally forgetting about production.  In addition to Modesty mentioned earlier, the following are the 3 sires that came to the top of our list:

Mr Monterey MYSTERY
Monterey x Numero Uno x Domain
551HO03388

Sire: View-Home Monterey-ET
Dam: EDG Mist Uno Mylife-ET VG-86, 02-03 2x 365d 27140m 3.6 968f 3.1 832p
MGS: Amighetti Numero Uno-ET TV TL TY
MGD: Leaderwin Domain Mist-ET VG-87, 02-10 3x 305d 26090m 3.6 932f 3.0 772p
MGGS: Ronelee Toystory Domain-ET TV TL TD EX-90
MGGD: Leaderwin Jeeves Mace EX-91 2E DOM, 04-06 2x 365d 36250m 4.3 1560f 3.2 1164p

While MYSTERY daughters will probably not wow you with their lactational totals on milk production, they certainly will last forever and put up impressive lifetime production totals.  Also, an interesting fact about MYSTERY is that he has no MOGUL in his pedigree. This is something that is hard to find in today’s top genomic sires. MYSTERY is a Monterey from the same family that has produced the popular polled sire Milford.  His dam EDG Mist Uno Mylife sold for $160,000 in the 2013 Genomic Giants Sale.  MYSTERY combines great scores for PL (+8.5) and Cow Livability (+3.2) with outstanding mammary systems (+3.11 UDC) and strong feet and legs (+1.90 FLC).  The one area I do have concerns about with this sire is his production, as his DGV’s for production are significantly lower than his parent averages (+281 vs +407).  Considering he is not very high to start with, this is certainly an area where I would protect him.

Westcoast LIGHTHOUSE
Altaspring x Distinction x Numero Uno
200HO10757

Sire: Westenrade Altaspring
Dam: Calbrett Distinction Lolita
MGS: De-Su Distinction 11130-ET
MGD: Oconnors Last Hope, 02-01 2x 365d 26673m 4.9 1299f 3.4 895p
MGGS: Amighetti Numero Uno-ET TV TL TY
MGGD: Oconnors Planet Lucia-ET VG-86, 02-05 2x 365d 33701m 4.5 1523f 3.4 1137p

If you are looking for high durability combined with high type scores, look no further than LIGHTHOUSE.  He is A2A2, high production, positive components with great health and fertility scores.  LIGHTHOUSE is from the family of the million dollar cow Lylehaven Lila Z TV EX-94 that produced such sires as Liquid Gold, Lexor and Latimer. (Read more: Lylehaven Lila Z : Was She Really Worth $1.15 Million?)  His grand dam, Oconners Last Hope sold in the Genetics by Design Sale for $475,000.  LIGHTHOUSE is over 2 points on all his type composites (+2.54 PTAT, +2.90 UDC, +2.19 FLC),and, as well, has an outstanding +6.9 PL and +4.0 DPR.  While they may not have showring style (-4 height at front end, -2 body depth), LIGHTHOUSE daughters will make great barn cows and will last for years and years. 

View-Home CARDINALS
Yoder x Mccutchen x Robust
200HO10668

Sire: Woodcrest Mogul Yoder-ET
Dam: View-Home Mcc Alabama-ET TL TD GP-82, 02-11 3x 96d 9150m 4.1 378f 3.0 273p
MGS: De-Su Bkm Mccutchen 1174-ET TV TL TY TD
MGD: Pine-Tree 2149Robst 4846-ET VG-86 DOM, 02-04 3x 365d 32000m 4.8 1520f 3.2 1036p
MGGS: Roylane Socra Robust-ET TR TV TL TD VG-88 GM
MGGD: Pine-Tree Zenith Sheen VG-87 DOM,   01-11 3x 305d 24500m 3.9 959f 3.0 740p

CARDINALS is a Yoder from the full sister to Monterey and sister to POWERBALL-P, MISSOURI & CASHFLOW.  This potent genetic family traces back to the great Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy the foundation cow behind the top bulls Mogul, Mardi Gras, Sid, Supersire and AltaOak.  The extreme number of influential sires that have come from the Rudy Missy family is why we consider her one of the top 7 most influential cows in the breed. (Read more: The 7 Most Influential Holstein Brood Cows of the Modern Era) Like most of sires that come from this bloodline, CARDINALS numbers indicate good strength, with wide rear udders and mobile feet and legs. Combine that with high PL scores (+7.9) and strong DPR indexes (+2.3), and CARDINAL daughters will be built to last.   While not an extreme production sire, CARDINAL does have good components and health and fertility ratings.

Health and Fertility Improvement

Over the past few years we have seen a drastic swing in breeding focus to the point where now Health and Fertility scores often outrank the importance of production and, especially, type scores.  With that in mind, here are three sires that will help accelerate your breeding program in this key area.

EDG HANCHO 74621
Director x Halogen x Shamrock
551HO03371

Sire: Mr Delicious Pre 57512-ET
Dam: EDG Jacey Halo 57887-ET VG-85
MGS: Cookiecutter Petron Halogen
MGD: Butlerview Sr Jacey-ET GP-80, 03-05 3x 305d 28490m 4.4 1262f 3.0 864p
MGGS: Ladys-Manor Pl Shamrock-ET TR TV TL TD VG-88
MGGD: Coyne-Farms Freddi Jeven-ET VG-87 DOM, 04-02 2x 365d 36760m 4.8 1757f 3.5 1281p

From the Elite Dairy Genomics Program, HANCHO is a great example of how tight the generational interval has become, considering that his sire, Director, is just three years of age now, and his maternal grand dam is only 5 years of age. (Read more: The Genomic Advancement Race – The Battle For Genetic Supremacy) HANCHO is certainly a specialist sire that is going to give an instant impact on the health and fertility of the breed.  He will need to be protected on his overall production as well as his feet & legs (low foot angle and slightly sickled) but he is line bred to be an extreme health sire (Director is a Shamrock grandson, and HANCHO’s 2nd dam is also a Shamrock).  His accelerated sire stack is a big reason that HANCHO gets most of his superior genetics from his paternal side, a strong indicator of a sires ability to be an impact sire (Read more: Why Braedale Goldwyn Wasn’t A Great Sire Of Sons)

ABS BIGSTONE
Endeavor x Monarch x Robust
029HO18346

Sire: De-Su 12365 Endeavor-ET
Dam: No-Fla Monarch Bri 38395-ET
MGS: S-S-I Twist Monarch-ET TV TL TY TD
MGD: No-Fla Robust Lisette 33031, 03-00 3x 354d 29170m 3.6 1044f 3.1 898p
MGGS: Roylane Socra Robust-ET TR TV TL TD VG-88 GM

Another sire bred to be an extreme health sire is BIGSTONE.  From the relatively newly developed female program at ABS, BIGSTONE’S maternal line was developed by one of the great breeding minds of our generation, Don Bennink at North Florida Holsteins (Read more: NORTH FLORIDA HOLSTEINS. Aggressive, Progressive and Profitable!!) True to Bennink’s progressive philosophy, BIGSTONE is not necessarily a high PTAT sire (+0.98) or even an extreme production sire (+856 lbs PTAM), but rather is a high component sire (+101 combined lbs of fat and protein) high PL (+8.8) high DPR (+6.5), low SCS (+2.79) and moderate calving ease (+6.9) sire.  (Read more: Flukes and Pukes – What Happens When You Don’t Have a Plan).  While BIGSTONE’S daughters may not be flashy, they are certainly going to be low maintenance, trouble free cows that last for many lactations.

Mr BLNDN POWERMAN P
Powerball-P x Supersire x Colt P-Red
202HO01622

Sire: View-Home Powerball-P-ET
Dam: Butlerview Pixie Ss57453-ET
MGS: Seagull-Bay Supersire-ET TV TL TY TD
MGD: Butlerview Colt Pixie-ET RC EX-90, 02-02 2x 305d 23230m 4.2 970f 3.2 745p
MGGS: Sandy-Valley Colt P-Red-TW PO TV TL TY TD
MGGD: Richmond-Fd Pompey-ET BY EX-91 DOM, 03-10 3x 305d 30050m 4.3 1282f 3.1 938p

When looking for healthy, low maintenance cows, why not throw in polled ? In that case, then POWERMAN P is the sire to go with.  Combine that with A2 A2 and you pretty much have all the boxes checked. From the Richmond-FD Ramos Poppy EX-91 cow family, POWERMAN P is high DPR (+4.9), low SCS (+2.68). When you combine that with the fact that his Canadian genomic tests indicate that he is relatively resistant to mastitis (+108), easy calving (+111 Daughter Calving Ability) and high daughter fertility (+111), then there is no question that POWERMAN P will give a potent shot of health and fertility to your breeding program.  POWERMAN P will be best used on high production cows that are strong fat testers, as these are areas where he will need to be protected.

 The Bullvine Bottom Line

We have stated it many times, “When maximizing your genetic gain, you can’t just pick from the top of the TPI or LPI list.”  You need to make sure that your matings are the best corrective cross.  Breeding great cattle is part art and part science. You need to have both parts.   It takes careful consideration and generation after generation of corrective mating to produce great cow families.  That is why, instead of just giving you a list of the top 12, we have tried to provide you with insight into which sires will provide you with the maximum gain in each particular area.

 

 

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Which Breeding Index Is Right for You?

Have you ever let your search for which semen to buy, go beyond the individual sire level? I have been as keen as the next breeder to find individual sires that will do the best job of genetically improving cows. Proof day meant that I would read through a multitude of total merit index listings to find the sires for me. However, this year I decided to put more focus on the end results I want to achieve and use only one index when selecting my initial short list of sires. What follows are my thought processes and calculations.

Indexes – Yes or No?

For me the answer is automatic. I rely on genetic total merit indexes when choosing sires and females also. My reasoning comes down to one factor.  By using a total merit index to base my sire selection decisions, I can get 6 to 8 out of 10 sire daughters that meet or exceed my expectations. That compares to 2 to 3 out of 10 when I use raw sire daughter averages or a single trait index (i.e. milk yield or udder composite).  This means triple the number of cows that stay around for a third lactation and those are the odds worth working with. Yes, we all have read on the Milk House that some breeders are willing to throw away nine of ten daughters of a sire to get that very outstanding one for production or type. But for most of us, that is too costly an alternative.

Total Merit Indexes – Many are Available

Every dairy breeding country has its own total merit index. I have just researched and found twenty such indexes, and there is considerable range amongst them in the emphasis placed on a host of individual traits.

Globally there is often reference to five US combined trait indexes that range from indexes for only type all the way to an index focusing on cheese yield. For this article, the Bullvine has analyzed five American combined or total merit indexes for the current top twenty active proven Holstein sires. Only sires with at least 90% REL were included so that comparisons are based on proven in herd performance.

Let’s Compare the Results of Five Indexes

Averaging the results from the top twenty proven sires shows the results breeders can expect from using a single combined trait index but allows breeders to select or eliminate individual sires per their needs.

Knowing that breeders can range in their breeding goals from highest type to highest production to highest for functional traits, the Bullvine selected PTAT, Fat + Protein Yield, TPI, NM$ and CM$ as the indexes to study.

The assumption is that if breeders use an average sire of one of these five combined indexes they will get the results shown in Table 1.  Of course, no breeder uses an average sire but, if one of these indexes is used over a period, the result will closely align with the table values.

Table 1 – Average Proof for Top Twenty US Proven Holstein Sires (Dec ’16)

Trait / Index Highest Type Highest Production          TPI         NM$        CM$
          (PTAT)        (Fat + Protein Yield)      
Fat + Protein 38 135 129 127 123
Milk 479 1709 1669 1422 1418
DPR -0.8 0.9 1.4 1.9 1.8
LIV -2.5 0.5 0.6 2.3 2.1
SCS 2.91 2.94 2.91 2.89 2.89
PL 0.9 4.2 5.2 6.5 6.6
DCE 6.9 5.1 4.9 4.9 4.8
UDC 2.62 0.99 1.38 1.09 1.14
FLC 2.21 1.09 1.37 0.87 0.95
Stature 3.49 0.79 1.89 -0.01 0.28
PTAT 3.15 1.39 1.53 1.19 1.25
TPI 2108 2497 2568 2533 2539
NM$ 229 713 725 760 756
CM$ 220 729 721 776 783
Color Codes Highest / Best – Blue Lowest / Worst – Green

The Bullvine’s synopsis of the results is:

  • Highest type (PTAT) sires produce below breed average results for yields, fertility, health, longevity and daughter calving ease. For production and functional traits, the results are significantly behind other indexes. As expected the average PTAT is very high at 3.15. Note that very high type is closely associated with extremely tall Holsteins (Stature 3.49). Also, noteworthy is the -2.5 for cow Breeding for type does not equate to easier calving cows or improved cow longevity.
  • Highest production (F+P) at 135 lbs is very high with breed average values for fertility and livability and okay values for overall type (note stature is about breed average). Additionally, the values for TPI, NM$, and CM$ for this group are much higher than for the highest type sires.
  • As expected most top TPI sires can be expected to give high averages for most values. Type at almost 1.5 standard deviations above the rolling breed average would result in significant continued improvement for type including very tall Production is also high. However, fertility and cow livability are barely above average, so breeders could not expect to significantly improve these areas that are today considered to be in need of improvement in Holsteins.
  • The highest NM$ sires will produce daughters that are high or excel for all values except for type. PTAT at 1.20 is above average, but the -0.01 for stature will result in decreasing stature as today’s Holstein average proven sire stature index is likely between 0.6 and 0.8.
  • The highest CM$ sires will produce very similar results to the most top NM$ sires. So, either NM$ or CM$ could be used in selecting sires.
  • SCS do not differ amongst the five groupings.
  • UDC and FLC are at least average for all five groupings. It should be remembered that UDC and FLC indexes are not as useful as the individual linear indexes for udders and feet and legs when mating sire and cow.
  • PTAT and TPI are not the indexes to use for breeders planning to decrease stature and improve health and fertility in their herds.
  • Breeders interested in following the NM$ or CM$ approach to breeding may wish to read the Bullvine article ”She Ain’t Pretty, She Just Milks That Way.”

Beyond the US Daughter Proven Holstein Sires

The Bullvine also studied the current top 10 Canadian Holstein proven sires and top 10 US Jersey proven sires and found very similar results to the proven US Holstein sires. In Canadian Holsteins, breeders should use Pro$ as the equivalent to NM$ or CM$. In US Jerseys JPI and CM$ gave almost identical results.

For breeders interested in only using top NM$ genomically evaluated Holstein sires, our study shows there are 27 sires above 900 NM$. And inbreeding is not likely to be a problem as they are sired by eleven different sires (4 Altaspring, 4 Montross, 4 Silver, 3 Jedi, 3 Rubicon, 3 Yoder, 2 Supershot, 1 Delta, 1 Josuper, 1 Octoberfest and 1 Pety).

Other Indexes – Now Available

The Bullvine recently produced an article, “Will Genetic Evaluations Go Private?” on other total merit indexes that private breeding companies are publishing. More of these private indexes can be expected in the future. Currently, the Ideal Commercial Cow Index, ICC$ ™, is being used by some breeders and DWP$ ™ sire rankings (Read more: The Complete Guide to Understanding Zoetis’ New Wellness Traits – CLARIFIDE® Plus) have just been published since the latest official proof release in December (See complete lists at Sire Proof Central).

Only You Can Decide

There is no combined trait or total merit index that is perfect for all breeders to use when short listing sires for their herd. Some farms sell their milk to fluid processors; some sell to cheese makers, some processors make powder, and some farms bred for breeding stock sales. There are indexes to address all situations.

If a breeder is hoping to produce bulls for use in A.I. on a significant scale, then using an index that commercial dairy farmers would us is an advantage when breeding to produce breeding bulls. A high genomic value is also critical when selling bulls to A.I. 

The Bullvine recommends that all breeders have a plan (Read more: What’s the plan?) based on goals and expected results.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Knowing the desired end result, five years down the road, from a breeding program is a prerequisite to selecting sires. The majority of tomorrow’s dairy cattle breeders will need to be farm profit focused. My first-choice total merit index, for selecting sires, is now NM$.

 

 

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The 12 Sires You Should Consider Breeding Your Show Winning Goldwyns To

Let’s face it there are two undeniable facts in the international show ring;  One, that Goldwyn has the most show winning daughters over the past ten years,  And two, that if you have been using Goldwyn you were pretty much breeding for a unique show type animal.  But the questions becomes what do you breed you current Goldwyn’s to in order to breed the next generation of show winners.  With this challenge in mind the Bullvine took a closer look.

High Type Sires – Non Goldwyn

Finding a high type sire that does not have Goldwyn in it’s pedigree is like finding a needle dropped in the straw pack.  But here are four options to consider:

552HO02460Millennium

552HO02460
Mr Donalynn Millennium-ET   TY
McCutchen x Hero x Outside

Sire: De-Su Bkm McCutchen 1174-ET TV TL TY TD
Dam: Ronelee Hero Donalynn-ET VG-86
MGS: Siemers Toys Hero 9701-ET TR TV TL TY TD
MGD: Ronelee Outside Dabble-ET TV TL EX-91 2E GMD DOM
05-03 3x 365d 44530m 3.6 1612f 2.9 1313p
MGGS: Comestar Outside-ET TV TL EX-95
MGGD: Ronelee Rudolph Dimple EX-93 2E DOM
05-08 3x 365d 45920m 3.7 1713f 2.9 1341p

Millennium works out to be an excellent cross on Goldwyn’s.  The resulting progeny should certainly have great udders and legs. I almost worry that they will be too shallow uddered as young cows.  Millennium has the heel depth, chest width and pin width that some Goldwyn’s need. And most Goldwyn’s have the pin setting and front teat placement you need to protect Millennium on.

 

094HO00899Leverage-Red

094HO00899
Westcoast Leverage-Red-ET
Absolute-Red x Destry RC x Mr Burns RC

Sire: Apples Absolute-Red-ET CV TL TD
Dam: Greenlane Destry Laurel
02-00 2x 365d 28384m 3.6 1010f 3.5 998p
MGS: Scientific Destry-ET RC TV TL TY VG-88
MGD: Sunnylodge M B Leona
MGGS: Dudoc Mr Burns RC TV TL TY VG-85
MGGD: Misty Springs SS Leona

Leverage’s dam was a show winning heifer and cow for Westcoast Holsteins winning Reserve Intermediate Champion at the 2012 Red & White Show at World Dairy Expo.  And his sire Absolute has been leaving some pretty impressive daughters, so this is a cross that should work from many different angles. Leverage-Red indeed offers the chest width and pin width needed by Goldwyn’s.  I typically recommend this cross on deeper bodied Goldwyn’s as Leverage-Red is not an improver for body depth. This cross also needs to be protected on the rear teat placement.

286HO00102Avalanche*CV*RC

286HO00102
Dymentholm MR Apples Avalanche CV  RC TY
McCutchen x Regiment-RED x Durham

Sire: De-Su Bkm McCutchen 1174-ET TV TL TY TD
Dam: KHW Regment Apple C-Red-ETN CV VG-89
03-07 2x 365d 36949m 4.2 1554f 3.6 1332p
MGS: Carrousel Regiment-RED-ET TV TL
MGD: Kamps-Hollow Altitude-ET RC CV TL EX-95 2E DOM
07-00 2x 365d 39690m 4.7 1849f 3.3 1310p
MGGS: Regancrest Elton Durham-ET TR CV TL EX-90
MGGD: Clover-Mist Alisha-ET RC EX-93 3E DOM
08-07 2x 365d 36920m 4.2 1553f 3.2 1188p

Avalanche is from the VG-89 max score clone to KHW Regiment Apple EX-95 3E DOM 3* the Grand Champion R&W World Dairy Expo 2011 and certainly the most impactful red cow in the world today.  Avalanche has a +22 Conformation DGV in Canada. Avelanche on Goldwyn is an extremely impressive cross and should result in outstanding mammary systems and feet and legs.  The udder texture from this cross should be among the best there is and there should be enough chest width from McCutchen to help with what some Goldwyn’s need.  Though I would protect this cross on its body depth.

200HO10363High Octane

200HO10363
Stantons High Octane   TY
McCutchen x Observer x Shottle

Sire: De-Su Bkm McCutchen 1174-ET TV TL TY TD
Dam: MS Chassity Obs Claire-ET VG-87
01-10 3x 365d 43546m 3.7 1625f 2.9 1263p
MGS: De-Su Observer-ET TR TV TL TY TD VG-86
MGD: Regancrest S Chassity-ET TL TY EX-92 GMD DOM
03-10 2x 365d 42280m 4.3 1798f 2.5 1070p
MGGS: Picston Shottle-ET TV TL TY EX-95
MGGD: Regancrest Cinderella EX-92 GMD DOM
05-00 2x 365d 34220m 4.1 1418f 2.9 1009p

If you are looking for high genomic type and want no Goldwyn in the pedigree, you are pretty much limited to McCutchen sons.  One that also combines some production with his high type values is High Octane.  While he does have a double shot of Planet and Shottle in his pedigree, he goes back to the impressive REGANCREST CINDERELLA EX-92-2E-USA DOM GMD 6 and then the great REGANCREST-PR BARBIE-ET EX-92-7YR-USA GOM GMD 6*.  High Octane on Goldwyn is certainly a cross that should result in amazing shallow uddered young cows.  High Octane works excellent on most Goldwyn since he has the depth of heel, chest width, and pin width needed.  While Goldwyn should have the pin setting and set of rear legs needed to protect High Octane.  The one area I would be cautionary on is the body depth.

Corrective Mating

If you are looking for what sires are the best corrective mating cross on the typical Goldwyn here are four sires that should do the trick.

200HO10147Sochi

200HO10147
Walnutlawn Sochi  TR TV TL TY TD
Elaborate x Lavanguard x FBI

Sire: Stantons Elaborate
Dam: Misty Springs Lavanguard Sue
MGS: Comestar Lavanguard TY
MGD: Misty Springs Fbi Suzanne
02-02 2x 365d 26137m 4.6 1199f 3.3 871p
MGGS: Gillette Brilea F B I TV TL EX-94
MGGD: Willsona Freelance Sizzle-ET VG-86
02-02 2x 335d 25490m 3.9 1003f 3.1 789p

When inbreeding works, it is called line breeding.  Such is the case from the two great show cows that are line bred to the legendary Adeen, BVK Atwood Abrianna EX-92-USA 3yr and BVK Arianna VG-89-USA 2yr. In this case, Goldwyn would appear in the pedigree three different times (Goldwyn is the GGS of Sochi, sire of Lauthority, who is the sire of Elaborate, as well as he is the MGS of Sochi’s dam, sire of Lavanguard).  But it is a cross that just works. Sochi has the dairy strength, heal depth that most Goldwyn’s need and Goldwyn has the bone quality and set of rear legs that you need to protect Sochi on.

054HO00553Rainy-RC

054HO00553
Rainyridge Barnie  RC TY
Sanchez x Talent RC x Outside

Sire: Gen-Mark Stmatic Sanchez TR TV TL TY TD
Dam: Rainyridge Talent Barbara RC EX-95
03-04 2x 365d 34465m 3.6 1257f 3.1 1068p
MGS: Ladino Park Talent-Imp-ET RC TV TL EX-90
MGD: RF Outside Breeze EX-95
08-00 3x 365d 37970m 3.9 1484f 3.2 1226p
MGGS: Comestar Outside-ET TV TL EX-95

There is no question that Rainy’s dam, Rainyridge Talent Barbara RC EX-95 may be one of the most popular non-Goldwyn show cows from North America in recent years. Much like Westcoast Leverage mentioned above Rainy-RC certainly has a lot of Storm blood in his pedigree.  Rainy-RC should add the height at the front end, chest width, body depth and pin width that most Goldwyn’s need and Goldwyn would help the bone quality and legs that Rainy-RC needs to be protected on.

 

200HO06623Showcase

200HO06623
21Genetics Showcase  TR TY
Let It Snow x Windbrook x Planet

Sire: Velthuis Let It Snow TV TL TY TD
Dam: Seagull-Bay Wnbrk Sunday-ET
MGS: Gillette Windbrook TV TL TY
MGD: Ammon-Peachey Shauna-ET VG-87 GMD DOM
02-01 3x 365d 35120m 4.1 1427f 3.1 1079p
MGGS: Ensenada Taboo Planet-ET TR TV TL TY TD EX-90
MGGD: Pine-Tree Martha Sheen-ET VG-86 DOM
01-11 3x 365d 31210m 4.2 1305f 3.1 968p

If you are looking for high, wide rear udders, a must have in the show ring today, then you best take a look at Showcase.  While his family is best known for producing commercial supers stars like Supersire, Silver and Headliner,  Showcase’s pedigree takes a little more of a show approach, being a Let It Snow from a Windbrook. Showcase will also help the chest width, body depth and pin width while Goldwyn should provide the bone quality and teat placement needed when considering Showcase.

200HO06504Equation

200HO06504
Louiselle Equation  TR TY
Windbrook x Toystory x Allen

Sire: Gillette Windbrook TV TL TY
Dam: Louiselle Toystory Epona
MGS: Jenny-Lou Mrshl Toystory-ET TR TV TL TY
MGD: Louiselle Allen Eve
MGGS: Canyon-Breeze Allen-ET TV VG-85-6YR-CAN

With a sire stack that just oozes strength and power, it’s no wonder that Equation can help solve the “what to breed your Goldwyn’s to” problem.  While this cross is certainly not meant to produce production award winners, it certainly should produce show winners.  Equation is the perfect solution for the chest width and body depth issues as well as pin width, it also should result in extremely angular progeny.

Show Me Winners Not Numbers

Of course, there are those tanbark enthusiasts that prefer to see success in the ring before they use a sire.  For those breeders we offer the following sires:

094HO10276Dundee

094HO10276
Regancrest Dundee-ET   TY
Encore x Mark x Bell CV BL

Sire: Marcrest Encore TV TL EX-96
Dam: Snow-N Denises Dellia TV TL EX-95 2E GMD DOM
07-06 2x 365d 35610m 4.0 1431f 2.9 1035p
MGS: Walkway Chief Mark TL TD VG-87
MGD: Snow-N Dorys Denise EX-90 2E GMD DOM
5-09 2x 365d 33350m 3.8 1256f 3.1 1038p
MGGS: Carlin-M Ivanhoe Bell CV BL TD EX-93
MGGD: Snow-N Ellas Dory GP-81
3-11 2x 305d 21230m 3.8 804f 3.2 681p

If Goldwyn from Dundee is the magic cross that produced the most winning cows at the US National Shows last year, and Atwood (a Goldwyn son on the high type MS KINGSTEAD CHIEF ADEEN VG-87-2YR-CAN EX-94-2E-USA DOM 8* family) was tied for 4th among the cow crosses, then why not go and flip the equation and use Dundee on your Goldwyns.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that this cross has worked so well over the years; Dundee brings the chest width, body depth and height at front end that is needed in the show ring, as well as outstanding rear udder height while Goldwyn provides the leg improvement, thurl placement and udder texture.

007HO09165Braxton

007HO09165
Regancrest S Braxton-ET TR TY
Shottle x Durham x Juror

Sire: Picston Shottle-ET TV TL TY EX-95
Dam: Regancrest-PR Barbie-ET TV EX-92 GMD DOM
02-06 2x 365d 31690m 3.9 1237f 3.1 990p
MGS: Regancrest Elton Durham-ET TR CV TL EX-90
MGD: Regancrest Juror Brina-ET EX-92 GMD
04-04 2x 365d 40640m 3.6 1478f 3.0 1217p
MGGS: Ked Juror-ET TV TL TD GP-82
MGGD: Regancrest Aerostar Bert-ET EX-90 GMD DOM
05-02 2x 365d 37790m 3.6 1357f 3.2 1215p

Certainly proving that he can get the job done, eight Braxton x Goldwyn heifers were winners at that US National Shows in 2014.  Building on that is the recent Autumn Opportunity winner, Trekili W A Lola Braxton, who has developed significantly since her fifth-place finish in the milking yearling class at Expo this year.  This cross should deliver the heel depth and the chest width and body depth required for show. The challenge will be getting a high enough rear udder with enough seem.

 

200HO02137Sid

200HO02137
Pine-Tree Sid-ET  TY
Mr Sam x AltaFinley x Rudolph

Sire: Regancrest-Mr Drham Sam-ET TR TV TL
Dam: Pine-Tree Finley Minnie-ET EX-90 DOM
04-09 2x 305d 26120m 3.5 911f 3.0 786p
MGS: Opsal Finley-ET TV TL TY
MGD: Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy-ET TV EX-92 3E GMD DOM
04-11 3x 365d 40880m 4.1 1665f 3.2 1308p
MGGS: Startmore Rudolph-ET TV TL EX-CAN
MGGD: Wesswood Elton Mimi TL EX-90 GMD DOM
03-05 2x 365d 35380m 3.3 1160f 3.0 1054p

While we waited years for a Goldwyn son to take the crown from Goldwyn as Premier Sire at World Dairy Expo, in the end it was not a Goldwyn son that did it, but rather Sid.  (Read more: Why Braedale Goldwyn Wasn’t a Great Sire of Sons). While there is no question that this cross should produce outstanding udder texture, fore attachments, size and angularity, the trick to this cross is getting a decent foot angle as well as thurl placement.   With many of the best Sid x Goldwyn crosses out there, this is certainly a sire stack trend we are likely to see in the showing.

007HO09264Dempsey

007HO09264
Lirr Drew Dempsey  TR TY
Goldwyn x Derry x Mtoto

Sire: Braedale Goldwyn TV TL GP-84
Dam: Kerndt Sneezy Derry Drew VG-88
03-08 2x 365d 31150m 3.8 1191f 3.1 955p
MGS: Regancrest Emory Derry-ET TV TL EX-94
MGD: Kerndt Mattie Sneezy-ET EX-90
04-04 2x 365d 29550m 3.6 1056f 2.8 841p
MGGS: Carol Prelude Mtoto-ET TV TL
MGGD: Kerndt Maxie Remark Mattie TV EX-90 DOM
04-05 2x 365d 31620m 3.8 1192f 2.7 859p

For those line breeding enthusiasts, I recommend Dempsey.  For years, breeders have speculated about using Atwood on Goldwyn. However, I say you would be better to use Dempsey.  As the great Roy Ormston has always said, line breeding works best when you know the families extremely well and use one line of the family that excels in one area on another line of the family that is weak in those areas. All the time is maintaining the strengths of the family.  For me, that would lend itself to Dempsey on Goldwyn’s ahead of Atwood.  Dempsey’s chest width, body depth and pin width are a better compliment to Goldwyn’s typical daughter than Atwood would be.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

While Goldwyn has certainly proven himself as a dominant show sire, the question now becomes, what do you breed these great Goldwyn daughters to.  These 12 sires indeed offer the greatest chance of breeding the next big time show winners.

 

 

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16 Sires That Will Help Limit Inbreeding – October 2015

Genetic diversity is a critical problem in the Holstein dairy cattle breeding industry.  On the one hand, the rate of genetic gain has accelerated but also has the rate of inbreeding.  With $23 lifetime cost per percent inbreeding, it is easy to overreact and try to avoid inbreeding at all costs. The trick is not to use sires that are inferior, but rather to have a balance of genetic improvement and enough of an outcross not to accelerate the inbreeding.   These 16 sires will do just that and help control the rate of inbreeding in your herd.

Overall Improvement Sires

When it comes to the top overall sires, Robust, Man-O-Man and Shottle are very well represented.  Here are three sires that are among the top bulls, but will help limit the inbreeding in your herd.

007HO12165MONTROSS

007HO12165
Bacon-Hill Montross-ET   TY
Mogul x Bolton x AltaRolex

Sire: Mountfield Ssi Dcy Mogul-ET TR TV TL TY TD
Dam: Unique-Style Bolton Money EX-93 2E DOM
03-01 3x 365d 38430m 4.2 1614f 3.2 1247p
MGS: Sandy-Valley Bolton-ET BY TV TL EX-90
MGD: Pasen Rolex Mummy EX-90
06-02 2x 365d 26160m 4.0 1043f 3.2 848p
MGGS: Latuch Rolex-ET TV TL EX-92
MGGD: Pasen Trent Mermaid-ET VG-85
03-04 2x 305d 24240m 3.8 909f 3.3 805p

If you are looking for a high genomic sire that offers overall improvement and is still an outcross, Montross will fit the bill.  For some, considering a Mogul son is a challenge. But you need to look deeper at Montross. his Genomic Future Inbreeding values at6.9% GFI are much lower than all the other top Balanced Sires and especially compared to the top active sire over a year of age, and active, Jedi, who is a +8.0 for GFI. Montross’s dam, UNIQUE-STYLE BOLTON MONEY EX-91 DOM, has certainly become a popular bull mother, with 15 sons at five different AI units. Montross is a high milk sire, +2412 lbs Milk, with strong protein improvement, +66 lbs protein, and is a very solid 2.47 for PTAT. There is no question that MONTROSS will offer an excellent production kick and have enough durability, health and fertility to last. At over two points for UDC and FLC, MONTROSS has strong functional type but should be protected for straightness of rear legs and overall frame and capacity traits. However, as we have seen from research in the past, you don’t need extreme frame traits to achieve extreme lifetime production. (Read more: She Ain’t Pretty – She Just Milks That Way!).  Montross is certainly going to be a very impactful sire, especially through his sons.

007HO11314MOGUL

007HO11314
Mountfield SSI Dcy Mogul  TR TY
Dorcy BY x Marsh x O Man

Sire: Coyne-Farms Dorcy-ET BY TV TL
Dam: Mountfield Marsh Maxine-ET VG-88 DOM
02-03 2x 159d 14320m 4.3 611f 3.2 454p
MGS: Pasen Marsh-ET TR TV TL TY
MGD: Pine-Tree Missy Miranda-ET VG-86 DOM
03-08 3x 365d 35550m 4.9 1730f 3.7 1325p
MGGS: O-Bee Manfred Justice-ET TR TV TL TD EX-94
MGGD: Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy-ET TV EX-92 3E GMD DOM
04-11 3x 365d 40880m 4.1 1665f 3.2 1308p

While most progressive breeders who are looking for an outcross genomic sire to use, would have probably already gone heavy on Mogul. However, breeders waiting to use only proven sires should indeed add Mogul to their lists now.  This Dorcy son gets a substantial contribution to his genetics from his sire.  As one of the first ART program bulls from Select Sires, it will be interesting to see how well Mogul does as a proven sire.  (Read more: Select Sires vs. Semex – A Contrast in Cooperatives).  Mogul is one of the all-around solid sires that has solid numbers in all aspects of his evaluation. Hence, his popularity as a sire of sons and bull mothers. You will need to watch the SCS score as well as the DPR when using Mogul.

011HO11541ALTACASUAL

011HO11541
Schreur Altacasual P  RC PC TY T
Supersire x Lawn Boy P-Red x Shottle

Sire: Seagull-Bay Supersire-ET TV TL TY TD
Dam: Verhages Bos Candlelight-ET
MGS: Aggravation Lawn Boy P-Red EX-93 GM
MGD: Ri-Val-Re Shtle Caralie-ET RC TV VG-87
02-01 2x 365d 37690m 4.8 1795f 3.1 1154p
MGGS: Picston Shottle-ET TV TL TY EX-95
MGGD: Ms Ri-Val-Re Max Selsy-ET VG-87
02-01 2x 365d 27470m 3.8 1032f 3.1 853p

For those looking to go a little further along the path, there is AltaCasual.  This polled red carrier Supersire son certainly has lots to offer. Even though you may not think of Supersire as an outcross sire, the maternal side of AltaCasual’s pedigree certainly brings the outcross.  Altacasual traces back to the great red show cow Continental Scarlet-Red (3E-95 GMD) who was Grand Champion of the ‘82 Royal.  AltaCasual has some impressive numbers.  With over +1700 of Milk, +110 lbs of combined Fat and Protein, and over a point on all composite type traits.  You will certainly need to protect him on his undesirable set, somewhat straight and toeing out slightly, to his rear legs as well as his overall body depth, but as we have learned, these traits don’t always connect to longevity. (Read more: She Ain’t Pretty – She Just Milks That Way!).

Production Improvement Sires

If you are a dairy farmer, you are in the milk business.  That business begins and ends with how much milk you produce.  Here are three sires that can certainly help you increase your overall production while limiting your inbreeding.

007HO13251JETT

007HO13251
S-S-I Montross Jett-ET
Montross x Supersire x Bookem

Sire: Bacon-Hill Montross-ET
Dam: S-S-I Suprsire Miri 8679-ET
MGS: Seagull-Bay Supersire-ET TV TL TY TD
MGD: S-S-I Bookem Modesto7269-ET VG-85
02-00 3x 305d 22450m 3.9 876f 3.3 742p
MGGS: De-Su 521 Bookem-ET TR TV TL TY TD VG-86
MGGD: Roylane Shot Mindy 2079-ET VG-86
02-02 3x 305d 28730m 4.4 1263f 3.4 964p

From the Roylane Shot Mindy 2079 family comes Jett from the ART program at Select Sires. (Read more: Should A.I. Companies Own Females?)  Jet’s dam S-S-I Suprsire Miri 8679 has already produced five sons over 2700 TPI.  It’s pretty hard to find a top production sire that does not have Supersire or Robust in the pedigree, but at least in Jett’s case, it is one generation back with the outcross overall improvement sire Montross as his sire.  At +828 NM$, +2117 PTAM, +66 lbs PTAP, Jett will certainly give a strong production increase. Combine that with over 2 points on type and solid composites and Jett will certainly be an impact sire.  As well, I wonder if he will be a sire of sons, based on the high percentage of his genomic values that come from his maternal line.  This is a trend, which impact sires of sons typically get a more significant contribution of their genetics from the paternal line than their maternal line, has indeed proven to indicate top sires of sons. (Read more: Why Braedale Goldwyn Wasn’t a Great Sire of Sons)

200HO03753FACEBOOK

200HO03753
Marbri Facebook  TR TV TL TY TD
Man-O-Man x Airraid x Shottle

Sire: Long-Langs Oman Oman-ET TV TL TY VG-86
Dam: Serenityhill Airraid Fawn
02-02 2x 307d 17886m 4.1 728f 2.9 519p
MGS: Sildahl Airraid TV TL EX-94
MGD: Marbri Shottle Fiona-Ets
02-00 2x 365d 32800m 3.8 1243f 2.9 965p
MGGS: Picston Shottle-ET TV TL TY EX-95
MGGD: Gleneil Finley Fair Isle

If you are looking for a proven sire that is a little different and offers a production shot, consider Facebook.  Contrary to the productivity killer Facebook.com, this sire provides significant production improvement.  With over +1200 lbs of Milk and 132 lbs of combined Fat and Protein, Facebook will give you the production punch that you need. Facebook daughters are tall and dairy with adequate strength and body depth.  He will need to be protected on pins, as his genomic test, sire stack and daughter information all confirm his high pins.

600HO06003APOLL P

600HO06003
Schreur Apoll P  PO TV TL TY
Aikman*RC x Lawn Boy P-Red x Shottle

Sire: Gen-I-Beq Aikman RC TV TL
Dam: Verhages Bos Candlelight-ET
MGS: Aggravation Lawn Boy P-Red EX-93 GM
MGD: Ri-Val-Re Shtle Caralie-ET RC TV VG-87
02-01 2x 365d 37690m 4.8 1795f 3.1 1154p
MGGS: Picston Shottle-ET TV TL TY EX-95
MGGD: Ms Ri-Val-Re Max Selsy-ET VG-87
02-01 2x 365d 27470m 3.8 1032f 3.1 853p

If a slight walk off of the beaten path is not enough, then let’s talk a full road trip with Apoll P.  His sire stack is not common at all, Aikman x Lawn Boy.  In most cases, you are not going to find too many top production sires with this stack.  Especially if you want to find something to mate your high production Supersires to.  Apoll P is polled and is a brother to AltaCausual, again tracing back to the great red show cow Continental Scarlet-Red (3E-95 GMD), who was Grand Champion of the ‘82 Royal.  At almost 2000 lbs of Milk and over 100 lbs of combined fat and protein, Apoll P is a non Supersire production blast.  While his daughters will not wow you with their overall frames and chest width, they will have outstanding udders and sound feet and legs.

Longevity Improvement

For those of you that are looking to breed cattle that last lactation after lactation or if you are having problems with your two-year-olds not coming back for a 2nd lactation, we recommend the following outcross sires:

001HO12267ACHILLES *RC

001HO12267
Co-Op Achilles-ET  RC TY
Cabriolet x Colt P-Red x Super

Sire: Co-Op Robust Cabriolet-ET TV TL TY TD
Dam: Richlawn Aneska Cri-ET
MGS: Sandy-Valley Colt P-Red-TW PO TV TL TY TD
MGD: Richlawn Super April Apple GP-84
02-00 2x 365d 33750m 3.6 1219f 3.1 1049p
MGGS: Charlesdale Superstition-ET TR TV TL TY
MGGD: Co-Op Zade Lana April-ET EX-90
04-10 2x 365d 44130m 4.0 1748f 3.0 1302p

While he is not a Greek hero, Co-Op Achilles is certainly going to be a hero to breeders looking to achieve greater longevity.  At +10.9 for a productive life, Achilles is the breed leader.  Also, you can add to that the fact that he is an outcross to virtually all of the top pedigrees.   His Achilles heel is his components.  At -.1% fat and -.04% protein, he will need to be protected there.  He does offer sound production improvement at +1274 and strong feet and legs and mammary system improvement.  For those looking to breed VG-2YR olds, you will want to protect him on his body depth and angularity.  But for those who are just wanting cattle that last a lifetime, his outstanding legs and udders will get the job done.  It is interesting to note, for those looking to breed the next great outlier sire, that Achilles is a sire that should offer the right combination to achieve this goal.

007HO11123WRIGHT

007HO11123
Pine-Tree Freddie Wright-ET   TY
Freddie x Wizard x Rudolph

Sire: Badger-Bluff Fanny Freddie TV TL TY
Dam: Pine-Tree Missy Wanda-ET EX-90
02-00 3x 365d 33310m 3.5 1158f 3.2 1051p
MGS: Norz-Hill Form Wizard-ET TV TL TY VG-87
MGD: Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy-ET TV EX-92 3E GMD DOM
04-11 3x 365d 40880m 4.1 1665f 3.2 1308p
MGGS: Startmore Rudolph-ET TV TL EX-CAN
MGGD: Wesswood Elton Mimi TL EX-90 GMD DOM
03-05 2x 365d 35380m 3.3 1160f 3.0 1054p

You can’t go wrong with Wright.  And you can’t go wrong using a plus proven sire with 90% reliability.  Wright is a Freddie son from a Wizard daughter of Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy herself.  His below average -0.16 PTAT might have you thinking they will not last, but daughter evaluation for a productive life of +9.1 certainly tells a different story. (Read more: She Ain’t Pretty – She Just Milks That Way!)  What he does have is decent production numbers and strong udders with high fertility – thus producing the modern dairy cow.  Areas to protect him on are his depth and angularity, as well as his overall production.

014HO07525JAX P*RC

014HO07525
Dangie S-Sire Jax P-TW RC PC TY T
Supersire x Colt P-Red x Lawn Boy P-Red

Sire: Seagull-Bay Supersire-ET TV TL TY TD
Dam: Dangie Colt P Jazzmin-Red PO GP-83
01-09 3x 305d 20880m 2.9 601f 3.3 695p
MGS: Sandy-Valley Colt P-Red-TW PO TV TL TY TD
MGD: Ms Lund-Lane-Rh Lb Jazzy-ET GP-80
02-02 3x 289d 22640m 3.6 819f 3.2 716p
MGGS: Aggravation Lawn Boy P-Red EX-93 GM
MGGD: Lund-Lane-Rh Mngr Jeni-ET GP-83

It’s hard not to get jacked on Jax.  This high ranking polled sire is also a red carrier and has phenomenal health traits and extremely low SCS.  No wonder he has a +8.2 Productive Life score.  He does this with a unique sire stack (Supersire x Colt P-Red x Lawn Boy P-Red x Manager x Finley x Aaron). JAX P was bred by Dan and Angie Reider of Monroe, Wisconsin, where they milk more than 100 Holstein, Red & Whites and Brown Swiss cows that average close to 90 pounds per day. Jax P’s dam, Jazzmin, and granddam, Jazzy, can be found in the herd today and have been productive, hard-working and trouble-free cows for the Reiders. Dangie Colt P Jazzmin Red PO calved in at one year nine months with a set of twin bull calves – one being Jax P. Although being stressed by having twins and being young at calving, she completed a record more than 20,000 pounds of milk and bred right back. Jazzmin P Red is a homozygous polled daughter of Sandy Valley Colt P Red-TW.  Expect Jax P to offer reliable production improvement to go with his excellent durability.  He also offers great health and fertility improvement (+2.5 DPR, +2.67 SCS).  Jax daughters will not be tall, and certainly not overly framey, but will be great in commercial milk production environments.

 

Health and Fertility

While there is no question that every breeder knows that more pregnancies equal more profits, many of the top TPI ranking sires have negative values for critical health and fertility traits.   In addition to Wright, mentioned above, here are three sires that can certainly help you buck that the trend of not being able to combine production, type as well as health and fertility.

001HO12546TESTAROSSA

001HO12546
Co-Op Jabir Testarossa-ET
Jabir x Day x Planet

Sire: Coyne-Farms Jabir-ET
Dam: Co-Op Day Tasket 6827-ET
MGS: Minnigan-Hills Day-ET TV TL TY
MGD: Ms Pride Plnt Tasket 788-ET TY VG-85
02-01 2x 365d 33940m 3.9 1326f 3.2 1083p
MGGS: Ensenada Taboo Planet-ET TR TV TL TY TD EX-90
MGGD: Mspride Shotle Ticker594-ET VG-86 DOM
03-02 2x 365d 29940m 4.1 1222f 3.1 935p

From the Co-Op program at Genex, Testarossa is bred to be a little different.  And different he is.  Testarossa is a Jabir from a Day now that is an outcross.    Testarossa has an outstanding +6.2 DPR, +4.2 HCR, and a +7.7 CCR. Combine that with an SCS score of +2.67 and he is certainly a health and fertility specialist.  Testorossa does offer decent production improvement (+1249 Milk, +43 Fat +40 Protein) and sound conformation numbers and outstanding productive life (+8.3).  Expect Testarossa to sire excellent mammary system improvement and sound legs, but he will need to be protected on angularity and rump angle.

011HO11112ALTASTEWART

011HO11112
Rosylane-LLC Altastewart-ET   TY
Super x Ramos x O Man

Sire: Charlesdale Superstition-ET TR TV TL TY
Dam: Rosylane-LLC Ramos 3435
04-03 3x 305d 37240m 4.5 1676f 3.4 1268p
MGS: Ramos BY TV TL
MGD: Rosylane-LLC Oman 2965
02-11 3x 305d 45540m 4.1 1869f 3.0 1368p
MGGS: O-Bee Manfred Justice-ET TR TV TL TD EX-94
MGGD: Rosylane-LLC orion 1946
01-09 3x 365d 38210m 3.5 1328f 2.7 1026p

Not known for following the herd, Rosylane Holsteins has certainly looked at things a little differently.  (Read more: ROSY-LANE HOLSTEINS – “DON’T FOLLOW THE HERD!”)  A great example of that is the outcross sire AltaStewart, who is a Superstition from a Ramos dam.   He has excellent sire fertility (+5.5 DPR) and favorable calving ease (+5.6 CE).  He is also a breed outlier for Productive Life +7.9.  He will need to be protected on his overall production, as well as rump angle.

515HO00193SOLATE

515HO00193
DG Dyment Solate-ET
Latimer x Colt P-Red x Socrates

Sire: Genervations Latimer TV TL
Dam: Capnation Sosecret P Colt
MGS: Sandy-Valley Colt P-Red-TW PO TV TL TY TD
MGD: Socret
MGGS: Velvet-View-KJ Socrates-ET TR TV TL TD EX-94
MGGD: Gen-I-Beq Goldwyn Secret-ET RC VG-87
02-00 2x 365d 25593m 4.8 1236f 3.4 868p

From the very popular Gen-I-Beq Goldwyn Secret *RC VG-87-CAN 2yr. 6* family, Solate is something a little different.  He is a GenerVations Latimer from the high index red cow Capnation Sosecret P Colt *RC *P GP-FR 2yr.  His sister DG Dyment Earnsecret *PP is believed to be the #1 HOMOZYGOUS POLLED heifer in Europe (12/14).  Solate is a significant health and fertility improver (+3.9 DPR and SCS of +2.71).  He is also a favorable calving ease sire +6.2 SCE and +4.3 DCE.  He will certainly need to be protected on his overall production as well as his body depth and angularity.  But for those looking for an outcross sire that gives a strong kick of health and fertility, Solate is a polled sire that will do just that.

Other Notable Outcross Sires To Consider

  • OCTOBERFEST
    200HO06676
    Ladys-Manor Octoberfest-ET TR TY
    Altaoak x Dorcy BY x Auden
    Good all around sire, with solid production, health and fertility.
  • DENVER 1426
    151HO00690
    Mr Mogul Denver 1426-ET TY
    Mogul x Robust x Planet
    While his sire stack would say that he is not an outcross, he has a EFI (Expected Future Inbreeding) of +6.4% and a GFI (Genomic Future Inbreeding) of +6.8%.  Both very low values among the top available sires.
  • BOBBY
    097HO41367
    Pen-Col Ss Bobby-ET TY
    Supersire x Grafeeti x Super
    Yes he is a Supersire and there are a lot of Supersire sons, but his maternal line if very much an outcross.
  • HEISENBERG
    007HO12569
    Ocd Jabir Heisenberg-ET
    Jabir x Moonboy x Hero
    Certainly a sire stack you are not going to see every day, especially at the top of the TPI lists.  With a gTPI of +2657 he is certainly a sire to take note of considering he is well above he parent average and an extreme outlier.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

The trick is not to eliminate inbreeding but rather manage it and account for it when you make your breeding decisions.  These 16 sires will allow you to do just that.

 

 

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The 16 Sires Available in 2015 That Every Dairy Breeder Should Be Looking At

With weekly evaluations now being released, it can be hard to sort out exactly what sires are available and which ones you should be using.  To help you sort through the confusion, we have compiled the 16 sires that we think all breeders should consider using.  Instead of producing one generic list, we looked for the four top sires in each key breeding area.

Overall Production

When looking for the sire that will help improve your herd across the board, we looked for sires that have a balance of production and longevity and, most importantly, a proven pedigree that ensures that their performance will last. We also wanted high health and fertility traits that will deliver a low maintenance cow (Read more – Fact vs. Fantasy: A realistic approach to sire selection). Here are our top four:

Mogul-0515Mogul

007HO11314
Mountfield Ssi Dcy Mogul-ET  TR TY
Dorcy BY x Marsh x O Man

When it comes to all around producers, you have to start with Mogul.  Mogul has even the strongest advocates of genomics going back to using some proven sires, based on his outstanding numbers.  At +2532 gTPI, Mogul is within 6% of the top genomic sires available.  When you consider that he is 99% reliable, that is quite simply an outstanding achievement. As we mentioned last summer, Mogul is a sire that you can expect to be around for a long time to come. He could even become the youngest Millionaire sire in history (Read more: The 12 Genomic Sires Most Likely to Top the Proven TPI List in April 2016). Look for MOGUL to offer a strong balanced offering but he needs to be protected on his rump.   Furthermore, he will leave much greater dairyness and strength than this sire stack would indicate.

 

 

 

 

Supersire 0415Supersire

007HO11351
Seagull-Bay Supersire-ET   TY
Robust x Planet x Shottle

Similar to Mogul, Supersire is one of those sires that reaffirms his early high genomic numbers and has those breeders who missed him as a young sire, now using him heavily.   This Robust son from 2012 Golden Dam Finalist AMMON-PEACHEY SHAUNA VG-87-2YR-USA, really is a genetic wonder.  Not only does he have the highest genomic values in the breed for production, but he also has excellent functional type and health traits to go with it.  Expect Supersire to leave daughters that are all around solid cows.  While not show stoppers, he has a no holes type linear and strong production that make him an effective commercial sire.  He has had a tremendous impact on genetics around the world.  Supersire is living up to our prediction that he is a generational sire that will have an enormous influence for years to come.

 

 

 

 

Silver 415Silver

029HO17573
Seagull-Bay Silver-ET   TY
Mogul x Snowman x Planet

What do you get when you take a Mogul from Supersire’s family?  Well, you get Silver. He is another sire that all breeders should be taking a closer look at.  Silver is a Mogul from the Snowman sister to Supersire.  Like Supersire, Silver has the ability to leave extreme production.  Moreover, just like Supersire, he will have a significant impact as a sire of sons as well.  His ranking in the top 1% of the breed for Milk, Fat, Protein, Type, and Udders tells you that Silver is going to make much noise before everything is said and done. (Read more: The 10 Outlier Sires that will Accelerate Your Genetic Gain the Fastest)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Powerball-P 415Powerball-P

534HO00031
View-Home Powerball-P-ET  PC TY
Earnhardt P x Robust x Zenith

When running an effective seed stock or breeding program, there is no question that you need to look at where the market will be in 3 years’ time,  when these breeding decisions will be hitting the milk tank.  For many, that means breeding for such traits as polled.  When it comes to polled, there is no question that the extreme outlier has to be Powerball-P.  With progeny starting to get genomic tests, we are seeing more and more polled animals hitting the top of the overall genomic lists. From the WESSWOOD-HC RUDY MISSY EX-92 3E GMD DOM cow family,  Powerball-P is certainly in high demand (Read more: The 7 Most Influential Holstein Brood Cows of the Modern Era).  His outstanding production proof (+1113 PTAM, +51 Fat, +55 Protein), combined with his solid type numbers (+1.62 PTAT, +1.48 UDC) and high productive life (+4.4) and good calving ease (SCE 6.6%, DCE 4.5%) make Powerball-P the polled sire that will launch polled to the top of the genomic lists.  Powerball-P will need to be protected on his body depth and height at front end.

 

Production

It might be easy just to take the top milk lists or combine the fat plus protein and say that those sires are the best for overall production. We here at the Bullvine would not want to forgo totally type as well as health and fertility, so we are looking for the sires that give you the maximum production gain, without sacrificing everything to get it

Denver 1426Denver 1426

151HO00690
Mr Mogul Denver 1426-ET   TY
Mogul x Robust x Planet

Denver 1426 and his two brothers Delta and Director topped the Genomic sires over one year of age list past round (Read more: April 2015 US Genetic Evaluation Highlights).  Denver 1426 is +2,074 for milk with positive components (+.08%F and +.01%P).  At over 2 points on all type composites and over 2,000 lbs. of milk and positive components, Denver 1426 is in elite company.  For those looking to sire high scoring two-year-olds, they will need to protect him on the height of front end and body depth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Littleton 0415Littleton

200HO06637
Snowbiz Littleton   TY
Supersire x Snowman x Shottle

Littleton was bred to produce milk and milk, and this is what his daughters will do.  There is no question that a Supersire from a Snowman will milk, so it’s not surprising that Littleton is +2,639 for Milk, with solid components.  Tracing back to COMESTAR LAURIE SHEIK VG-88-5YR-CAN 23*, Littleton’s dam, FREUREHAVEN FGS LUCY VG-86-2YR-CAN, produced over 50,000 lbs of milk in her first lactation with a 4.0%F and a 3.2% protein test.  Her first two daughters by Uno have already scored VG in their 1st lactation.   Expect Littleton daughters to produce extreme amounts of milk, fat, and protein from well-attached udders, and walk on a great set of feet and legs.  One area that they will need to be protected on is their height at front end and for attachments.

 

 

 

 

 

Josuper 0415Josuper

029HO17553
Uecker Supersire Josuper-ET   TY
Supersire x Beacon x Jango

This Supersire son has been getting much attention since his initial genomic proof (Read more: The 16 Sires from the April 2014 Genetic Evaluations That Stand Out).  At +2585 gTPI, JOSUPER is the highest TPI sire over 2400 lbs of milk.  Combine that with positive deviations for fat and protein and there is no question that JOSUPER will give you a high production kick when needed.  While his type evaluation is very functional, a couple of areas to protect him on include his rump angle and the set of his rear legs.  With a strong maternal chromosomal contribution, JOSUPER should also be an influential sire of sons.  This is something we have found to be very typical of high production sires.

 

 

 

 

 

Supershot 0415Supershot

224HO02881
Cogent Supershot  TV TL TY TD
Supersire x Super x Shottle

The pedigree behind Supershot is certainly not well known among breeders, with the last 5 of his eight generations coming from Dutch breeding. Behind that is the US cow family at Vir-Clar Holsteins tracing through the highly acclaimed Tirsvad Patron Claire EX92. He hails from the same line as the famous Koepon Classy’s and Anderstrup Claire family, which is known worldwide for its ability to breed high-ranking females and bulls on numerous different bases.  Supershot has an extremely high genomic test and his pedigree indicates that he should be able to sire those extreme production daughters many breeders are looking for. Supershot should be protected on milking speed and dairy strength. (Read more: COGENT SUPERSHOT)

 

 

 

Longevity Improvement

While some would try to tell you that high type equals longevity, which is not necessarily the case.    When it comes to longevity, it’s hard to argue with actual performance indices like Herd Life and Productive Life.  (Read more: She Ain’t Pretty – She Just Milks That Way!) To give a more balanced approach to longevity, we looked at both and came up with the following top sires:

Monterey 0415Monterey

029HO16955
View-Home Monterey-ET   TY
Mccutchen x Robust x Zenith

Monterey is the Mccutchen brother to Powerball-P.  Monterey has a solid +3.00 PTAT, 3.03 UDC and +1.96 FLC combined with a strong +5.7 productive life.  Look for his daughters to be extremely low maintenance cows that will last a long time in most herd environments.  Though I would protect him on high pinned heifers and cows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Main Event 0415Main Event

250HO01127
Stantons Main Event
Mogul x Super x Shottle

From the Crockett-Acres Elita-ET VG-87 GMD DOM cow family, Main event traces back to Whittier-Farms Lead Mae EX-95 3E GMD DOM.  Main Event is over 2.50 points on all major composites and has an outstanding +6.2 productive life.  He has high components with decent production but will need to be protected on his straightness of leg and overall frame and capacity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Delta 0515Delta

203HO01468
Mr Mogul Delta 1427-ET   TY
Mogul x Robust x Planet

Delta is from the WINDSOR-MANOR RUD ZIP-ET 3E 95 GMD DOM family.  Delta offers extreme health and fertility traits with solid type and reliable production.  Breeders who are looking for tall framey two-year-olds will certainly not want to use Delta, but he does offer significant udder improvement.  Delta is among the breed leaders for productive life at +8.0. (Read more: Mr Mogul Delta 1427)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Piranha-P 0415Piranha-P *RC

001HO11328
Buck-H-Creek Mgl Piranha-P  RC PC TY T
Mogul x Secure-Red x LB P-Red

Here is a sire that may not be on many breeder’s radar but Piranha-P is polled, red and over 2 points for PTAT and UDC as well as +3.9 for productive life solid for calving ease.  If you have a high production cow that is in need of some longevity improvement and you are looking to introduce more polled animals to your herd, Piranha-P will give you that shot of longevity combined with polled that you are looking for.  He will need to be protected on his teat length and high pins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health and Fertility Improvement

With the constant improvement in the accuracy of health and fertility index calculations, more and more breeders are confidently including Health and Fertility traits in their breeding requirements.

Exemplar 0415Exemplar

200HO10225
Stantons Exemplar  TR TY
Jabir x Shamrock x Shottle

If you are looking to improve the health and fertility of your herd, you have to start with Exemplar.  With a high productive life of +6.3, low SCS +2.80 and outstanding calving ease (+5.9 SCE and +3.7 DCE) Exemplar is a great example of what strong conception rates look like  (+4.1 HCR and +6.7CCR) and +5.3 Daughter Pregnancy Rate.  (Read more: Dairy Cattle Pregnancy Rates: A CSI Investigation) From the same family as Main Event, Exemplar is a bit of an outcross being a Jabir from a Shamrock.  Exemplar will need to be protected on his rumps (pin setting and pin width) as well as his dairy strength (Body depth and angularity). But if you are looking for a high conception calving ease sire, Exemplar will get the job done.

 

 

 

 

 

altivo 0415Altivo

001HO12152
Co-Op Jabir Altivo-ET
Jabir x Super x Zade

Altivo is another Jabir son that should catch your attention if you are looking to improve the fertility of your herd.  Again with a  bit of an outcross pedigree, Jabir x Super x Zade, Altivo makes an excellent cross for those high production cows that are in desperate need of an outcross sire that can get the job done.  At +6.8PL, +7.2 SCE and +3.5 daughter calving ease, Altivo is the show stopper.  He is an extreme health and fertility sire.  He offers strong production with great components but will need to be protected on his pin width as well as his body depth and angularity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Altabowie0415AltaBowie

011HO11116
Rosylane-Llc Altabowie   TY
Bowser x Ramos x O Man

AltaBowie is an excellent outcross sire that should help improve the fertility of your herd. He is from the exceptional breeding program at Rosy-Lane Holsteins (Read more: ROSY-LANE HOLSTEINS – “Don’t Follow the Herd!”), AltaBowie offers many plusses.  He is +1010 for lbs milk (though low-fat %), durable type (+6.9 PL), and high DPR (+4.8) and great calving ease (4.3% SCE and 3.7% DCE).  While his conformation break down will not wow you (+0.37 PTAT, +0.74 UDC and +0.88 FLC), he is correct where he needs to be, (Udder depth, fore and rear attachments, as well as foot angle and heal depth).  He will certainly need to be protected on his dairy strength and rumps.

 

 

 

 

 

Milford-P 0415Milford-P

200HO10287
Regancrest Milford-P-ET  PC TY
Ohio Style P x Snowman x Shottle

Another polled sire worth looking at is Milford-P.  His dam is Leaderwin Snoman Mystery-ET  VG-85 from Kevrel Shottle Mia 2E 93 then Brandt-View BW Marsh Mia-ET TV TL   EX-90 DOM.  At +6.8 EFI Milford-P is an excellent outcross sire that will deliver high health and fertility.  Milford-P will offer reliable production with great udders and sound feet and legs though he will need to be protected on his overall capacity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bullvine Bottom Line

We have stated it many times. In maximizing your genetic gain, you can’t just pick from the top of the TPI or LPI list.  You need to make sure that your matings are the best corrective cross.  Breeding great cattle is part art and part science. You need to have both parts.   It takes careful consideration and generation after generation of corrective mating to produce great cow families.  That is why, instead of just giving you a list of the top 12, we have tried to provide you with insight into which sires will provide you with the maximum gain in each particular area.

 

 

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Robotic Milking Systems: Breed for Profit Not For Machines

Pick up any dairy magazine or go to any online dairy information site, and you will see numerous ads for milking using robots. In fact, even the ads for sires contain reference to the fact that a sire is Robot Ready as it relates to his daughters being friendly to being milked by a robot. But is it wise to only breed cows to accommodate machinery? Let’s dig deeper when it comes to breeding cows for systems and machines of the future.

Robotic Milking

The first robots were installed in herds of sixty or fewer cows and were an adaption of claw type milking machines. Difficulties were encountered when the machine could not find or attach to the teats or when the milk stimulation was not adequate, and the machine detached before there was milk letdown. Owners routinely complained about cows where the rear teats were too close, and the machine could not determine which rear teat to attach to. Often valuable cows with close or touching rear teats had to be culled from herd breeding programs.

Robot Friendly Sires

A.I. mating and marketing programs adapted and coined the term robot ready for sires whose daughters were more suited to robotic milking. As well after some experience with their robotic milking systems, breeders also removed from their breeding programs sires that produced daughters that had short teats or whose udders were too deep or too shallow to be milked by the robot. Sires, like Planet, who leave close rear teats, short teats and sometimes deeper udders were not used as much as their high TPI or NM$ indexes would warrant. Sires like O Man and Ramos were more desired as they left wider rear teat placement than normal even though the teats cold be somewhat short. Other bloodlines, like Shottle and Goldwyn, did not have problems with robotic milking, as their females had more middle to the quarter teat placement, and teat length was at least average.

Milking Machine Technology Advances

Over the past decade, there have been significant advances in robotic milking technology. The systems remember a cow’s physical configuration and know how to attach successfully. As well machines now exist that do not use the claw cluster principal and therefore are not limited by height or distance. Today’s robotic milking systems not only milk the cows and discard non-saleable milk, but they also collect almost endless amount of data that can be used for cow and herd management and also for breeding and feeding.

If a new milking system is in your future, whether in a single box unit or in a parlor, and you do not make breeding decisions based on show ring type, it may be time for you to reconsider trait emphasised in your breeding program. With milking machine technology advancing quickly and with less than 0.5% of North American dairy cows culled for poor udder conformation, then why continue to insist that your cows need to have show ring udders? Deeper in front, unbalanced side to side, only milking on three quarters or teats not hanging plumb, machines will milk them all.

Breed for Your Own Situation

No two breeders have the same dairy farming scenario or plan. Often genetics is asked to make up for management deficiencies and appropriate priorities are not attached to the traits included in the herd’s breeding program. It is your farm, and you need to decide on the traits and the emphasis allocated to them. If there is more than one trait given the lead emphasis then genetic progress will be significantly reduced. TPI, NM$ or LPI are not a trait and are best used to short list the sires that could be used.

Breed for Profit

For the vast majority of dairy farms, the length of time a cow is productive in the herd has a very significant affect on profit. If there was data captured on the heifer herds and genetic evaluations done using that data then, profit per lifetime could be used in breeding decisions. In most herds increasing the length of productive life by one lactation would reduce herd turnover anywhere from 25% to 50%. Thereby the number of herd replacements and size of the heifer herd could be reduced by 25% to 50%. The resulting cost savings for the dairy enterprise could be from 8% to 16%. That’s huge.

Have a Sire Selection Plan

Consider the following plan when you next purchase semen. Short list the bulls in the gTPI, gLPI or NM$ sire listings to those that are in the top 20 to 30 sires.

Lead Emphasis: Use the index for productive life (PL in USA or HL in Canada) as the lead selection criteria. Those indexes are a combination of factors that determine profit as they are the summation of all things reproductive, health, production, mobility, and conformation.

Secondary Emphasis: The three areas, in order of the importance for breeding, are: production (fat plus protein yield); fertility (FI in USA or DF in Canada); and health (SCS in USA or Mastitis Resistance in Canada)

Useful Information: Traits that can be used to fine tune mating decisions include: Udder Depth (deep udders are detrimental for udder health and cow mobility); Rear Teat Placement (rear teats too close together can create problems for milking); Teat Length (teats too short and too long can both create problem for milking); Milking Speed (slow milking cows lengthen the time to milk a herd); Foot Angle (deep hoofs are associated with less foot infection, less hoof trimming and superior cow mobility); Rear Legs Rear View (cows that walk straighter are more mobile and push the udder out of position to a lesser degree); and Maternal Calving Ease (MCE in USA or DCA in Canada. Bulls’ daughters that give birth easier lead to fewer health problems for both dam and calf, fewer deaths at calving and save on labor costs)

Any other traits are simply chrome for the majority of dairy farmers.

Sire Rankings Using Productive Life

The following tables rank North America sires for productive life (PL in USA and HL in Canada). In developing these lists, only the top ranked sires for gTPI and gLPI were considered.

Table 1 – Top 10 Productive Life (PL) Sires from the Top 30 Daughter Proven gTPI Sires (Dec ’14)

NamePLgTPINM$F+P YieldFert IndexSCSMCEU DepthRTPT LengthFoot AngleRLRV
Wright9.62355631485.32.655.2-0.21 D0.13 C0.48 L0.62-0.33
Petrone7.52361549453.82.685.91.26 S0.93 C0.14 L1.411.5
Denim7.323566158252.715.60.33 S-2.58 W1.95 L1.140.16
Erdman6.92260631913.62.777-0.36 D-0.09 W-0.81 S-2.1-0.55
Shamrock6.72304565663.22.94.11.02 S2.08 C-3.24 S-0.260.04
Robust6.325047671301.83.063.80.27 S1.14 C-0.76 S11.72
Sapporo5.92248438434.52.867.70.88 S1.19 C-1.15 S1.060.61
Freddie5.62349533614.62.915.30.71 S-0.20 W0.72 L2.341.83
Dorcy5.5233952771-0.12.798.61.75 S1.43 C1.05 L2.452.27
Epic5.322964495322.886.31.50 S0.37 C0.65 L2.861.57
6.72337571693.42.8260.71 S0.44 C-0.10 S1.050.88

Wright stands out as the clear leader for PL. The sire stack Freddie x Wizard also rings the bell in #3 position. The other sire stack with two on the list (#2 and #10) is Super x AltaBaxter. These ten proven sires produce daughters that remain in herds 202 days longer than the breed average and are sires that on average also produce daughters that are high for fertility, health, production, conformation and maternal calving ease. Robust leads in production but need to be watched for SCS. Shamrock with both close and short rear needs to be correctively mated for those areas.

Table 2 – Top 10 Productive Life (PL) Sires from the Top 30 Genomic gTPI Sires (Dec ’14)

NamePLgTPINM$F+P YieldFert IndexSCSMCEU DepthRTPT LengthFoot AngleRLRV
Motega9.82665790774.42.685.22.83 S1.03 C-1.62 S2.142.44
Charismatic9.128099851521.82.74.31.94 S0.19C-1.80 S2.672.37
Halbert92702770825.72.624.22.02 S2.39 C-1.01 S0.780.54
Director8.3275988213242.844.71.31 S2.22 C-1.66 S1.090.46
Troy8.32650788963.62.6661.42 S0.62 C02.842.19
Dozer8.226508051072.92.565.81.22 S1.02 C-1.25 S1.571.34
Multiply8.2263577310032.855.82.45 S0.80C-1.01 S3.442.72
Tailor7.92634740933.32.614.71.62 S2.59 C-0.46 S1.40.81
Delta7.827098731322.42.775.51.00 S1.34 C-1.55 S2.261.46
Santano7.826527921114.42.823.70.79 S1.12 C-0.81 S0.610.51
8.426878201083.62.7151.66 S1.33 C-1.12 S1.881.48

Two points stand out when looking at Table 2. Firstly it is expected that the daughters of these sires will stay in herds 257 days longer than average. Even if we regress that number down, as we know genomic indexes are perhaps 10% overestimated, it is still a wow number. The other point of note is the fact all these bulls were sired by genomic sires and in some cases it is a genomic sire on genomic sire. On average, all the indexes are very high but it should be noted that rear teats are indexed to be both close and short. An outstanding group of sires than can be used to increase herd life.

Table 3 – Top 8 Herd Life (HL) Sires from the Top 20 Daughter Proven gLPI Sires (Dec’14)

NameHLgLPIF+P YieldDFMastitisResistDCAU DepthRTPT LengthM SpeedFoot AngleRLRV
Lego11229581171041071073 S9 C10 S97014
AltaRazor1112962139961021092 S5 C3 L10255
Gillsepy1092981134981021022 S5 C097136
Boulder10929121291071011013 S5 C10 L10412
Freddie10928851161121021075 S5 W010748
Dempsey1092856621001071057 C5 C5 S101912
Phoenix10828711381001031034 S7 C9 S9525
AltaCaliber10829019610510410810 S6 W2 L10783
Average10929161161031041055 S3 C1 S10157

These eight sires are all within the top 6% of the Canadian population for Herd Life. Freddie has done an excellent job of improving productive life and appears in both Tables 1 and 3. In Table 3 his daughter fertility stands out at 112. All the sires are rated above average for yield, fertility, and mastitis resistance. Among the eight there are sires that can be used to improve traits where females in a herd may be lacking.

Table 4 – Top 8 Herd Life (HL( Sires from the Top 20 Genomic gLPI Sires (Dec’14)

NameHLgLPIF+P YieldDFMastitisResistDCAU DepthRTPT LengthM SpeedFoot AngleRLRV
Penmanship12135001631131041077 S2 W1 L10797
Rubicon11635961981101011114 S5 C2 S102813
Supershot11635421991081041103 S3 C3 L9876
Brodie11635251901071021073 S3 C3 L9854
Boastful11635001821101021118 S1 C010171
Flattop11634301671071071057 S1 C2 L10278
Kobra11635001581101031098 C5 C3 S1011211
Modesto11534301911071001114 S2 C3 S9767
Average11635031811091031096 C3 C010187

The list of sires in Table 4 are, simply put, outstanding for improving Herd Life. As in Table 2 all these eight bulls are sired by genomic sires. On average, they excel for all traits included in the table. The trait where these sires shine, as compared to the sires in the other tables, is in Feet and Legs. Kobra, Rubicon, and Penmanship are particularly high for feet and legs. The fact that all these sires are rated at 105 or greater for daughter calving ability and at 107 or higher for daughter fertility is very impressive.

Table 5 – Top 5 Productive Life (PL) Sires from the Top 20 Genomic Polled gTPI Sires (Dec’14)

NamePLgTPINM$F+P YieldFert IndexSCSMCEU DepthRTPT LengthFoot AngleRLRV
Layton6.52429611862.32.8261.29 S0.44 C0.26 L0.591.14
Harpoon62281574801.42.776.11.68 S0.79 C-0.86 S0.430.86
Champ5.922824222532.617.13.05 S1.14 C1.71 L0.570.6
Homerun5.323455801000.62.827.40.83 S-0.20 W0.52 L-0.910.53
Gremlin5.32286581961.52.95.50.12 S0.91 C0.33 L0.070.14
Average5.82325554771.82.786.41.39 S0.62 C0.39 L0.510.65

First off it needs to be said how quickly Holstein polled genetics is improving. All are polled by horned crosses and show how breeders are moving to incorporating polled into their herds. Unfortunately, none of these bulls are PP but still using these sires will leave half their daughters polled and each one of the five has strengths that can match breeders’ needs. Layton stands out a clear leader. He is just now a year old and hopefully will soon have semen available. If production is a breeder’s choice for their first secondary trait, then Homerun is the leader.

Clearly there are many many sires on these lists that will increase the rate of genetic advancement for length of productive life.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Both dairy farming and breeding are changing at an ever increasing pace. Considerable pressure is being placed on on-farm margins with decreased milk prices and increased costs. Ways must be found by breeders to eliminate costs and losses. Breeding cows differently for the future will be required in order for dairy enterprises to be viable and sustainable. Using increased length of productive life as a primary selection tool needs to be part of every breeders plan in breeding for profit.

 

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8 Steps to Choosing What Sires to Use

Selecting sires for use in a herd can take many approaches. In all cases, it depends on the goals of the owner. Furthermore,  any bull can be both a saint and the worst sire to ever have semen frozen. For instance, for show oriented breeders, Goldwyn is a saint, and they are still using Goldwyn semen or purchasing Goldwyn daughters or embryos.  Yet for some breeders participating in The Milk House, Goldwyn or Goldwyn in the pedigree is to be avoided, in a significant way, due to his daughters’ inability to compete in group housing with other top sires when it comes to milk yield and lack of body condition at the time of breeding. The opposite can be said for Oman bloodlines. Show breeders avoid them. Milk production focused herds regard him almost as a recent Holstein breed saviour, when it comes contributing to herd profit. Tuesday December 2nd in the United States, when there is a base re-adjustment for all genetic evaluations, will be a good time for all breeders, no matter what they focus their sire selection on, to re-evaluate the bulls or the breeding plan that they use in their herds.

Where is Your Focus?

Not every breeder has a focus or has taken the time to think through the attributes needed by the cows that they plan to work with five to ten years in the future. Why talk about cows five to ten years from now? Well, that is because breeding strategy decisions made today will take five years before they become the majority of the cows a herd is made up of. So the first question you need to answer before you pick up the phone or send an email to your semen supplier on December 2nd is “What genetics in my herd will provide me with the most profit in the future?”

What are Your Choices?

It comes down to three overall indexes:

  1. Bottom Line Farming – Net Merit $
  2. Balanced Approach – TPI™
  3. Show Type – PTAT, with added emphasis on Stature and Rump

Both NM$ and TPI™ have been revised effective with this December 2nd index release. NM$ has increased the emphasis on production to where production traits receive almost half the emphasis (Read more: The New Net Merit Formula – The Winners & The Losers and US Genetic Evaluation Changes: Are You Keeping Up?) Breeders can expect the Dec ’14 NM$ values to be between 130 and 150 lower than in the August ’14 genetic evaluation run due to the base adjustments. TPI™ has also increased the emphasis on production and developed a Fertility Index that includes conception rates. For breeders wishing to know more about the revised TPI™ Holstein USA has placed on YouTube a Webinar lead by Dr. Tom Lawlor (Holstein USA Webinar: December 2014 TPI™ & Base Change). Breeders not wanting to increase the stature of their cows will be interested in Dr. Lawlor’s comments on TPI™ now moderating the emphasis on stature. When looking at the TPI™ values on December 2nd, breeders need to be aware that bulls above 2138 TPI™ are the ones that are the real breed improvers. The webinar does an excellent job of outlining the changes and reasons for the changes in TPI™.

What about Other Considerations?

There are numerous other genetic indexes or genetic approaches that breeders may wish to use when selecting sires. Included in the list are Fluid Merit $ and Cheese Merit $, produced by CDCB / USDA-AIPL, and they will be joined by a new Grazing Merit $ Index. Full details on GM$ can be found on CDCB’s website. Other genetic based indexes are issued by breeding organizations, and they place different  degrees of emphasis on traits than do NM$ or TPI™. Non-genetic index approaches to rating sires exist and, for those ratings, breeders do not need to acquaint themselves with the formula or base change that will occur on December 2nd.

8 Steps to Choosing Sires to Use

  1. Select a website where you can find all the facts on all sires. That site can be a breed association, an A.I. organization or an information site for the latest proof information. Breeders wishing information for sires outside the USA can go to their national organizations. The focus for this article is the sires in the USA as that is where the base and new ranking formula changes are being made.
  1. Decide if you want proven or genomic sires or a combination of both. Many breeders have taken strong positions on which approach to use. Open minded breeders will look at both lists and balance accuracy and superiority in making their choices.
  1. Identify the top 10 to 30 sires for NM$, TPI™ or PTAT. Do not be concerned about other attributes or deficiencies that sires may have. This first sort is to get the overall breed leaders. Using the best there is should be the goal of all breeders and milk producers. Other breeds have other indexes that are their overall total merit index comparable to TPI™.
  1. From the top 10 to 30 listings, eliminate bulls with deficiencies you consider important. Be certain that your deficiencies are truly important to your breeding plan. Fertility and health should be on every breeder’s list.
  1. Breeders wanting Polled in all breeds and Red in Holsteins will need to be prepared to sacrifice some NM$, TPI™ or PTAT to get their list. Other factors, such as Inbreeding Level (Read more: The Truth About Inbreeding, 12 Outcross Sires to Help Control Inbreeding, Stop Talking About Inbreeding) may also factor into decisions. However, always be aware that the more restrictions that are placed on sires means that the sires chosen for use will not be genetically advancing your herd as fast as other breeder’s herds.
  1. Price of semen, unless over $100, should not be a sort criteria. Some breeders will not agree with this, but given that semen costs are less than 1% of a farm’s expenses and that a blend price of less than $50 is possible, the focus should be on genetic merit not on cost of semen.
  1. If A.I organization loyalty is important, be sure not to sacrifice genetic improvement for loyalty. I. organizations want their customers to be successful and achieve their goals.
  1. Breeding advisors or A.I. technicians need to recommend or use the sires that meet the herd’s genetic needs. Often herd owners leave the sire selection entirely to their advisor or technicians. In which case there needs to be a defined and documented plan for what the herd owner wants for his farm. (Read more: Flukes and Pukes – What Happens When You Don’t Have a Plan, Are you a hobby farmer or a dairy business? and What’s the plan?).

Who will Win?

Breeders who follow closely the breed toppers will have anticipation for which sires will top the lists come December 2nd. Will Mogul’s daughter proven proof place him ahead of Facebook who strongly came to the top of the gTPI™ list in August? Will there be a sire to go ahead of Robust on the NM$ list?  Of course, breeders can expect to see new sires at or near the top of the genomic lists. Tuesday has the promise for many new sires for breeders to choose from.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

In the end, the winners will be the breeders that use the elite sires and correctively mate them to the females in their herds. Remember to select sires for their strengths and not eliminate them for minor deficiencies.

 

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12 Outcross Sires to Help Control Inbreeding

With dairy breeder`s constant objective of   breeding the highest genetic index animals possible, inbreeding has become more of a problem than ever.  Looking through the top index lists you realize with each new generation of sires that the rate of inbreeding is increasing at an alarming rate.

Genetic Diversity and Inbreeding Article - September 2014-3

In 2011, nine bulls sired 50% of the 1,300 young bulls that entered A.I. in North America. A mere 18 bulls sired 50% of the 3,000 that entered A.I. globally.  In sires entering AI in 2011, the rate of inbreeding increased 1% that year alone and is now over 7%.  That is over 2% higher than it was in 1992 and 5% higher than it was in 1982.

In order to help breeders find outcross sires, the Bullvine has prepared this list of 12 sires that offer the greatest genetic diversity while still offering a high level of genetic gain.

Overall Performance Improvement

If you are looking for an outcross sire that offers balanced improvement for production, durability and health and fertility, you cannot go wrong with these three sires:

Dairy Bull - 014HO05936 - Coyne-Farms Bolton Dom-ETDom *BY

014HO05936
Coyne-Farms Bolton Dom-ET  BY
Bolton x Bret CV x Rudolph

DOM offers breed leading overall performance and has no Goldwyn, Shottle, Planet or Oman in the first three generations of his pedigree.  He is a carrier of Brachyspina (BY) but Brachyspina is a recessive trait, and, to be an affected calf, both sire and dam must have passed the recessive gene to their offspring. So unless you are mating him to a BY female you should be okay.  Dom is a very balanced sire offering strong overall production (+1558 lbs. milk) and solid components (+0.10 %F +0.01 %P) He is also strong for type and durability (+2.75 PTAT, +2.51 UDC, +2.92 FLC) and has solid health and fertility traits.  Dom will need to be protected on his straightness of rear legs (posty), as well as his rumps, specifically his pin width.

 

 

 

Dairy Bull - 029HO14142 - Coyne-Farms Dorcy-ETDorcy

029HO14142
Coyne-Farms Dorcy-ET  BY
Bolton x Bret CV x Rudolph

There is Dom`s better-known full brother Dorcy.  Dorcy is proving to be an outstanding longevity improvement sire, both through his sons and daughters. Breeders interested in a Bolton son from an outcross pedigree, top-notch udders, very good feet & legs and functional traits may consider DORCY. Dairy Strength and Rump are only slightly above breed norms.  Like Dom he will need to be protected on his straightness of rear legs (posty) as well as his pin width.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dairy Bull - 007HO12165 - Bacon-Hill Montross-ETMontross

007HO12165
Bacon-Hill Montross-ET   TY
Mogul x Bolton x AltaRolex

If you are looking for a high genomic sire that offers overall improvement and is still an outcross, Montross will fit the bill.  Montross is a Dorcy grandson (through sire Mogul, who is a Dorcy from a Marsh).  As is typically the case with many actual outcross pedigrees, his maternal side is not that well known. However, his dam UNIQUE-STYLE BOLTON MONEY EX-91 DOM has certainly become a popular bull mother, with 15 sons at five different AI units. At +845 NM$ there is no question that MONTROSS will offer an excellent production kick and have enough durability, health and fertility to last. At over two points for UDC and FLC MONTROSS has strong functional type but should be protected for straightness of rear legs and overall frame and capacity traits. However, as we have seen from research in the past, you don’t need extreme frame traits in order to achieve extreme lifetime production. (Read more: She Ain’t Pretty – She Just Milks That Way!).

 

Production Improvement

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, in addition to Montross, here are our recommendations:

Dairy Bull - 029HO13991 - Kings-Ransom B RubleRuble

029HO13991
Kings-Ransom B Ruble   TY
Bolton x Boliver x Bombay

With no Goldwyn, Shottle, Planet or Oman, Ruble is a very unique high production sire.  The cow family behind RUBLE features five consecutive generations of AI bull mothers. RUBLE’s five closest dams all produced milk records in excess of 32,000 lbs. RUBLE’s grand dam, Bombay Rale was a tremendous brood cow leaving 6-VG & 4-EX daughters in the herd by seven different sires. RUBLE daughters are moderate stature and dairy. Protect for strength as they can be narrow through the chest. Udders are everything you would expect from the two popular pedigrees. High, wide rear udders, smooth blending foreudders, and a deep seam to carry their high production through many lactations. Daughters track straight with a correct foot, though you need to protect for a slight set to rear legs and protect rumps for pin width.

 

 

 

Dairy Bull - 097HO40076 - Claytop Js Predestine-ETPredestine

097HO40076
Claytop Js Predestine-ET   TY
Jet Stream x Toystory x Boliver

A very popular outcross production sire is Predestine. At +2657 lbs milk and solid components, Predestine offers extreme production improvement.  His daughters are durable (+2.8 PL) but not fancy (+1.63 PTAT, +1.68 UDC, +0.69 FLC).  You will have to watch him on his SCS, but if you have a low producing solid conformation heifer with a big frame that needs a quick shot of production, Predestine will do just that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dairy Bull - 526HO00004 - RocketRocket

526HO00004
Rocket  TL TD
Sudan x Freddie x Bolton

A genomic young sire that catches our eye is Rocket.  Rocket is a Sudan son from Vieuxsaule Freddie Tanya VG-88, who is a grand daughter of Vieuxsaule Allen Dragonfly EX-94 2E 12* (Read more: VIEUX SAULE ALLEN DRAGONFLY: 2013 Canadian Cow of the Year Nominee). While there is Oman in this pedigree (3rd generation through Freddie), given that Rocket is sired by Sudan, an extreme outcross sire, and has Bolton and Allen as the maternal great and great great grand sire, Rocket has a very low expected future inbreeding value.   Rocket should sire component improvement (+0.09 %F and +0.02 %P) and strong production (1784 lbs milk).  He also has the bonus of having very strong health and fertility traits (+3.5 PL, +2.78 SCS).  While Rocket has a solid type evaluation (+2.68 PTAT, +2.28 UDC, +2.32 FLC), he will need to be protected on his bone quality and loin strength.

 

Longevity Improvement

For those of you that are looking to breed cattle that last lactation after lactation or maybe you are having problems with your 2 year olds not coming back for a 2nd lactation, in addition to Dorcy, we recommend the following outcross sires:

Dairy Bull - 007HO12105 - S-S-I Mogul ReflectorReflector

007HO12105
S-S-I Mogul Reflector   TY
Mogul x Super x Ramos

From the same family that produced Bookem, Reflector is an outcross sire that should get much attention.   Bred through the ART program at Select Sires that was designed to produce outcross sires, Reflector is a great example of this.  (Read more: Select Sires vs. Semex – A Contrast in Cooperatives  and Should A.I. Companies Own Females?).  At +6.6 for PL and over two points on all type composites (+2.77 PTAT, +2.16 UDC, +2.22 FLC) and at +2.8 DPR and +2.67 SCS, Reflector daughters are going to last. While show ring enthusiasts may not be quick to use Reflector (-7 height at front end, 0 for body depth), he will sire strong mammary systems and feet and leg improvement.

 

 

 

 

Dairy Bull - 179HO00099 - Mr Apples Mcgucci-ET

McGucci

179HO00099
Mr Apples McGucci-ET  RC TY
McCutchen x Regiment-RED x Durham

From the legendary KHW Regiment Apple-Red-ET CV EX-96 3E DOM, comes McGucci an outcross longevity improvement sire, that you should be taking a look at. (Read more: KHW Regiment Apple-Red – Beauty, performance, and even more record) When Jerry Jorgensen of Ri-Val-Re Holsteins purchased a whole flush from Apple he was looking to produce something a little different and that is exactly what he got when he crossed her on McCutchen. (Read more: BREEDING RI-VAL-RE: Where Looking Good in the Stall Is Just As Important As Looking Good On Paper).   While McGucci will not be considered an overall production improver, he does offer solid component improvement (+0.27%F and +0.16 %P), with high durability (+3.4 PL) and very high conformation (+4.03 PTAT, +3.20 UDC, +3.78 FLC), with solid health traits (+2.77 SCS, +0.01 DPR).  He will need to be protected on his shortness of teats and high pins.

 

Dairy Bull - 147HO02426 - Ronelee Dorcy Deligent-ETDeligent

147HO02426
Ronelee Dorcy Deligent-ET  BY
Dorcy BY x Boliver x Outside

Combining two popular outcross pedigree`s, Deligent is a longevity improvement sire that you should consider using.   His dam Ronelee Boliver Dreary-ET VG-86 2Y is a maternal sister to the popular, proven sire Domain. Deligent was bred to deliver long lasting daughters. With outstanding Herd Life/Productive Life, breed leading mammary systems scores and strong Feet and Legs scores, Deligent is a longevity specialist, though he does need to be somewhat protected for dairy strength. Look for DELIGENT to combine this longevity with reliable production and type numbers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health and Fertility Improvement

One area that is starting to get more 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 key health and fertility traits.   In addition to Reflector and Predestine, here are three outcross sires that will help you improve the health and fertility in your herd.

Dairy Bull - 007HO10647 - Ladinodale Aaron-Red-ETAaron-Red

007HO10647
Ladinodale Aaron-Red-ET   TY
LB P-Red x Paradox-RED x Rudolph

If you are looking for an outcross sire that will help improve the health traits in your herd, you need to consider Aaron-Red.  While he is certainly not a production improvement sire (+17 lbs Milk), he does offer some significant improvement in productive life (+3.7), DPR (+2.3) as well as calving ease (+4.8% SCE & 4.7% DCE).  Aaron offers reliable type improvement (+2.01 PTAT, +2.06 UDC and +1.53 FLC). He will need to be protected on his high pins and overall dairy strength.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dairy Bull - 029HO13566 - Brandt-View Howard-ETHoward

029HO13566
Brandt-View Howard-ET   TY
Alton CV x Capri x Manfred

This reliably proven Alton son is from a 2E-92 Capri (by JUROR) with a top record of almost 58,000 in one lactation.  The family is consistently noted for their extreme production values, consistent type and excellent health/fitness traits.   Howard daughters are profit makers. They increase milk production while lowering SCS to qualify for milk premiums and possess outstanding health and fertility numbers (+3.3 PL, +1.2 DPR, 3.9% SCE). Typical Howard daughters are clean boned, hardworking and moderate sized and long necked, open in the rear rib and very clean through the thigh.  Rear udders are high, wide, and capacious.  He will need to be protected on his overall size and stature as well as his dairy strength.

 

 

 

 

 

Dairy Bull - 011HO11116 - Rosylane-Llc AltabowieAltaBowie

011HO11116
Rosylane-Llc Altabowie   TY
Bowser x Ramos x O Man

Yes there is O Man in AltaBowie`s pedigree, but considering that he is sired by Bowser (Jet Stream x Boliver) and his dam is a Ramos daughter, AltaBowie has very low expected future inbreeding values (5.9%).  From the exceptional breeding program at Rosy-Lane Holsteins (Read more: ROSY-LANE HOLSTEINS – “Don’t Follow the Herd!”), AltaBowie offers many plusses.  He is +1419 for lbs milk (though low fat %), durable type (+7.6 PL), and high DPR (+3.6) and low calving ease (4.2% SCE and 3.7% DCE).  While his conformation break down will not wow you (+1.44 PTAT, +1.67 UDC and +1.90 FLC), he is correct where he needs to be, (Udder depth, fore and rear attachments, as well as foot angle and heal depth).  He will certainly need to be protected on his dairy strength and rumps.

 

 

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Genetic diversity is a critical problem in the Holstein dairy cattle breeding industry.  Indeed the rate of genetic gain has accelerated. But so too has the rate of inbreeding.  With $23 lifetime cost per percent inbreeding, it is easy to overreact and try to avoid inbreeding at all costs. The trick is not to use sires that are inferior, but rather to have a balance of genetic improvement and enough of an outcross not to accelerate the inbreeding.   These 12 sires will do just that and help control the rate of inbreeding in your herd.


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The 12 Genomic Sires Most Likely to Top the Proven TPI List in April 2016

Figuring out which sires to use can be challenging enough, let alone trying to decide which genomic sires will hold their numbers and which sires are going to drop.  Based on our analysis of the genomic sires in April 2011 compared to theirs indexes in April 2014, we have identified key trends that the sires that held, versus the sires that dropped.  (Read more: The Genomic Roller Coaster – Hold on it’s going to be a bumpy ride).  We have taken this analysis and applied it to the current genomic sires who should be receiving an official daughter proof by April 2016. Our analysis identifies the following 12 sires that are most likely to top the lists.

Co-Op Bookem Yowza (April 2014)YOWZA

Co-Op Bookem Yowza-ET
001HO10598
Bookem x Boliver x Bret

Yowza is an extreme outlier sire.  His DGV’s for NM$ are 20% higher than in his official genomic evaluation and almost 30% higher than his parent average.  In fact, it’s his lower parent average that is currently keeping him from being higher on the lists.  As we identified in the sires from April 2011, the most accurate indicator of genetic potential is their DGV’s versus over inflated parent averages, or, in Yowza’s case, an underestimated parent average.  In fact, both Yowza’s dam and sire have DGV’s higher than their parent averages.  While Yowza’s +6 for PL is likely to decline, his 1400 lbs of PTAM is likely to hold.  Due to his underestimated parent averages there is actually a good chance the Yowza’s TPI is likely to increase slightly with the addition of daughter information into his genetic evaluations.  Yowza will need to be protected on his high pins and size and stature.

De-Su Bkm Mccutchen 1174 (April 2014)MCCUTCHEN

De-Su Bkm Mccutchen 1174-ET
007HO11477
Bookem x Shottle X O Man

Continuing the precedent set by Bookem, Observer, Gulf and Gillespy comes three new high genomic sires, Balisto, Mccutchen & Topsy.    McCutchen is actually a Bookem son that has been heavily used already as a sire of sons.  While is NM$ of 655 might concern some, his DGV’s are actually 107 points higher at 762 (18% higher).  The part that is somewhat worrisome is his 3.6 PL since earlier our analysis has demonstrated that Genomic Parent Average for Productive Life was the trait that showed the greatest variability compared to actual daughter data (50% range).  What we did find is most sires did tend to be closer to their DGV’s for Productive Life than their Parent Averages.  Since Mccutchen has a DGV for PL of 3.6, it is reasonable to expect that he will end up around the 3.0 mark.  Most likely Mccutchen will end up being a 700-725 NM$ sire and a 2350 TPI sire. This would certainly have him in the top 5 TPI sires.  Mccutchen will need to be protected on his milk volumes and DPR.

Michigan Bumblebee (April 2014)BUMBLEBEE

Michigan Bumblebee-ET
001HO10838
Bookem x Bronco X Shottle

Another Bookem son that should ring the bell as a proven sire, Bumblebee may not have been on most breeder’s radar.  At +2386 gTPI, Bumblebee is currently number 431 on the top 500 gTPI sires.  This is pretty far down for most elite breeders to have paid much attention to him, especially with other Bookem sons much higher.  While Yowza and Mccutchen may ring the bell higher than Bumblebee, he will certainly have many breeders regretting that they did not incorporate him into their breeding programs.  The hidden stinger that this Bumblebee possesses are DGV’s that for NM$ that are 107 points higher than his gPA’s and 17% higher than his parent averages. He also gets a significant portion of his genetics from his father. This is something that we have seen to be a reliable indicator of those sires that will hold their genomic values when daughter data is added.  Bumblebee will need to be protected on his loin strength as well as rump angle and bone quality, though he should sire desirable udders, solid feet and legs and acceptable dairy strength.

De-Su 11236 Balisto (April 2014)BALISTO

De-Su 11236 Balisto-ET
029HO16714
Bookem x Watson x O-Man

Balisto is the second of the sires on our list from De-Su. Balisto has been heavily used based on his genomic indexes and come April 2016 will have a high reliability daughter proof. The one challenge that Balisto does have compared to the trends we have seen is that he gets 61% of his genetics from his mother.  Normally this would scare us, but since the maternal line in question here is that of Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy-ET TV EX-92 3E GMD DOM that has proven itself time and time again genomically. Balisto should make out just fine.  Balisto will need to be protected on his loin strength, rump angle and rear teat placement, though he should sire more protein and overall pounds of milk than his current genomic proof would indicate.

Val-Bisson Doorma (April 2014)DOORMAN

Val-Bisson Doorman
200HO06480
Bookem x Shottle x Goldwyn

Another Bookem son on our list, Doorman’s calves already impress their breeders.  While he certainly will not be a milk sire, anyone using Doorman initially would have been aware of this limitation.  What Doorman does have going for him are his extremely high type numbers.  While there is a chance that Doorman could be the next Gold Chip and see his proof fall by over 450 TPI points, one difference between the two sires is that Doorman gets most of his genetics from his father, Bookem, who, judging by this list, should be a good thing.  While Doorman will never be a high NM$ sire, he will certainly sire high type acceptable production and will end up with a proof very similar to that of Mccutchen.

De-Su 11228 Topsy (April 2014)TOPSY

De-Su 11228 Topsy-ET
029HO16667
Bookem x Watson x Oman

If you are noticing a trend that is because, there is a strong dominance of Bookems on our list.  In fact 7 of the 12 sires on our list are Bookem sons.  Now to be fair, Topsy is the full brother to Balisto, so it’s not surprising that we would have both on our list.  However, unlike Balisto, who had a stronger contribution from his maternal line, Topsy received a greater contribution of his genetics  from his sire Bookem.  Not a bad thing considering Bookem’s dominance so far.  In fact, depending on just how these two sires end up, this could be another strong indicator about the importance of contribution.  (Read more: Why Braedale Goldwyn Wasn’t a Great Sire of Sons and Sire vs. Dam – Which has a Greater Impact on Your Herd’s Genetic Improvement?).  Similar to Balisto, Topsy will need to be protected on his loin strength, rump angle and rear teat placement, though he also should sire more protein and overall pounds of milk than his current genomic proof would indicate.  Topsy should end up with a slighter lower Productive Life evaluation than Balisto.

Ocd Mccutch Slick Willie (April 2014)WILLIE

OCD Mccutch Slick Willie-ET
007HO12178
Mccutchen x Ramos x Oman

The first non Bookem son on our list is in fact a Bookem grandson.  So if Mccutchen were to drop, Willie would be sure to follow.  Fortunately for Willie all indicators are that Mccutchen should hold just fine and so Willie himself should hold on well as well.  In fact, if we had not accounted for the reliability of the sires in each sires stack, Willie would have been near the top of our list.  Though given that his sire is Mccutchen, he is very likely to hold his numbers, we still had to discount Willie for this.  In fact, Willie is the third highest outlier sire on our list, behind Yowza and Balisto, of the more than 250 sire we looked at.  Willie’s DGV’s for NM$ are 107 points higher than his gPA and 23% higher than his parent averages. This has you considering “Have we regressed young sires from a young sire enough?” or if you believe that his sire is the real deal, then you should have all the confidence in Willie as he has some of the highest DGV’s in the world today.    Look for Willie to sire high production, type and fitness, while just needing to be protected on teat length and milking speed.

Mountfield Ssi Dcy Mogul (April 2014)MOGUL

Mountfield SSI Dcy Mogul
007HO11314
Dorcy x March x Oman

Another popular sire of sons that should hold his genomic numbers pretty well is Mogul.  This Dorcy son gets a substantial contribution of his genetics from his sire.  As one of the first ART program bulls from Select Sires, it will be interesting to see how well Mogul does as a proven sire.  (Read more: Select Sires vs. Semex – A Contrast in Cooperatives).  Mogul is one of the all-around solid sires that has solid numbers in all aspects of his genomic evaluation. Hence, his popularity as a sire of sons and bull mothers.  It will be interesting to see if he can hold over the magic 1,000 lbs. of milk though he should come in around there.   His type numbers should hold around the 2.50 points though he does need to be protected on Daughter Pregnancy Rate.

Morningview Bookem Lucid (April 2014)LUCID

Morningview Bookem Lucid-ET
007HO11830
Bookem x Shottle x Oman

The seventh and final Bookem son on our list is Lucid.  Though Lucid has the same sire stack as Mccutchen, he has a much different breeding pattern.  Lucid’s maternal line has demonstrated that they can deliver genomically and goes back to Whittier-Farms Lead Mae EX-95 3E GMD herself.  A great sire for commercial use, Lucid daughters should milk more than Mccutchen daughters, though Mccutchen daughters should have slightly better udders with more dairy strength.

 

 

Seagull-Bay Supersire (April 2014)SUPERSIRE

Seagull-Bay Supersire-ET
007HO11351
Robust x Planet x Shottle

There is no question that Supersire has proven himself as a genomic giant.  His extreme values for Milk, and Components have made him an extremely popular flush sire.  Now with many of his progeny being genomically tested, it is becoming apparent he can pass on his high genomic values. The question becomes will he be able to live up to these expectations when he receives an official daughter proof?  Our analysis shows that he should.  He does possess strong genomic values compared to his already pretty high parent averages. Even with a very potent maternal line, he still gets a strong contribution from his father, and his progeny are demonstrating that they are also getting extreme genomic values.  There are the three dominant characteristics that become evident in our analysis.  While Supersire daughters will not be winning many shows, his no holes type linear and strong production make him a strong commercial sire that will have a huge impact on genetics around the world.

Stantons Camaro (April 2014)CAMARO

Stantons Camaro
250HO01109
Epic x Freddie x Lucky Star

Camaro is a very interesting sire to come to the top of our list.  First we have the factor that Stanton bulls in Canada sampled between Aug 2009, and Aug 2012 dropped an average of 50% from their parent averages, (Read more: The Hot House Effect on Sire Sampling) and then you add in the fact that his sire Epic is from a genomic outlier in his own right. On top of that, while Camaro comes from the Sher-Est S-Wind Saturday EX-90 GMD DOM family which has produced such sires as Sacrates, Mr. Sam and Sidney it is not exactly an extreme sire proving family, given the number of sons that have been sampled out of it.  So how does he make our list?  Well, it’s hard to deny his extreme numbers.  At over +952 for DGV NM$ and high productive life, even if his numbers drop, as I expect they will especially for productive life, he should still be among some of the top sires come April 2016.  While breeding strong mammary systems and feet & legs, Camaro will need to be protected on his dairy strength and rumps.  He is for sure an extreme sire for health and fertility.

Vieuxsaule Flame (April 20140FLAME

Vieuxsaule Flame-ET
200HO06551
Numero Uno x Freddie x Bolton

From the emerging cow family at Vieux Salue Holsteins, Flame was the first sire to put Vieuxsaule Allen Dragonfly EX-94-2E 14* on most breeders genetic radars. (Read more: Vieux Saule Holstein: Rooted In Family Values and VIEUX SAULE ALLEN DRAGONFLY: 2013 Canadian Cow of the Year Nominee)  While most of the time it takes a few sons to receive an official proof before a cow family really hits, genomics has certainly made the identification of such cow families much stronger.  Flame is one of the highest PA TPI sires that should be receiving an official daughter proof by April 2016. All indications are that he should remain among the top sires, once he achieves his official daughter proven evaluation.  While his milk numbers may scare some producers, the one thing we found in our analysis of sires from April 2011 receiving genomic evaluations in April 2014 were that it was the extreme genomic production sires that saw the most significant declines, while those sires that were lower, such as Flame, actually held their production values pretty well.  While I do expect to see his Productive Life values decline as well, his high components, something that has proven to hold well, and high type (also proven to hold well), should have him as one of the top proven sires.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

As we found out in our analysis of the top genomic sires from April 2011, it’s not always the top ones that produce the highest daughter evaluations.  (Read more: The Genomic Roller Coaster – Hold on it’s going to be a bumpy ride)  Identifying which sires are most likely to hold their numbers or relative rankings and which ones are going to take you on a rough ride is probably one of the greatest challenges to breeding programs in the world today.  Based on the trends that we have identified, these 12 sires stand the greatest chance of holding their numbers and being near the top of the official daughter proven evaluations come April 2016.

*TPI is a trademark of Holstein America


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15 Strength Sires That Will Still Fit In Your Stalls

For the vast majority of Holstein breeders, success is not about winning first prize at a cattle show. What they do want are heifers and cows in their herd that efficiently convert high forage based diets into growth and milk products that consumers will buy.  For those breeders tall animals are not the ideal. In fact many breeders are saying that they want cattle that have more heart and lung capacity (Read more: 5 Things You Must Know About Secretariat, Lung Capacity and Dairy Cattle) and less stature to go along with high production, improved reproduction and functional udders and feet and legs. (Read more: Feed Efficiency: The Money Saver)

Moderating Frame

Since size, stature and strength are some of the more heritable type traits in the North American type classification evaluations; it is possible to moderate stature and increase the capacity of chest and heart and lungs depending on the sires used. The challenge is to do that while placing major emphasis on production, health and reproduction traits. As udders and feet and legs have been improved significantly over the past twenty years in herds focused on producing milk, there is less need to place as much emphasis there. As always there are no perfect sires, so it takes careful corrective mating. Instead of generation after generation of breeding for increased stature, it may require that breeders use some sires that are negatively rated for frame traits. (Read more: Are Today’s Holstein Cows Too Tall?)  Today the majority of sires have high ratings on stature than on strength (USA) or chest width (Canada). To increase strength and capacity the sires used need to have higher indexes for strength or width than for stature.

Sire Suggestions

If your dairy breeding model is about production, efficiency and functionality from heifers that are 1150 pounds and 55 inches, calving at 21 months and cows that are up to 1600 pounds and 58 inches at fourth calving, then here are some sires that may suit your needs. The first requirement for making this list was that the sire have a high CM$ value. Cheese Merit was selected instead of Net Merit as the increased global demand for milk will likely come from the protein content.

Bryhill Science P

(200HO06584, Uno x Shottbolt x Goldwyn x September)

Science will be attractive to breeders wanting to introduce the polled gene into their herd. For a polled sire, he has high ratings for CM$ 756 and gTPI 2297 (71%Rel). His stature (+1.79) and strength (+1.20) ratings are moderate so, except for tall and large framed cows, he will hold but not decrease those traits. His inbreeding is slightly above average given his sire stack. His strengths are udders (+2.50), fat (89) and protein (42) yields with good Productive Life (+4.1) and PTAT (+2.75). His pins are high, but his DPR is +0.8 otherwise he has no significant limiting factors.

Bush-Bros Mog Fairfax

(14HO07349, Mogul x Freddie x Lancelot x Nitro)

Fairfax has a high rating for CM$ 974 with a moderately high rating for gTPI 2359 (71% Rel).  His stature (+0.49) and strength (+0.24) ratings are breed average which leads to a lower gTPI given his fat (73) and protein (42) yields. He excels for DPR (2.4), SCS (2.66), PL (7.0) and Calving Ease (5.6). Breeders who are wishing to have average framed cattle that have good udders (+2.36) with non-traditional sires back in his sire stack and desirable management trait ratings should look up Fairfax’s proof sheet.

Cogent Supershot

(224HO02881, Supersire x Robust x Shottle x Aerostar)

Supershot has been a very popular sire for IVF programmed females over recent months. At CM$ 1110 (highest on this listing) and gTPI 2625 (71% Rel), he is at the very top. Currently, his semen price is very high but breeders willing to wait can expect it to decrease. His stature (+1.07) and strength (+1.01) ratings indicate he will leave moderate framed cattle. His strengths are milk (2528), fat yield (100), protein yield (85), PL (7.4) and DPR (1.9). He has no negatively rated type traits, but neither does he excel for type (PTAT 2.2).

Co-op Bosside Massey

(1HO09527, Mascol x Bret x Manfred x Megabuck)

Massey in one of the few sires where his strength proof (1.54) exceeds hi stature proof (+0.94). These ratings along with his 96% Rel gTPI proof (2260) and CM$ 838 make him a sire that breeders wanting strength and production should definitely consider. His sire stack is quite different from other sires in North America. With over 700 daughters in his proof, breeders can expect that his proofs will hold up over time. His SCS proof is excellent (2.52) and he has good ratings for PL (3.7), DPR (0.9) and Udders (2.21). He needs to be protected for high pins and straight rear legs.

Denistier Discovery

(147HO02479, Mogul x Bowser x Toystory x Outside)

Discovery fits the mould well for sires that commercial dairymen wanting less frame should consider using with stature (+0.52) and strength (+0.07). His sire stack is enough different so as to not be a concern about inbreeding. He has excellent ratings for Management Traits – CE 5.5, DCE 5.4, PL 7.4, SCS 2.63, DPR 2.9, and Rump Angle 1.94 and good indexes for milk (1512), fat (65), protein (51) and feet & legs (2.49). In total, he has a very high CM$ 950 rating and a relatively high gTPI 2415 (72% Rel). He will need protection for straight rear legs (-2.25).

De-Su LTM Rodgers 11379

(7HO12023, Lithium x Russell x Wizard x Mtoto)

Rodgers has an uncommon sire stack and excels at CM$ 1008, and his gTPI is high at 2450 (72% Rel). With stature at 0.86 and strength at 0.12 his daughters can be expected to be medium for frame. As with other sires in this listing, he has very high Management Trait indexes – PL 7.7, SCS 2.65 and DPR 2.7. His Maternal Calving Ease at 3.9 is excellent, and his Calving Ease at 5.8 is very good. His milk (1626), fat (86) and protein (57) are also very good. His overall type. PTAT 1.68, is only slightly above average yet he has no serious type weaknesses.

EDG Rubicon

(151HO00681, Mogul x Robust x Planet x Bolton)

Although Rubicon’s sire stack contains many heavily used sires, his CM$ 1004 and gTPI 2531 (72% Rel) standout with moderate ratings for stature (1.50) and strength (1.15), and it warrants his inclusion in this listing.  PTAT 2.68, UC 2.41, FLC 2.54 and PL 6.3 say that his daughters should be trouble free cattle. Breeders desiring medium framed cattle with all other traits well above average should look up Rubicon.

Farnear Alfalfa

(29HO17516, Supersire x Freddie x Shottle x Buckeye)

Alfalfa’s indexes for stature (-0.26), strength (-0.07) and body depth (-0.72) make him the kind of bull breeders wanting to genetically decrease the frame of their cattle should consider using. He has high indexes for CM$ 935, gTPI 2354 (73% Rel), Milk 1622, Fat 71, Protein 49, PL 8.9, DPR 1.3 and MCE 4.6. His full brother Farnear Admiral (7HO12233) has very similar ratings and could also be considered.

Gillette SGO Myspace

(200HO10003, Mogul x Planet x Bolton x Shottle)

Breeders wishing to breed medium framed cows, but not wanting to move away from the breed’s popular sires might consider Myspace.  With stature at 0.69 and strength at 0.22, he fits this listing.  He has high indexes for CM$ 913, gTPI 2402 (73%), Milk 1805, Fat 82, Protein 58, PL 6.9, MCE 5.5 and SCS 2.68. He has good ratings for PTAT 2.46 and DPR 1.0, and he indexes are all positive except for very slight negatives for teat length and set of rear legs, side view.

Mainstreet Manifold

(200HO00042, Oman x BW Marshall x Emory x Adan)

Manifold is a 97% Reliability sire with a unique breeding pattern. Strength at 1.53 and stature at 0.59 says that his daughters are stronger than they are tall. He is just the type of sire that breeders who are wanting to breed for strength, but not for stature should be considering. He is a calving ease specialist (3.7) with good ratings for CM$ (761), gTPI (2188 (97% Rel), PL (4.3) and DPF (1.2).   Breeders should expect to get daughters that are average for type (PTAT +1.18).

MR Mogul Delta 1427

(203HO01468, Mogul x Robust x Planet x Elegant)

Although Delta is rated slightly higher for stature (+0.81) than strength (+0.04), he is just breed average for both of them. He makes this listing because of his extremely high ratings for CM$1076 (second on this listing) and gTPI 2567 (73% Rel) even though he is only average for frame traits. His strengths that get him highly rated for total merit include milk (1643), fat (93), protein (60), PL (7.8) and SCS (2.60) His DPR is 1.2 and, beyond the frame traits, he is positively rated for all type traits (PTAT 2.75).

MR Moviestar Mardi Gras

(534HO00025, Mogul x Planet x Shottle x Oman)

Mardi Gras is slightly higher for stature (+1.31) and strength (+0.78) than most sires in this listing, these traits are rated much lower for his other type ratings. His specialties are CM$ 926, gTPI 2467 (72% Rel), udders +2.96, PL 6.9 and DPR 2.3 with good rating for all other evaluations. His sire stack contains extensively used sires, but his EFI is not high.

RH Superman

(200HO07846, Supersire x Man-O-Man x Baxter x Durham)

Superman is not yet a year old and semen is not yet available but he is a bull to watch for in the future.  His Canadian indexes include Stature +2 and Chest Width +8 which would indicate that he would be the type of sire that needs to be included on this listing. He is rated at 3525 for gLPI (65% Rel) which puts him at the very top. Other traits with 99%RK ratings include Milk 2564 kg, Fat 126 kg, and Protein 96 kg. Traits with 98%RK ratings are CONF 11, Herd Life 113 and DCA 110.

River-Bridge Co-op Troy

(1HO11056, Mogul x Freddie x Mascol x Trent)

Troy is another top sire with CM$ 1057 (third highest on this listing) and gTPI 2508 (72% Rel) that is only average for strength (0.34) and stature (1.06). His strengths include PL 8.6, SCS 2.50, DPR 2.7, UC 2.37 and FLC 2.50. His only limiting factor is straight rear legs -2.07.

Westenrade Altaspring

(11HO11437, Mogul x Gerard x Mascol x Laudan)

Altaspring is the highest rated type sire (+2.82) on this listing yet he is only above average for strength (1.10) and stature (1.62). He is high for CM$ 967 and very high for gTPI 2546 (71% Rel). He is an all-round bull with no significant weaknesses in all his indexes.

There’s a Pattern

Eleven of the fifteen sires on this listing are sired by Mogul (8) and Supersire (3). That should not be a surprise given that for frame traits these two sires are not highly rated. Mogul is rated (USA) Stature 1.59 and Strength 0.79 and (Canada) Stature 1, Chest Width 1 and Height at Front End -6.  Supersire is rated (USA) Stature 1.25 and Strength 0.91 and (Canada) Stature 0, Chest Width 5 and Height at Front End -4.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

As Mogul and Supersire have been used extensively as the sires of A.I. bulls in the past few years, breeders can expect to have more strength bulls available in the future than there have been in the past ten years. Breeding for width and strength are likely to be topics that discerning breeders will be breeding for in the years ahead.

 

 

 

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Dairy Breeders – STOP Using Inferior Bulls

Using sires that are inferior for economically important traits is no longer necessary or advisable. In herds using conventional semen over 90% of herd genetic improvement comes from sires. Which sires are used can mean a significant loss in a herd’s future earning power.  But still, in this time of rapid genetic advancement, there are sires being used that are inferior.

The Bullvine was able to obtain the lists of sires with the most registered daughters for the Canadian Ayrshire, Holstein and Jersey breeds for 2013. We decided to dig deeper and analyze the top ten sires with the most registered daughters. Other breeds only made up 0.6% of all registrations, so those breeds were not studied. The Bullvine is quite certain that similar sire usage patterns exist in other countries as we have also studied sire usage in US Holsteins  and the results were very similar. (Read more: Top Sires North American Holstein Breeders Used in 2013)

Top Ten’s in 2013

The first portion of our study looked at the bulls for LPI and for the components of LPI – Production, Durability and Health & Fertility.  Every animal on the CDN database receives and can be looked up for a rating for their genetic merit for the three components of LPI. This is a very handy tool for breeders to assist them in their breeding decisions.

The top ten most used Ayrshires sires (Table 1) were moderately high but not the best there is. These top ten sires accounted for 44% of all registrations, however only four sires had a percentile rank over 90% for gLPI and five sires were below average, less than 50%RK, for at least one of Production or Health & Fertility. Six sires had more than 200 daughters registered. One sire, EBay, was a progeny test sire and he ranked #10 in usage. The sire on the list with the highest gLPI was Burdette coming in at #4 in usage. On average, the sires were moderate at 80%RK of gLPI and 81%RK for Durability. Less attention was given to Production, 66%RK and it is disappointing see that Health & Fertility, on average, only received a 59%RK. Breeders definitely placed their emphasis elsewhere when the top sire, Dreamer, only has 41%RK for Production and 47%RK for Health & Fertility

Table 1 Canadian Ayrshire Sires with Most Registered Daughters – 2013

NameMilkFatProtSCSConfRelBPI
GILLETTE MOGUL CARREL1056107642.67150.66100.0%
STANTONS MCCUTCHEN 1174 AGREE2101103812.59190.6598.7%
VELTHUIS S G SNOW EVENING2859103952.83160.797.6%
VELTHUIS SG SNOW EVENT2859103952.83160.797.6%
LOOKOUT PESCE PONDE KREED182694842.86140.6597.1%
MAPEL WOOD SUDAN LICORICE2326108972.7120.6796.3%
LOOKOUT PESCE EPIC HUE188893832.88180.6594.5%
STANTONS SNOW ELAISKA226885982.81130.6692.2%
STANTONS MCCUTCHEN PROFIT220394872.88120.6591.5%
OCONNORS LIVING THE DREAM222888872.79160.6491.0%

In Holsteins (Table 2) the top ten, most used, sires made up 22.5% of all registrations, eight sires had a gLPI above 90%RK and 233 sires had more than 200 registered daughters. However, four of the ten sires are extremely lowly rated for Health & Fertility. In fact, the second and third most used sires were only ranked 18%RK and 19%RK for Health & Fertility. Canadian Holstein breeders place their primary focus on type with the average being a 93%RK for Durability. Production lags at 76%RK and Health and Fertility just barely exceeds average (54%RK). Dempsey has the highest gLPI of all the sires and was the eighth most used sire. Fever and Jordan, in addition to Dempsey, are sires that have at least 70% for all of gLPI, Production, Durability and Health & Fertility. None of the sires in the top ten most used were bulls being progeny tested in 2013. That is different than in the USA were a few genomic sires are receiving considerable use. The recommendation to breeders is that they not use one genomic sire to an excessive degree.

Table 2 Canadian Holstein Sires with Most Registered daughters – 2013

NameMilkFatProtSCSConfRelBPI
MAPEL WOOD LADD LEAH P150981672.92120.6586.4%
VENTURE MCCUTCHEN SATIN P102972472.72150.6186.3%
VENTURE EPIC SCARLET P118969462.75120.6585.5%
BRYHILL ONE SASSY P126296502.58130.6385.4%
BRYHILL SS SASHA P2160100742.72130.6184.8%

In Jerseys (Table 3) 25% of all female registrations were for the ten sires with the most registered daughters. Six of the ten sires had over 90%RK for gLPI and four sires had over 200 registered daughters. Two of the top ten sires were on a progeny testing program, although those two were not the most highly rated of a genomic sires for gLPI. Overall, the ten sires had an 88%RK for gLPI however there is definitely a lack of attention to Health and Fertility when half the bulls have below average ratings for that component of LPI. Topeka, the 4th most used sire, had the highest gLPI and he was being progeny tested in 2013. With the wide ranges among the ten sires in the %RK rating for all the parts of LPI and six sires that fall below 50%RK in at least one area, it indicates that Canadian Jersey breeders do not use sires that cover all bases.

Table 3 Canadian Jersey Sires with Most Registered Daughters – 2013

NameLPISireDam Name
MAPEL WOOD SUPER GOOD LOOKING3525SUPERSIREOCONNORS PLANET LUCIA
BOMAZ ALTAOAK 60133490ALTAOAKBOMAZ OBSERVER 5406-ET
SULLY MAN-O-SHAN MARTHA-ET3487SHANSULLY PLANET MANITOBA-ET
GILLETTE SUPERSIRE DRIVE3481SUPERSIREGILLETTE M O M DRIVE
FARNEAR MASCALESE 17193454MASCALESEFARNEAR-TBR-BH CASHER-ET
SIEMERS MCCUTCH ROZ-ET3441MCCUTCHENCHERRY CREST MANOMAN ROZ
EDG LACI SHOTGLASS 766-ET3437SHOTGLASSFARNEAR-TBR-BH LACI-ET
AIJA SUPERSIRE MAKEA3435SUPERSIREAIJA MAN O MAN NAOMI
RI-VAL-RE EHARDT NIK-ET3434EARNHARDT PRI-VAL-RE OBSRVR NIKKI-ET
BOMAZ ALTAOAK 60233433ALTAOAKMS ROSYLANE OBSERVR5048-ET
EDG DAHLIA MOGUL 22573425MOGULLADYS-MANOR S DAHLIA-ET
COOKIECUTTER AOAK HAWAII-ET3422ALTAOAKCOOKIECUTTER MOM HALO-ET
EDG 4858 MOGUL 2240-ET3411MOGULPINE-TREE 4233 OBSRV4858-ET
MS DELICIOUS CASHCALL3405CASHCOINMISS OCD ROBST DELICIOUS-ET
WISSELVIEW SUPER S CHEVELLE3388SUPERSIRELARCREST CHEVELLE-ET
AIJA SUPERSIRE NATALIA3379SUPERSIREAIJA MAN O MAN NAOMI
COMESTAR LAUSY SUPERSIRE3377SUPERSIRECOMESTAR LAUTAMIRE PLANET
S-S-I MOONRY LEIGHA 9081-ET3369MOONRAYS-S-I KRAMER LOY 7675-ET
RI-VAL-RE SYMP VIVIAN-ET3369SYMPATICOSONRAY-ACRES SOC OBSERVR VI
EDG RUBY EARN 22593366EARNHARDT PSANDY-VALLEY ROBUST RUBY-ET
SIEMERS S-SIRE ROZANNE-ET3364SUPERSIRESIEMERS WINDBK ROZANNE-ET
DUHOVENT SUPERSIRE LOVE ME ET3363SUPERSIREGEN-I-BEQ EVOLVE LOVELY
MORMANN MOGUL TATUM 23073358MOGULFARNEAR-REGAN M TEBBI-ET
GREENLANE SUPERSIRE SAIGE3356SUPERSIREMISTY SPRINGS OMAN SATIN
STE ODILE LIGHTSNOW PLAISANCE3356LIGHTSNOWSTE ODILE MANOMAN MOD PLATINE
SUNNYLODGE SUPERSIRE SCARLETT3356SUPERSIREMISTY SPRINGS OMAN SATIN
FARNEAR MASCALESE 17203355MASCALESEFARNEAR-TBR-BH CASHER-ET
EVELINA3352SUPERSIRENOVA SHOTTLE EVELYN-ET
MS DELICIOUS CASHDAY3352CASHCOINMISS OCD ROBST DELICIOUS-ET
DESLACS SUPERSIRE PETUNIA3345SUPERSIREFARNEAR-TBR WANNA PARTY-ET
MS KOOL COIN 22913335CASHCOINMS C-HAVEN OMAN KOOL-ET
GREENLANE SUPERSIRE SUSANNA3334SUPERSIREMISTY SPRINGS OMAN SATIN
COOKIECUTTER LETIT HAVED-ET3331LET IT SNOWCOOKIECUTTER MOM HALO-ET
FARNEAR HEADLINER 17223328HEADLINERFARNEAR-TBR-BH MADDY-ET
MS KOOL CC 22793327CASHCOINMS C-HAVEN OMAN KOOL-ET
MS KOOL COIN 22863325CASHCOINMS C-HAVEN OMAN KOOL-ET
COOKIECUTTER LETIT HAIKU-ET3323LET IT SNOWCOOKIECUTTER MOM HALO-ET
EDG SHAKER DAY 22763323DAYMS MOVIESTAR SHAKER-ET
ROORDA MAY MCBABY 15866-ET3318MAYFIELDROORDA OB MCKENZIE 15267-ET
MS DELICIOUS CASHTREE3317CASHCOINMISS OCD ROBST DELICIOUS-ET
EDG LORETTE MASC 2230-ET3317MASCALESEVELTHUIS SNOWMAN LORRETTE
LATUCH SUPER LABELLA-ET3313SUPERSIRELATUCH MAN O LEMMON
COOKIECUTTER PRED HAZARD-ET3313PREDESTINECOOKIECUTTER MOM HALO-ET
CEDARWAL SUPERSIRE BALTI3308SUPERSIRECEDARWAL GERARD BALI
EDG LACY COIN 22933307CASHCOINKELLERCREST MANOMAN LACY-ET
HEBERTVIEW SUPERSIRE DELIGHT3304SUPERSIRENAU CALIBER AMEWILL
FLINT-VILLE UNO YESTER-ET3300NUMERO UNOCOYNE-FARMS OBSERVER YES-ET
DESGRANGES MOGUL OBSESSION3297MOGULDESGRANGES MAN O MAN OBAMA ET
MS AMERICA LAITICIA-ET3296LATIMERSEAGULL-BAY MISS AMERICA-ET
LARCREST COLLAGE-ET3289NUMERO UNOLARCREST CALE-ET
FARNEAR-TBR-BH CASE 22733285SHOTGLASSLARCREST CASE-ETS
DONNANDALE HEADLINER JAZZFLUTE3284HEADLINERDONNANDALE MANOMAN JAKARTA
BOMAZ MOGUL 60103281MOGULBOMAZ BOOKEM 5402-ET
LARCREST CICADA-ET3278NUMERO UNOLARCREST CALE-ET
WILLSBRO MERIDIAN PAMMY-ET3278MERIDIANWILLSBRO PAMMY MAN-O-MAN
EDG CAITLYN DOORMAN 22743278DOORMANMS CHASSITY SNOW CAITLYN-ET
BRYHILL SUPLEX MYSTIQUE-ET3273ALTASUPLEXSULLY ROBUST 720-ET
EDG LORETTE MOGUL 22603269MOGULVELTHUIS SNOWMAN LORRETTE
SIEMERS HLINER ROZ-IS-IT-ET3267HEADLINERCHERRY CREST MANOMAN ROZ
MAPEL WOOD MASCALESE LUXURY3266MASCALESEOCONNORS PLANET LUCIA
SULLY MAN-O-SHAN MAE-ET3265SHANSULLY PLANET MANITOBA-ET
EDG SATURN SHOT 2238-ET3262SHOTGLASSSEAGULL-BAY SHAUNA SATURN
SIEMERS SSIRE ROZANNERAE-ET3262SUPERSIRESIEMERS WINDBK ROZANNE-ET
EDG CHRISTA LATIMER 2226-ET3259LATIMERLANGS-TWIN-B CHRISTA-ET
AIJA SUPERSIRE MARLO3257SUPERSIREAIJA MAN O MAN NAOMI
MOREL IREN3257LEXORELDORADO
LARCREST CIABATTA-ET3251NUMERO UNOLARCREST CALE-ET
BUTLERVIEW LET IT SHINE-ET3251LET IT SNOWVISION-GEN SHO A12024-ET
BOMAZ ALTAOAK 60143249ALTAOAKBOMAZ OBSERVER 5406-ET
WILLSBRO MOGUL S AMBER3248MOGULRIVERDANE SHOTTLE AMBER
GANDY OBSERVER PARADISE ET3246OBSERVERGANDY COLETTE ET
EDG BYSHA CC 22583243CASHCOINREGANCREST DGR BRYSHA-ET
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EDG STITCH COIN 22953182CASHCOINGRAN-J RUSSELL STITCH-ET
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EDG STITCH CC 22803133CASHCOINGRAN-J RUSSELL STITCH-ET
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MILLER-FF HEAD ELLIE-ET3133HEADLINERMILLER-FF RAVISH ELINOR-ET
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CONNY3126SHAMROCKMON-COPABOKA
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WILLSBRO MOGUL SHO AMBER3029MOGULRIVERDANE SHOTTLE AMBER
GILLETTE CARAMINATOR TINA3028CARAMINATORGILLETTE M O M TAHITI
BUTLERVIEW LET IT SUN-ET3028LET IT SNOWVISION-GEN SHO A12024-ET
CANCO MERIDIAN LOREL3028MERIDIANAMITIES SHOTTLE LOVER
BLONDIN MCCUTCHEN AMAZING3028MCCUTCHENRWM SNOW ANGEL-ET
GO-FARM KAMERY ET3027MERCHANDISEGEGANIA LONAR K
BROEKS ENEKEM-ET3027BOOKEMMS RYAN-CREST ENERGIZE-ET
KAKOUNA GILLESPY CASPY3027GILLESPYKAKOUNA DUPLEX CASMY
HIGHERRANSOM OAK SILLY-ET3026ALTAOAKBRU-DALE MOM STARLY-ET
DURESEAU OBLIK BREWMASTER3026BREWMASTERDURESEAU OTELLO BOLTON
LATUCH PETRONE LIGHT-ET3026PETRONELATUCH OMAN LIBERTY
SNOWBIZ SUPERSIRE LYNDSEY3026SUPERSIRECALBRETT SNOWMAN LEXIE
UNITED-PRIDE MANDORA 65063026MANDORAUNITED-PRIDE FREDDIE 4614
DONNANDALE DAY LUVA3023DAYDONNANDALE WINDBROOK LYN
GEN-I-BEQ MASCALESE ANNSO3023MASCALESEKHW-I AIKA BAXTER
NH MASCALESE ELENA3023MASCALESENH SNOW ELIGHT
ERBCREST PHOENIX MARLENE3023PHOENIXERBCREST DUPLEX MARVELLOUS
SYLVANSIDE LEXOR LILA3023LEXORFLEURY GEN BAXTER LISA
WELCOME MASCALESE LAUREL-ET3023MASCALESEWELCOME O-STYLE LONNIE-ET
SUNNYLODGE SINDY3022LET IT SNOWMISTY SPRINGS MAN O MAN SATIN
CO-OP BOXER APPLE 7069-ET3022BOXERRICHLAWN SUPER APRIL APPLE
BOMAZ LITHIUM 60273022LITHIUMBOMAZ BOOKEM 5402-ET
INTENSE OBSERVER 1238-ET3021OBSERVERCOMYN-PBCD SPLENDID-ET
FILIALE MOGUL SMARY3021MOGULLESPERRON SHOTTLE SPLENDA
SANDY-VALLEY S BOONDOCKS-ET3021SUPERSIRESANDY-VALLEY BODACIOUS-ET
UFM-DUBS SHEROHE-ET3021HEADLINERUFM-DUBS SHEROW-ET
CO-OP UPD GALAXY 64153021GALAXYCO-OP TRIGG YANCIE 6309-ET
SAN-DAN LEXOR CASEY 2319-ET3021LEXORMS CHASSITY OBS CRYSTAL-ET
SNOWBIZ SYMPATICO SKY3020SYMPATICOGEN-I-BEQ SNOWMAN SPRING
CO-OP UPD DAY 64303020DAYCO-OP UPD GWN 3502-ET
CO-OP DD GALAXY 40059-ET3020GALAXYCO-OP TRIGG ABIGAIL 6402-ET
EDG ETTY MONARCH 22873019MONARCHWELCOME BOOKEM ETTY-ET
MS SIZZLE CASHCOIN 781-ET3018CASHCOINVENTURE SHOTTBOLT SIZZLE P
CO-OP PUZZL ROSETTE 7111-ET3018PUZZLECO-OP M-P ATWOOD ROSETTE-ET
WILLSBRO MERIDIAN PLEDGE-ET3018MERIDIANWILLSBRO EVOLVE PLEDGE
MS AMERICA LOTTERY-ET3017LATIMERSEAGULL-BAY MISS AMERICA-ET
SPRUCE-HAVEN DESTINED *RC 14653017DESTINEDSPRUCE-HAVEN ROB BS13135-ET
CO-OP 7119-ET3017MAURICECO-OP CALIBER MARA 6293-ET
CO-OP SPS RAPTUROUS 7082-ET3016SUPERSIREHARMONY-HO SIGNI RAPTUROUS
SANDY-VALLEY KRNC TOPEKA-ET3016KRUNCHSANDY-VALLEY IOTA TOPAZ-ET
EDG RUBY GC REEBA 163015GOLD CHIPSANDY-VALLEY ROBUST RUBY-ET
FARNEAR CASHCOIN 17163015CASHCOINFARNEAR ALICE OF ADEEN-ET
CREEK MCCUTCHEN HEIDI3014MCCUTCHENCREEK AL HILDA
LOTTI-ET3014JK EDER GOLDSTAR 2
LEOTHE SUPERSIRE LAURIE3013SUPERSIRELEOTHE BRETT LUCIDE
EDG CASHBUST¿GALAXY 22503012GALAXYFARNEAR-TBR-BH CASHBUST-ET
EDG JALA MOGUL 22663012MOGULBUTLERVIEW SR JEVEN JALA-ET
GITOISE ETERNITY MAGGIE3012ETERNITYGITOISE JAKE MALY
S-S-I MOONRAY LAURA 9072-ET3011MOONRAYS-S-I KRAMER LOY 7675-ET
BLONDIN HEADLINER LAUZYA3010HEADLINERLESPEREE METEOR LAUZI
WILLSBRO BREWMASTER LILA Z3009BREWMASTERWILLSBRO PLANET LILA Z
DIANA3009MERIDIANDAGGI
GLASSON UNO G GLORA3009NUMERO UNOGLASSON JD GOLDWYN GLORA ET
VEKIS ELSA QUEEN-ET3008MASSEYELTES
CEDARWAL SUPERSIRE EDGY3008SUPERSIREWABASH-WAY SHOTTLE ELLYN-ET
LOOKOUT PESCE NATASHA3007HEADLINERGOLD-N-OAKS O NOVA2269-ET
WILLSBRO MERIDIAN PLEDGE 35-ET3007MERIDIANWILLSBRO EVOLVE PLEDGE
VICTORIA MASSEY KERRY3007MASSEYVICTORIA SUPER KIRBY
HYDE-PARK MASSEY 44333007MASSEYHYDE-PARK ARMY 3584-TW
BONACCUEIL EARNHARDT PANAMA P3006EARNHARDT PWINDSOR-MANOR ZSH PANDA-ET
AIMONETTA UNO LUCY ET3005NUMERO UNOOWN GOLD LUCILLE
DE OOSTERHOF O HAPPY3005DADDYDG EROSHINE FR
EDG CASHBUST DOOR 22893004DOORMANFARNEAR-TBR-BH CASHBUST-ET
SAN-DAN MOGUL SHEMO 23023003MOGULUFM-DUBS SHERUN-ET
WILLSBRO MERIDIAN ATLEE-ET3002MERIDIANHEAVENLY MOM ATLEE
MORMANN LAT TUSKY 2294-ET3002LATIMERFARNEAR-REGAN TALSA-ET
CASTEL MOGUL TALQUEE ET3001MOGULVIDIA DEMELLO RAVISANTE
IDILLY P2M3000LAVAMANG DILLY P2M
EDG ETTY UNO 7703000NUMERO UNOWELCOME BOOKEM ETTY-ET
CROTEAU DAKKER SALSA2999DAKKERGEN-I-BEQ GERARD SAMMY
LEOTHE HEADLINER LAURA2999HEADLINERLEOTHE BRETT LUCIDE
SULLY LITHIUM MARY-ET2998LITHIUMSULLY PLANET MANITOBA-ET
JEANRI PHOENIX PONPON2998PHOENIXJEANRI BOLY PETALE
WELCOME-TEL PREDSTN LIZA-ET2998PREDESTINEKELLERCREST SUPER LIESL-ET
JS MISS MADEIRA-ET2997DADDYJ.S. MISS MERIBEL
WELCOME-TEL RANSOM LEETA-ET2997RANSOMKELLERCREST SUPER LIESL-ET
POM IERE2996NUMERO UNOEGALE POM
AMMON FARMS MASY MYLAYLA-ET2996MASSEYAMMON FARMS OBSVR MYLILY-TW
WILLSBRO N UNO O DOLLY ET2995NUMERO UNOWILLSBRO ONWARD DOLLY
TRUSTMORE MOGUL LILAC ET2995MOGULVELTHUIS PLANET LIZZY
EDG BABY UNO 2228-ET2994NUMERO UNOOCONNORS SUPER BABY
MATCREST SHAN CHESSA-ET2994SHANMATCREST RADON CRIMSON-ET
CLAYNOOK DOWRY SYMPATICO2993SYMPATICOOCD PLANET DIAMOND-ET
JEANLU MOGUL FIESTA2993MOGULSPEEK-NJ OBSERV FANDANGO-ET
SPRUCE-HAVEN PAR SX14654-ET2991PARKERSPRUCE-HAVEN OBS SX12849-ET
QUIET-BROOK-D MERID FALLAX2991MERIDIANQUIET-BROOK-D BRONCO FALI
WILLSBRO A N UNO PAMMY2990NUMERO UNOWILLSBRO BAXTER PAMMY ET
GITOISE ETERNITY MAGIE2990ETERNITYGITOISE JAKE MALY
2990PERRY
ALL.NURE MACALESE BELLINA2990MASCALESEALL.NURE SHOTTLE BLUEBELLE ET
A-L-H BETHANY2989LITHIUMA-L-H PLANET BRIDGET
BOMAZ SUPERSIRE 59742989SUPERSIREBOMAZ PARKER 5321-ET
SYLVANSIDE REGINA MOGUL2987MOGULSYLVANSIDE SHOTTLE REGINA
CO-OP LITHIUM 6287 7123-ET2986LITHIUMCO-OP CLARK TASKET 6287-ET
2986SUPERSIREWELCOME JEEVES PERLY-ET
RI-VAL-RE EHARDT CHIPS-P-ET2986EARNHARDT PRI-VAL-RE OBSRVR SALSA-ET
WILLSBRO MERIDIAN E PLEDGE-ET2985MERIDIANWILLSBRO EVOLVE PLEDGE
HOOD LEXIA2984LEXORMARWIL LM REBECCA
CALBRETT MASCALESE LILLIANNE2983MASCALESECALBRETT GOLDWYN LAYLA-ET
RI-VAL-RE DOLO OAKLEY-ET2983DOLO-PRI-VAL-RE SUPER NIKE-ET
CO-OP UPD GALAXY 6301-ET2983GALAXYCO-OP UPD RAMOS 3430
SNOWBIZ GALAXY LUPIN2981GALAXYSILVERRIDGE SNOW LIZZY
R-E-W LAYNE PINK CRI-ET2981LAYNEWABASH-WAY EVES EASY PEA-ET
PELLERAT MOGUL SANDY2981MOGULPELLERAT BAXTER SARIE
WILLSBRO FERNAND HOW LILA Z-ET2980FERNANDWILLSBRO SHOTTLE HOW LILA Z
MOREL IDOL2980LEXORELDORADO
CO-OP GRAFEETI GABRIEL 71282980GRAFEETIJE-KO GABRIEL CRI-ET
CO-OP UPD PUZZLE 64842980PUZZLECOMYN-PBCD SUMMER CRI-ET
STE ODILE LIGHTSNOW PACIFICA2980LIGHTSNOWSTE ODILE MANOMAN MOD PLATINE
WILLSBRO MERIDIAN S AMBER-ET2979MERIDIANRIVERDANE SHOTTLE AMBER
EDG ABYSS DOORMAN 22812978DOORMANRMW SNOWMAN ABYSS-ET
SANDY-VALLEY KRN TOPANGA-ET2976KRUNCHSANDY-VALLEY IOTA TOPAZ-ET
WILLSBRO MERIDIAN SHO LILA Z-E2975MERIDIANWILLSBRO MOM SHO LILA Z
SIEMERS SHIMONE 199522974SHIMONESIEMERS DORCY 16120
SIEMERS MASCALESE BOMBI-ET2974MASCALESEGEN-I-BEQ SHOTTLE BOMBI
ST MAYFIELD MAKIO2974MAYFIELDGOLDEN-OAKS ROBUST MABEL-ET
S-S-I PREDEST SINA 9091-ET2974PREDESTINEHAPPYDANNY SNOW STORM-ET
ROXY2974MOGULBOUW MOM ROXY
K&K GAMES 87272973MOGUL
BOMAZ LITHIUM 60312973LITHIUMBOMAZ BOOKEM 5402-ET
LEOTHE SUPERSIRE DAUPHINE2973SUPERSIRELEOTHE BAXTER DAPHNEE
DES-Y-GEN HUNTER SYLKIA2972HUNTERDES-Y-GEN PLANET SILKY
MILLER-FF MASC EVIE-ET2971MASCALESENOVA SHOTTLE EVELYN-ET
CLAYNOOK DIOR SYMPATICO2971SYMPATICOOCD PLANET DIAMOND-ET
HIGHERRANSOM PRED SALTY-ET2970PREDESTINEBRU-DALE MOM STARLY-ET
RZH ADELAIDE2969MAYFIELDKHW SUPER ADERYN-ET
BERGITTE HUNTER HELIA2969HUNTERBERGITTE ASHLAR HAVARD
6217686931-ET2968MOGULFOTTO MAE
CALBRETT LET IT SNOW LIGHTLY2968LET IT SNOWCALBRETT GOLDWYN LAYLA-ET
SPRUCE-HAVEN MASSEY 146912967MASSEYSPRUCE-HAVEN FRED A13182-ET
FABEL DELPHIE MERIDIAN2967MERIDIANSYTOMAX DORICE BAHAMAS
KINGS-RANSOM PREDES APPLE2966PREDESTINEN-SPRINGHOPE NIAGRA ANNA-ET
KINGS-RANSOM CASHCN DELL-ET2966CASHCOINKINGS-RANSOM BAXTER DOLLY
KINGS-RANSOM KRUNCH EXPERT2965KRUNCHKINGS-RANSOM MAN-O EPPIE-ET
KERNDTWAY ROBUST HEMI-ET2965ROBUSTKERNDTWAY POLD PLANET-ET
AARDEMA ANDERSON 14282965ANDERSON
MS DOTTIE MASSEY 22542965MASSEYSPEEK-NJ SNOW DOTTIE RAE-ET
BONACCUEIL LET IT SNOW CAMILIA2963LET IT SNOWGILLETTE IOTA CARMELA
FARNEAR-TBR-BH BEN 2227-ET2963BENB-ENTERPRISE SUPER GIGI-ET
WILLSBRO M YORIK G ROXY-ET2963YORICKWILLSBRO GARRETT ROXY
BROWNTOWN LD MOGUL LIVELY2963MOGULFRUEH MAN O MAN LOOK AT HER
BROWNTOWN LD MOGUL LUCKY2963MOGULFRUEH MAN O MAN LOOK AT HER
SIEMERS MORGAN BLOOM2962MORGANSIEMERS EXPLODE BLOOM
CO-OP DD GALAXY 40058-ET2962GALAXYCO-OP TRIGG ABIGAIL 6402-ET
CHARPENTIER DESTINED SPACE2962DESTINEDCHARPENTIER FBI SIERRA
WILLSBRO UNO GHOST2961NUMERO UNOWILLSBRO GOLD GHOST ET
VICTORIA VITTEK DANELLE2960ALTAVITTEKVICTORIA SUPER DANNI
ROYAL HILL PLANET SPARKME2960PLANETROYAL HILL MANOMAN SPARKME
CO-OP UPD GALAXY 6342-ET2959GALAXYCO-OP UPD RAMOS 3430
MATT-DARI MAURICE DESTRY2959MAURICEMATT-DARI OBSERVER DARIA-ET
CO-OP UPD MOONBOY 66232959MOONBOYCO-OP FRANK ROBIN 6330-ET
DES-Y-GEN HUNTER SUBLIME2958HUNTERDES-Y-GEN PLANET SILKY
 

The take home message, when all breeds are considered, is that purebred Canadian breeders consider type (durability) to be the most important area. Beyond that, they pay moderate attention to production and either they do not consider Health & Fertility as being important or they have yet to start to eliminate using bulls lowly rated for Healthy & Fertility.

Comparing to the Best

Further analysis showed that breeders, for whatever reason, did not use the most highly genetically rated sires. The following tables are comparisons of the most used sires and the breed’s top ten most highly rated proven and genomic sires from mid-2012, the time when the inseminations would have been made to produce the females that were registered in 2013. Note that the ranges for the averages are given following each average.

Table 4 contains the comparison for Ayrshire sires.  The sires used were far superior for type (CONF) but were inferior for Milk, Fat, Protein, Protein %, SCS and DF (daughter fertility) to the top LPI proven sires. Breeders that do not receive significant income from type are foregoing the opportunity for gain in major traits if they place a high requirement on a sire’s CONF index. Note that there was not a CDN listing for genomic Ayrshire sires in 2012.

Table 4 Comparison of Ayrshire Sires Used and Sires Available (2013)

NameSireGTPI*MilkFatProteinNM$PTATOwnerState/Ctry
EDG DAHLIA MOGUL 2257MOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2591239490688853.93Elite Dairy Genomics LLCChebanse , IL
SULLY MAN-O-SHAN MARTHA-ETLADYS-MANOR MAN-O-SHAN-ET2589197488738733.94Mike SullivanKasson , MN
COOKIECUTTER AOAK HAWAII-ETPINE-TREE ALTAOAK-ET25741854108768643.55Denise M. DickinsonHudson Falls , NY
GIL-GAR PREDES MERLOT-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET2553235582779302.89Stelling Farms Inc.Millville , MN
NO-FLA MCCUTCHEN 35646-ETDE-SU BKM MCCUTCHEN 1174-ET2549117369579042.9North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
LARCREST CICADA-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET2543168384638383.78Jon E. LarsonAlbert Lea , MN
COOKIECUTTER PRED HAZARD-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET25411534108639093.16Denise M. DickinsonHudson Falls , NY
WCD-ZBW SUPERSIRE LOVEY-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET25362079100828762.83Kevin & Barbara Ziemba & WoodcLisbon , NY
WINROSS SUPERSIRE MINDY-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET25272429106748863.17Steven S. LantzLeola , PA
MS LATIMER MUSICAL-ETGENERVATIONS LATIMER2517126167508833.07Trans-America GeneticsST-HYACINTHE QUE , WI
LARCREST CIABATTA-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET25161442103618573.55Jon E. LarsonAlbert Lea , MN
MORMANN LAT TABINE 2297-ETGENERVATIONS LATIMER2515103659558952.78Jennifer MormannFarley , IA
JOOK MAURICE 9220-ETMOUNTFIELD MSY MAURICE-ET2511144299559182.74Lester C. Jones & Sons Inc.Massey , MD
RICHMOND-FD GALPAL-ETDE-SU FREDDIE GALAXY-ET2507170366619152.96Chas A Jr & John L RichmondNorth Collins , NY
EDG 4858 MOGUL 2240-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2507156976589003.12Elite Dairy Genomics LLCChebanse , IL
MS AMERICA LAITICIA-ETGENERVATIONS LATIMER2507191496699072.74Trans-America GeneticsSt-Hyacinthe QC , WI
EDG RUBY EARN 2259DA-SO-BURN MOM EARNHARDT P2506201296728842.98Elite Dairy Genomics LLCChebanse , IL
WINROSS SUPERSIRE MARLA-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2495162185658952.88Steven S. LantzLeola , PA
FARNEAR HEADLINER 1722SEAGULL-BAY HEADLINER-ET2493189183548443.18T R & M Simon B & T Rauen &Farley , IA
HARTLINE SS LOU-RAE-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2491115281558673.09Hartline Valley Farms Inc.Marietta , OH
NO-FLA MCCUTCHEN 35703-ETDE-SU BKM MCCUTCHEN 1174-ET2488172385598083.4North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
SIEMERS MCCUTCH ROZ-ETDE-SU BKM MCCUTCHEN 1174-ET2488226781737953.32Siemers Holstein Farms Inc.Newton , WI
FARNEAR MASCALESE 1719ZANI BOLTON MASCALESE-ET2484135883588333.23Rick & Tom Simon B & T Rauen &Farley , IA
RI-VAL-RE SYMP VIVIAN-ETDYMENTHOLM S SYMPATICO2477197888648862.74Aaron JorgensenWebberville , MI
HIGHERRANSOM COIN STITCH-ETFARNEAR-TBR-BH CASHCOIN-ET2472121774578542.95Jeffrey King & Fly-Higher HolsValley Falls , NY
SEAGULL-BAY DAY LIGHT-ETMINNIGAN-HILLS DAY-ET2469141151548313Seagull Bay Dairy Inc.American Falls , ID
WINDY-KNOLL-VIEW PRINCESSSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2469216359688752.48James R. & Nina P. BurdetteMercersburg , PA
LADIES-FIRST SS BLESSING-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET24662644108799382.25Barbara Mountain & Ladies FirsRocky Ridge , MD
SULLY OAK MANDA-ETPINE-TREE ALTAOAK-ET2465188977668173.26Kyle PundsackFreeport , MN
WILLSBRO MERIDIAN PAMMY-ETSULLY HART MERIDIAN-ET2463161351547303.93Wills BrosWadebridge Cornwall ,
HARTLINE SS LIDA RAR-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2456185772638183.14Hartline Valley Farms Inc.Marietta , OH
CO-OP SPS PRUDENCE 7079-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2455265297798682.67Genesis Cooperative HerdShawano , WI
MORMANN MOGUL 1100-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2450176867588452.88Agri-Science Opportunity LLCDurham , NC
ZIMMERVIEW PARDISE SULLY-ETREGANCREST PARADISE-ET2449155766418532.89Dean E. & Brent E. ZimmerMarietta , OH
NO-FLA NUMERO UNO 35742-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET2449152792508003.27North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
LATUCH SUPER LABELLA-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET24441824104767883.01Roger & David LatuchSomerset , PA
STONEHURST SUPER CHRISTY-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2442130989508073.16Stonehurst Farm Dairy SalesStrasburg , PA
INTENSE DAY SPRINKLE1274-ETMINNIGAN-HILLS DAY-ET2441172662548293.02Gregory W. CrouseSparta , NC
LARS-ACRES MOG TRIANGLE-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2439110072388512.89Larson Acres Inc.Evansville , WI
FARNEAR NUMERO UNO 1704AMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET2437146299598682.8Rick & Tom Simon B & T Rauen &Farley , IA
PINE-TREE DASHE OAK 5770-ETPINE-TREE ALTAOAK-ET243593565497153.61Matthew J. SteinerMarshallville , OH
WILLSBRO UNO CLASSYAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET2432122255498042.91Wills BrosWadebridge Cornwall ,
LARCREST COLLAGE-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET2428779109498353.17Jon E. LarsonAlbert Lea , MN
LEADERWIN LEXOR MANDAGENERVATIONS LEXOR2426119065547193.91Steven S. Emanuel J.& James S.Leola , PA
MS KOENEN NUMRO UNO 6034-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET2425150688528233.22A Dykshorn D Kaufmann & G KoeIreton , IA
JOLICAP MORGAN DESIRE-ETS-S-I BOOKEM MORGAN-ET2423144962508482.84Ferme Jolicap IncCap St Ignace PQ , CA
SIEMERS S-SIRE ROZANNE-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET24232244107788082.62Siemers Holstein Farms Inc.Newton , WI
EDG BYSHA CC 2258FARNEAR-TBR-BH CASHCOIN-ET2422187469538243.02Elite Dairy Genomics LLCChebanse , IL
S-S-I MOONRY LEIGHA 9081-ETDE-SU RB MOONRAY 11038-ET2421174290718062.84Select Sires Inc.Plain City , OH
COOKIECUTTER ALOAK HALEX-ETPINE-TREE ALTAOAK-ET2419184598737722.75Denise M. DickinsonHudson Falls , NY
EDG CHRISTA LATIMER 2226-ETGENERVATIONS LATIMER2417174273647603.17Jeffrey Jet ButlerSpringfield , IL
WILLSBOR MOGUL AMBERMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2414145783527463.44Wills BrosWadebridge Cornwall ,
WOODCREST MERIDIAN LURK-ETSULLY HART MERIDIAN-ET2413145555536823.96Woodcrest Dairy LLCLisbon , NY
FLINT-VILLE UNO YESTER-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET2413155497597263.82Lynford & Kevin BurkholderLebanon , PA
MAPLEHURST NUMBER ONE 2941MISTY SPRINGS NUMBER ONE24121625104618033Maplehurst Farm LLCCuyler , NY
MAPLEHURST EVEREST 2953STANTONS EVEREST2412164398578213.02Maplehurst Farm LLCCuyler , NY
HARTLINE SS LINA-RAE-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2411157866637433.12Hartline Valley Farms Inc.Marietta , OH
MS CO-VISTA SUPRSIRE LEE-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2410201985597593.35Russell M GeorgeArcade , NY
NO-FLA MAURICE RAE 35753-ETMOUNTFIELD MSY MAURICE-ET2408149886508552.21North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
WEBB-VUE PREDESTINE 6909-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET2406151973498192.77Robert A. WebbPlymouth , WI
COOKIECUTTER PRE HANDFUL-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET2405177182647852.94Denise M. DickinsonHudson Falls , NY
FARNEAR MASCALESE 1720ZANI BOLTON MASCALESE-ET2403177598677363.33Rick & Tom Simon B & T Rauen &Farley , IA
BO-IRISH-RN SS CHARTERSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2401191370607563.04Gary Housner & Ronald SuhrElroy , WI
NORDIC-RIDGE SUPERS LEGACYSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET24012276109697493.21Mitch AmundsonDe Forest , WI
NO-FLA MAURICE SAR 35024-ETMOUNTFIELD MSY MAURICE-ET2399145861508532.2North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
S-S-I MYSTIC KACI 9075-ETS-S-I SHAMROCK MYSTIC-ET239999468528542.22Select Sires Inc.Plain City , OH
GLEN-D-HAVEN SUP BUMPKIN-ETBLUE-HORIZON ALTASUPLEX2399159558537193.6Paul & Jackie GlendeAltura , MN
HARTFORD ELECTN SARA 423-ETEILDON-TWEED SUP ELECTION2399110254418062.99Robert J. EusticeByron , MN
HARTLINE SS LELIA-RAE-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2398158778558872.26Hartline Valley Farms Inc.Marietta , OH
BUTLERVIEW LET IT SHINE-ETVELTHUIS LET IT SNOW2394133852477193.59Jeffrey ButlerChebanse , IL
MORMANN LAT TAFFY 2295-ETGENERVATIONS LATIMER2394145566617632.98Jennifer MormannFarley , IA
CO-OP SPS PRUDENCE 7080-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2394251895797902.69Genesis Cooperative HerdShawano , WI
WELCOME SUPERSIRE LEOTASEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2392228482697603.16Welcome Stock Farm LLCSchuylerville , NY
MATCREST GALAXY CHARLEE-ETDE-SU FREDDIE GALAXY-ET2392176685637582.9Matthew R. JohnsonBaldwin , WI
ESKDALE MOGUL EXCEL EMMA-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2390105178467473.16Eskdale Center DairyEskdale , UT
KINGS-RANSOM PRED DEBBIE-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET2387138391528142.56Kings-Ransom Farm LLCSchuylerville , NY
NO-FLA GALAXY ZOEY 35590-ETDE-SU FREDDIE GALAXY-ET2386165397587982.51North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
LATUCH PETRONE LIGHT-ETWELCOME SUPER PETRONE-ET2382157958577872.5Roger & David LatuchSomerset , PA
R-E-W ELLYMAE-ETO-COSMOPOLITAN-ET2381224676726883.47Marc J. WolfLebanon , CT
ST GENOMICPRO MUFFYMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2381191073558022.41Sexing TechnologiesNavasota , TX
ZIMMERVIEW MORGAN BRINA-ETS-S-I BOOKEM MORGAN-ET2380122897548042.67Dean E. & Brent E. ZimmerMarietta , OH
MISS HJ NUMEROUNO RICKI-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET2380109161477612.87Ken Horn & Curtis JohanssonLoyal , WI
NO-FLA LITHIUM REE 35570-ETS-S-I DOMAIN LITHIUM-ET2379168240457932.81North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
NO-FLA GALAXY LORA 35639-ETDE-SU FREDDIE GALAXY-ET2379127993527642.72North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
MS GALAXY MURIEL-ETDE-SU FREDDIE GALAXY-ET2376114764477932.73Trans-America GeneticsSt-Hyacinthe QC , WI
AMMON-PEACHEY LR MISS PRISSGENERVATIONS LATIMER2375155056536783.69M & J Ammon & G S PeacheyLewistown , PA
LADIES-FIRST SS BEVERLY-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2372122088518372.51Barbara Mountain & Ladies FirsRocky Ridge , MD
WINDY-KNOLL-VIEW PANCO-TWSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2372189799598022.61James R. & Nina P. BurdetteMercersburg , PA
SPRUCE-HAVEN MASSEY 14691CO-OP BOSSIDE MASSEY-ET2372179278607972.47Doug Young & James NocekUnion Springs , NY
LARCREST CINNABAR-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET237181087497103.39Jon E. LarsonAlbert Lea , MN
EDG ETTY MOGUL 2248-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2370116595547823.06Elite Dairy Genomics LLCChebanse , IL
BOGHILL MOGUL S FAITH ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2370108866398192.66Holstein UKHerts WD3 3BB ,
BRYHILL SUPLEX MYSTIQUE-ETBLUE-HORIZON ALTASUPLEX2368157868597862.85Bryhill Farm IncOrmstown PQ , IA
JA-KNOLL MOGUL DAME-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL236879780417472.98Ja-Knoll DairyOronoco , MN
GUESE-PRTNS UNO RELISH-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET2367103263487662.48Crossroads Dairy LLCPostville , IA
SANDY-VALLEY KRNCH TOPSY-ETHAMMER-CREEK FRED KRUNCH-ET2367205169546703.81Dave Pat Frank Jr. & Greg BStevens Point , WI
LARS-ACRES MOGUL 14639MOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2367146152407133.52Michael A. LarsonEvansville , WI
SULLY CASUAL MCKAYLA-ETLARCREST CASUAL-ET2367178871627632.79Kyle PundsackFreeport , MN
DINOMI LTMR SARA 9735-ETGENERVATIONS LATIMER2365204674597902.8Dino & Mike MigliazzoAtwater , CA
WA-DEL-DM MCCUTCHEN CARA-ETDE-SU BKM MCCUTCHEN 1174-ET2365176867576033.88Darwin Gene HorstChambersburg , PA
ST GENOMICPRO OMYGOSH-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2365123573437483.24Sexing TechnologiesNavasota , TX
QUIET-BROOK-D PRE HOTROD-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET2365150158616843.46John & Denise DickinsonHudson Falls , NY
TJR ARITA MCCUT 2256DE-SU BKM MCCUTCHEN 1174-ET236384272455774.55Adolf Langhout & Tim RauenFarley , IA
MAPLEHURST EVEREST 2960STANTONS EVEREST236261174338452.12Maplehurst Farm LLCCuyler , NY
548077799-ET2362192988647752.42EurogenesFair Play , MD
KERNDTWAY LITHIUM HEMIS-S-I DOMAIN LITHIUM-ET2361185071577632.54Regancrest FarmsWaukon , IA
EDG BABY UNO 2228-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET2361138757457073.35Elite Dairy Genomics LLCChebanse , IL
RONELEE GALXY DESIREABLE-ETDE-SU FREDDIE GALAXY-ET2361187874577512.75Sherman PolinderLynden , WA
WA-DEL-DM MCCUTCHEN CORA-ETDE-SU BKM MCCUTCHEN 1174-ET2360193251546333.79Darwin Gene HorstChambersburg , PA
EDG LACI SHOTGLASS 766-ETBUTZ-BUTLER SHOTGLASS-ET2359238776627542.72Elite Dairy Genomics LLCChebanse , IL
CO-OP SPS 6292 7118-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2359178160517103.31Genesis Cooperative HerdShawano , WI
SAN-DAN LEX CANDICE 2318-ETGENERVATIONS LEXOR2358160076587652.89Daniel & Sandra MormannNew Vienna , IA
N-SPRINGHOPE SSIRE 2071-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2357151268618711.82J Kevin & Barbara NedrowClifton Springs , NY
HOS-COT RANSOM PEARL-ETDE-SU RANSOM-ET2357111572587083.03Samuel C CottrellHoosick , NY
T-SPRUCE SUPERSIRE 7472SEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2356222899727662.65Arnold B. GruenesRichmond , MN
SEAGULL-BAY MAJIC DAY-ETMINNIGAN-HILLS DAY-ET2355122051477363.01Seagull Bay Dairy Inc.American Falls , ID
PENN-ENGLAND GINGER 9730-ETSOUTHERN-HILLS BAYARD-ET2355166468617313.05Penn England LLCWilliamsburg , PA
AR-JOY SUPERSIRE FRITZY-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2355133479487872.47Duane & Marilyn HersheyCochranville , PA
ARMSON MOGUL EVELYNMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2354118269568371.93Armson Farms LLCPavilion , NY
S-S-I PRED MADDIE 9088-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET235388083498561.93Select Sires Inc.Plain City , OH
BACON-HILL PREDSTNE LEAH-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET2352115372567143.07Bacon-Hill Holsteins LLCSchuylerville , NY
SIEMERS SSIRE ROZANNERAE-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET23501711117657202.77Siemers Holstein Farms Inc.Newton , WI
MS EMILY HYPER BALLAD-ETSEAGULL-BAY HEADLINER-ET2350172685596403.56Trans-America GeneticsSt-Hyacinthe QC , CA
MAPLEHURST SUPERSIRE 2957SEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET23481581103608312.11Maplehurst Farm LLCCuyler , NY
WEBB-VUE SHOTGLASS 6913-ETBUTZ-BUTLER SHOTGLASS-ET2348160366398022.66Robert A. WebbPlymouth , WI
CURR-VALE SUPER DUCHESS-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2348181259597153.11Jessica Mae CurrieTully , NY
RI-VAL-RE DOLO OAKLEY-ETRI-VAL-RE OBSRVR DOLO-P-ET2347135261487722.65Aaron JorgensenWebberville , MI
NO-FLA ANDERSON 35259-ETVISION-GEN SHF ANDERSON-ET234681860388202.09North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
SIEMERS SSIRE ROZANNEMAE-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2346153097517652.72Siemers Holstein Farms Inc.Newton , WI
KENMORE CLOUDLESS DAY-ETMINNIGAN-HILLS DAY-ET2346159372557712.46Kenneth H. LarsonDowning , WI
LOT-O-ROK SHAM TASHIALADYS-MANOR PL SHAMROCK-ET2345160167537443.03Chamberlain Dairy Inc.Moses Lake , WA
SANDY-VALLEY HUNTR JULIE-ETCOOKIECUTTER MOM HUNTER-ET23442506104736743.29Dave Pat Frank Jr. & Greg BStevens Point , WI
HIGHERRANSOM PRED SALTY-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET234389775517802.36Jeffrey King & Fly-Higher HolsValley Falls , NY
GOLDEN-OAKS UNO CARLENE-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET234155976387523.03Golden Oaks FarmsWauconda , IL
HIGHERRANSOM PRED SASSY-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET233950465396853.2Jeffrey King & Fly-Higher HolsValley Falls , NY
TTM BRONO 30970-ETREGANCREST-KF OBSV BRONO-ET233896467478272.05Thomas T. MercuroRocky Ridge , MD
RI-VAL-RE EHARDT NIK-ETDA-SO-BURN MOM EARNHARDT P2338181889846862.75Aaron JorgensenWebberville , MI
SPRUCE-HAVEN LEXOR 14682GENERVATIONS LEXOR23381241100667522.61Doug Young & James NocekUnion Springs , NY
WOODCREST PREDEST LENTIL-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET233758585427682.85Woodcrest Dairy LLCLisbon , NY
PINE-TREE 4187 TAPE 5753-ETPINE-TREE BRIANNE TAPE-ET233767472337792.79Matthew J. SteinerMarshallville , OH
RICKLAND SUPERSIRE 4593-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2337190870577492.65Greg RickertEldorado , WI
SEAGULL-BAY EHDT MAJIC-ETDA-SO-BURN MOM EARNHARDT P2336175978707572.27Seagull Bay Dairy Inc.American Falls , ID
SPRUCE-HAVEN DESTINED *RC 146CURR-VALE DESTINED-ET233689959407392.91Doug Young & James NocekUnion Springs , NY
LARS-ACRES PETRONE 14710WELCOME SUPER PETRONE-ET2335166649418012.33Michael A. LarsonEvansville , WI
APPEALING GALAXY HOOCHIEDE-SU FREDDIE GALAXY-ET2335208259567582.85S. Scott & April D. CooperDelta , PA
KINGS-RANSOM SHAN DIXA-ETLADYS-MANOR MAN-O-SHAN-ET2335156288626933.06Kings-Ransom Farm LLCSchuylerville , NY
C-HAVEN MOGUL 1395-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2333123064506993.03T. Priest & T T. MercuroGreencastle , PA
NO-FLA SUPERSIRE 35696-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2333161976598221.63North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
CO-OP UPD GALAXY 6319-ETDE-SU FREDDIE GALAXY-ET233273459408751.61Genesis Cooperative HerdShawano , WI
VEKIS ELSA QUEEN-ETCO-OP BOSSIDE MASSEY-ET2330111496517902.2EurogenesFair Play , MD
RI-VAL-RE SUPERSIRE NADOLASEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2330173371647512.34Aaron JorgensenWebberville , MI
S-S-I ARIWAMI OLEGANT DUSTYUFM-DUBS OLEGANT-ET232975067318001.96Brand Dairy FarmWaterloo , IN
INTENSE LITHIUM 1275-ETS-S-I DOMAIN LITHIUM-ET2328167650537682.34Gregory W. CrouseSparta , NC
MS KOENEN NUMRO UNO 6022-ETAMIGHETTI NUMERO UNO-ET2328139381427213.31A Dykshorn D Kaufmann & G KoeIreton , IA
BO-IRISH-RN MOG BIGWIG-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2328126183516803.35Gary Housner & Ronald SuhrElroy , WI
JE-KO MAN GUESS CRI-ETSULLY MANDORA CRI-ET232881561437172.78Genesis Cooperative HerdShawano , WI
SIEMERS HLINER ROZ-IS-IT-ETSEAGULL-BAY HEADLINER-ET2327207190686313.39Siemers Holstein Farms Inc.Newton , WI
BRYHILL SUPLEX MADALENA-ETBLUE-HORIZON ALTASUPLEX2326166649577202.76Bryhill Farm IncOrmstown PQ , IA
S-S-I PREDEST SINA 9091-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET2326189287547472.72Select Sires Inc.Plain City , OH
AURORA SHOTGLASS 13899-ETBUTZ-BUTLER SHOTGLASS-ET2326238562677352.7Aurora Ridge Dairy LLCAurora , NY
KINGS-RANSOM PREDES APPLERICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET232681064317412.97Kings-Ransom Farm LLCSchuylerville , NY
CO-OP GRAFEETI GABRIEL 7128LADYS-MANOR RD GRAFEETI-ET2325153270447822.35Genesis Cooperative HerdShawano , WI
BROEKS ENEKEM-ETDE-SU 521 BOOKEM-ET2325159055536923.17Broekhuis Vee & H.Overijssel 7665 TV ,
SANDY-VALLEY SUPRSIRE BO-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2325202282627223.19Dave Pat Frank Jr. & Greg BStevens Point , WI
MATT-DARI SUPERSI MAIZIE-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2325211582577502.98Matthiae Dairy Farm Inc.Marathon , WI
NO-FLA CASUAL KYLA 35589LARCREST CASUAL-ET2324138459608451.48North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
MS SIZZLE CASHCOIN 772-ETFARNEAR-TBR-BH CASHCOIN-ET2324131481477332.86Elite Dairy Genomics LLCChebanse , IL
GIBBS MCC FINITYDE-SU BKM MCCUTCHEN 1174-ET2324126854506233.35Joseph J. GibbsEpworth , IA
EILDON-TWEED SS BELLA-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2322188494727013.09David R. WoodAmsterdam , NY
NO-FLA SUPERSIRE 35747-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2322143368617481.9North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
CO-OP LITHIUM 6287 7123-ETS-S-I DOMAIN LITHIUM-ET2322133653447872.19Genesis Cooperative HerdShawano , WI
NO-FLA SUPERSIRE 35759-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2321183784587832.27North Florida HolsteinsBell , FL
SPRUCE-HAVEN MCCUTCHEN 14660DE-SU BKM MCCUTCHEN 1174-ET2321105367496473.26Doug Young & James NocekUnion Springs , NY
RABUR MOGUL PICANTE-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2320109479377303.14R. Paul Buhr Jr.Viroqua , WI
FARNEAR-TBR-BH BRONO 2172REGANCREST-KF OBSV BRONO-ET2320219365726673.05Rick & Tom SimonFarley , IA
T-SPRUCE DADDY 7468RONELEE SSI O DADDY-ET2318167536506413.54Arnold B. GruenesRichmond , MN
HAR-DALE-ACRES-JP PAPER-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2318197177707552.04Fred & Matt HarderAthens , WI
HILLS-END SS CURLEY SUE-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2318137695507542.74Steven ConnersLake , MI
BLUMENFELD RAN BRIZA CRI-ETDE-SU RANSOM-ET231849783427682.27Genesis Cooperative HerdShawano , WI
EILDON-TWEED L CHASER-ETS-S-I DOMAIN LITHIUM-ET2317156264507912.42David R. WoodAmsterdam , NY
EDG HALLE MCCUT 2117-ETDE-SU BKM MCCUTCHEN 1174-ET2317135055486993Elite Dairy Genomics LLCChebanse , IL
AMMON FARMS STG MYALEXIS-ETBUTZ-BUTLER SHOTGLASS-ET2316215683587153.11Michael & Jill AmmonLewistown , PA
COASTAL-VIEW MD DYLA 430-ETSULLY MANDORA CRI-ET2316170747447912.29Jo L Averill FarmTillamook , OR
EDG ETTY MOGUL 2243-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL231696175477193.13Elite Dairy Genomics LLCChebanse , IL
WELCOME PARKER-P WHIT-ETHICKORYMEA PARKER P-ET231685868517322.37Welcome Stock Farm LLCSchuylerville , NY
JOOK MAURICE 9224-ETMOUNTFIELD MSY MAURICE-ET2316130965457172.68Lester C. Jones & Sons Inc.Massey , MD
CO-OP SPS SIBELLA 7122-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET231695390487562.6Genesis Cooperative HerdShawano , WI
BINDERWAY O DELICIOUS-ETRONELEE SSI O DADDY-ET2315162264515963.87Virgil GoodStevens , PA
N-SPRINGHOPE SUPERSIRE 2076SEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2315167394617552.33J Kevin & Barbara NedrowClifton Springs , NY
DF LITHIUM BELLE A 1194-ETS-S-I DOMAIN LITHIUM-ET2315143458477212.79Daisy Farms LLCParis , TX
EDG ARMADA MERIDIAN 2107SULLY HART MERIDIAN-ET2314135768556173.5Elite Dairy Genomics LLCChebanse , IL
CO-VISTA ART DEZ-ETMR AUBREY OBSERVER ART-ET2314187444605953.71Russell M GeorgeArcade , NY
WILLSBRO MOGUL N PAMMYMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2314144470476613.35Wills BrosWadebridge Cornwall ,
HARTLINE SS LEXIE-RAE-ETSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2313100362386773.08Hartline Valley Farms Inc.Marietta , OH
CO-OP UPD GALAXY 6570-ETDE-SU FREDDIE GALAXY-ET2313125644446832.7Genesis Cooperative HerdShawano , WI
WINDY-KNOLL-VIEW PANSIE-TWSEAGULL-BAY SUPERSIRE-ET2312170285486763.5James R. & Nina P. BurdetteMercersburg , PA
GIL-GAR PREDES MARACA-ETRICKLAND PREDESTINE 669-ET2312154087547972.24Stelling Farms Inc.Millville , MN
WSA COSMO-ETMOUNTFIELD SSI DCY MOGUL2309111363447582.3A L H Genetics BVDamwoude ,
RI-VAL-RE SYMP AUBURN-ETDYMENTHOLM S SYMPATICO2309133371367952.46Aaron JorgensenWebberville , MI
ST GENOMICPRO BRINGO-ETSULLY HART MERIDIAN-ET2308201761656513.2Sexing TechnologiesNavasota , TX

The comparison for Holstein sires of used and available (Table 5) shows some interesting facts.  Breeders, here again, want their sires to be high type and high fat % and are prepared to give up Milk and Protein to get that higher type and fat %. The genomic sires available far exceed both the most used and top proven for Milk, Fat and Protein yields.

Table 5 Comparison of Holstein Sires Used and Sires Available (2013)

NameMilkFatProtNM$PTATRelBPI
DE-SU OBSERVER160261527922.70.9999.8%
BADGER-BLUFF FANNY FREDDIE123654437791.570.9998.7%
DE-SU GULF148973405492.80.9292.9%
MORNINGVIEW LEVI87668546931.40.9591.3%
COYNE-FARMS SHOTLE YANCE181575545161.90.9389.6%
DE-SU HISTORY152484585672.410.9389.2%
LONG-LANGS OMAN OMAN126281735882.170.9988.3%
END-ROAD O-MAN BRONCO-ET177047625122.080.9988.1%
O-BEE MANFRED JUSTICE7816346643-0.070.9987.4%
VA-EARLY-DAWN SUDAN CRI126882535381.790.9286.8%
 

In the Jersey sires (Table 5) used compared to proven available, the major difference is in SCS. The most used sires are quite inferior in SCS to the top ten proven sires available.  Again as in Holsteins, the Jersey genomic sires stand out for their superiority for Milk, Fat and Protein yields. In the Jersey sires the ranges around the averages are larger than in Ayrshire or Holstein.

Table 6  Comparison of Jersey Sires Used and Sires Available (2013)

NameMilkFatProtNM$PTATRelBPI
MR LOOKOUT P ENFORCER173174677082.750.73100.0%
MR LOOKOUT PESCE ALTA5G102053466.123.960.7298.4%
DE-SU JEROD 1223161089518472.710.7497.5%
COYNE-FARMS JABIR144195558852.660.7296.7%
RMW ANCHOR147498477163.040.7294.8%
MR LOOKOUT P EMBARGO148594566443.380.7293.8%
DE-SU DISTINCTION 111301754976483430.7293.8%
WELCOME ARMITAGE PESKY102492637442.30.7293.6%
SULLY MCCORD 269141390537803.170.7192.9%

Factors Needing Consideration

When selecting sires to use in the future, breeders everywhere need to consider the following facts:

  1. Global demand for cheese is increasing and so a sire’s genetic index for protein yield is important.
  2. Breeding stock sales based on type are not as financially rewarding as they once were (Read more: An Insider’s Guide to What Sells at the Big Dairy Cattle Auctions and Where did the money go?).
  3. Total merit indexes (TPI, NM$, LPI, etc.) should to be based on genetic needs five to ten years in the future.
  4. The genetic merit of our dairy cattle for fertility must be improved.
  5. Sires with even one significant limiting factor should be avoided.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

The perfect bull does not and likely never will exist. Every breeder will have their own genetic goals for their herd. The time has come for breeders to start planning five to ten years out and to avoid sires that will leave more culls at younger ages, extra expense per cow and added labour per cow.  For most breeders that means not using sires that are not in the top 25% (>74%RK) for all of gLPI, Production, Durability and Health & Fertility.

 

 

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The 16 Sires from the April 2014 Genetic Evaluations That Stand Out

Everyone is looking for sires that will give them the fastest rate of genetic advancement.  The problem is those sires don’t always appear at the top of the TPI or other Index lists.  That is why, here at the Bullvine, we have listed  the fastest genetic advancement sires.  We also want to keep it relatively simple, so similar to aAa, we will give you the sires that are best in each of the five corrective mating areas that producers are most concerned about – balance, production, longevity/durability and health and fertility.  The following are our resulting recommendations from the April 2014 Genetic Evaluations:

Overall Performance Improvement

When it comes to an overall performance sire, we are looking for those sires that excel in three key areas – production, durability and health & fertility.

Capital Gain

Stantons Capital Gain80HO06053
Stantons Capital Gain
Mccutchen x Observer x Shottle

From the REGANCREST-PR BARBIE EX-92-7YR-USA    DOM GMD   6* mostly known for their high type numbers comes a very balanced sire – CAPITAL GAIN.   Adding to the female side of the pedigree is a sire stack that reads like a who’s who (McCutchen x Observer x Shottle x Champion x Durham x Juror x Aerostar).    CAPITAL GAIN ranks in the top 1% of the breed for the major categories.   He is over 2000lbs of milk, 4 points for PTAT and productive life and health and fertility.  Some areas that he will need to be watched for are his short teats, high rump angle and loin strength, as well as the set and curve of his read legs.  CAPITAL GAIN’s chromosomal test would indicate that he should also be a strong sire of sons, as he possesses a very dominant maternal contribution to his genetic evaluations.

 

 

 

Picardus

029HO14825
Pine-Tree Picardus
Planet x O Man x Rudolph

A grandson of WESSWOOD-HC RUDY MISSY EX-92 3E GMD DOM that may not be on everyone’s radar but should be is PICARDUS. He is the 2nd highest new release sire this round (Read more:  April 2014 US Holstein Sire Proof Highlights).   Picardus’ dam is an Oman daughter of Missy. As his sire stack would indicate, Picardus has a strong production proof with good components. While his +1.92 PTAT may have some wondering how he could make the balanced sire list, his daughters are very functional and possess open ribs and high wide rear udders.    While his overall feet & legs score is an area for improvement at +0.61, his feet & legs are strong enough in the key areas.  Picardus’ official daughter proof is only 31 points below that of his initial genomic proof of April 2011 at +2239 gTPI.

 

 

 

Denver 1426

Mr Mogul Denver 1426151HO00690
Mr Mogul Denver 1426
Mogul x Robust x Planet

An interesting balanced outcross sire that catches our eye comes from the WINDSOR-MANOR RUD ZIP EX-95-4E-USA  DOM GMD  1* is DENVER 1426.  He is a Mogul from the popular genomic bull mother MISS OCD ROBST DELICIOUS VG-86 GTPI+2546 who was the No.1 cow on the Locator List.   At over 2000lbs of milk, almost 3 points on type and 4.7 for productive life, DENVER 1426 possesses a very balanced genomic proof that is above his already high parent averages.   His strong maternal line indicates that he should be a strong sire of daughters but may not be an extreme sire of sons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eraser P

Kerndtway Eraser P07HO12229
Kerndtway Eraser P
Earnhardt P x Observer x Shottle

There is no question that polled sires are gaining rapidly on those sires at the top of the list.  One of those sires that is leading the charge is ERASER P.  With 145 lbs combined fat and protein, almost 3 points on type, +4.0 PL and strong health and fertility numbers, ERASER P offers an outstanding balanced polled option.  One area that you will want to protect ERASER P on is his body depth.  While his daughters will not be dominating the tanbark trail, they will have strong udders with great texture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Production

Instead of just giving you the top overall production sires, we understand that you still need to have some emphasis on durability and health traits.  Therefore, we put a heavy weighting on production (66%) but did not forget those   two key areas.  The following are the sires that stood out the most for us:

Josuper

Uecker Supersire Josuper29HO17553
Uecker Supersire Josuper
Supersire x Beacon x Jango

While his prefix may not be known to many breeders, this Supersire son is certainly going to get a lot of attention.  At +2499 gTPI JOSUPER is the highest TPI sire over 2800 lbs of milk.  Combine that with positive deviations for fat and protein and there is no question that JOSUPER will give you a strong production kick when needed.  While his type evaluation is very functional, a couple of areas to protect him on include his rump angle and the set of his rear legs.  With a strong maternal chromosomal contribution JOSUPER should also be a strong sire of sons.  This is something we have found to be very typical of high production sires.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robust

Roylane Socra Robust07HO10524
Roylane Socra Robust
Socrates x O Man x Manat

In addition to JOSUPER, those breeders looking for a proven sire with a strong production kick should be considering ROBUST.  Already a heavily used genomic sire, ROBUST’s proof indicates that he is the real deal.  (Read more: )  Robust has proven to be a great performance improver. He is a high NM$ (+834) Velvet-View-KJ SOCRATES-ET (EX-94-GM) son from Seagull-Bay Oman Mirror (VG-86-DOM). He transmits exceptional components (+.15% Fat, +102 Fat, +.05% Protein, +64 Protein) and outstanding longevity (+5.2 Productive Life). A Calving Ease and relative outcross sire, ROBUST moderates stature and adds height and width to the rear udder. Robust will work best on tall deep cattle that need feet and leg improvement.

 

 

 

 

Montross

Bacon-Hill Montross07HO12165
Bacon-Hill Montross
Mogul x Bolton x AltaRolex

Inbreeding is certainly becoming a greater and greater issue among the top sires.  An outcross production sire that caught our eye is MONTROSS.  As is typically the case with many true outcross pedigrees, his maternal side is not that well known.  But his dam UNIQUE-STYLE BOLTON MONEY EX-91 DOM has certainly become a popular bull mother, with 15 sons at 5 different AI units.  At +845 NM$ there is no question that MONTROSS will offer a great production kick and have enough durability, health and fertility to last.  At over 2 points for UDC and FLC MONTROSS has strong functional type but should be protected for straightness of rear legs and overall frame and capacity traits.  However, as we have seen from research in the past, you don’t need extreme frame traits in order to achieve extreme lifetime production.  (Read more: She Ain’t Pretty – She Just Milks That Way!).

 

 

 

Socrates P

Bryhill Socrates P151HO00703
Bryhill Socrates P
Supersire x Shottbolt x Goldwyn

A Supersire from the very popular polled bull mother VENTURE SHOTTBOLT SIZZLE P VG-86, SOCRATES P will give you a production punch with a polled kicker added in.   Following in his father’s footsteps, SOCRATES P offers strong production improvement with good health and fertility traits and solid conformation traits.  With +164 lbs of combined fat and protein, SOCRATES P is the highest component polled sire available in the world.  A couple of areas to watch for when using SOCRATES P is his rump angle (high) as well as overall frame and dairy strength.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Longevity Improvement

There is more to longevity than just conformation numbers, as our very popular article  “She ain’t pretty she just milks that way” has demonstrated.  So with that in mind, instead of just giving you the top conformation sires we have also put weighting on production, productive life, and health and fertility.

High Octane

Stantons High Octane2080HO06052
Stantons High Octane
McCutchen x Observer x Shottle

Joining his full brother Capital Gain as a sire to use in order to improve longevity is HIGH OCTANE.  At +4.10 Type with a DGV for conformation at +23, HIGH OCTANE is certainly a breed leader for conformation improvement.  HIGH OCTANE combines that with +2096 lbs of Milk and over +4.2 PL, making him a conformation sire with a shot of production and a longevity chaser.  You will need to protect him on his % components and short teats.  HIGH OCTANE does offer a great alternative to those not wanting to use Capital Gain because of his high rump angle, as HIGH OCTANE’s genomic test would indicate that he actually sires low pins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

G W Atwood

Maple-Downs-I G W Atwood207HO10506
Maple-Downs-I G W Atwood
Goldwyn x Durham x Storm B/R

It’s really hard to discuss type improvement without including G W ATWOOD.  (Read more: The 10 Extreme Type Sires Most Likely To Sire the Next World Champion).  However unlike many of the top type sires who are negative for production and low fertility scores, Atwood actually has solid components and acceptable health and fertility numbers. Atwood offers the great mammary systems his pedigree would indicate however he needs to be protected for flat loins and high pins, much like his sire.  While you most certainly would want to protect him on production and daughter fertility, Atwood will add a punch of type to your high producing 2yr olds that, for whatever reason, may not be around for many more lactations.

 

 

 

 

 

McGucci

Mr Apples Mcgucci179HO00099
MR Apples McGucci
McCutchen x Regiment-RED x Durham

For those looking for something a little different and yet a pedigree that the market will be heavily interested in, there is MCGUCCI.  This McCutchen son is from none other than the world famous KHW REGIMENT APPLE-RED-ET CV EX-96 3E DOM (Read more: KHW Regiment Apple-Red – Beauty, performance, and even more record accomplishments).  While Apple has been long known in the R&W market for strong type, the family has been coming on strong in the overall index rankings over recent years.  Interestingly MCGUCCI is not from a grand-daughter, like the high indexing EASTSIDE LEWISDALE GOLD MISSY daughters that have come on so strong for that show winning cow, but rather he is direct from Apple herself.  While you certainly will need to protect MCGUCCI on his production, he does offer component improvement and strong health and fertility traits.  As is typical with the Apple family, you will need to protect him on rumps.

 

 

 

 

Champ P

All-Riehl Ladds Champ138HO05307
All-Riehl Ladds Champ
Ladd-Red x Super x Shottle

In addition to Eraser P, those breeders looking for a polled sire to improve longevity should consider CHAMP P.  CHAMP P’s dam TRULEA SUPER CHARITY7296-ET VG-88 was the number 23 gTPI cow on the locator list (GP-83 or higher).  Behind that are 3 EX dams so it’s no wonder CHAMP P comes to the top of the list.  But what really catches our attention is his +7.1 PL and positive components.  These are exactly what you need when looking for longevity improvement.  You will need to protect CHAMP P on his body depth and rump angle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health and Fertility Improvement

There is no question that management is key when improving overall herd health and fertility. Having said that, with the introduction of genomics and the increased reliability, it is now becoming more and more important for your breeding programs to look at health and fertility traits and sires that excel in those areas. Here are some that you should take a closer look at.

Yoder

Woodcrest Mogul Yoder207HO12266
Woodcrest Mogul Yoder
Mogul x Planet x Buckeye

While Capital Gain, Josuper, High Octane, Denver 1426 are all sires to consider when looking for health and fertility improvement, an extreme outlier sire that you should consider is YODER.  His genomic test is 7% higher than his parent averages and his production predicted daughter deviations are some of the highest in the breed. These high ratings contribute to his #9 overall ranking on the top genomic TPI young sires list. (Read more: The Number That Will Change the Way You Look At Genetic Evaluations Forever…) YODER comes from a long line of high production cows and is a direct descendant of the well-known brood cow, Milkworth Manfred Yadda (VG-86-GMD-DOM).  He ranks high for Net Merit (NM$) (+924) and Cheese Merit (CM$) (+1,002).  YODER is a fitness trait specialist with low Somatic Cell Score (SCS) (2.74) and terrific Productive Life (PL) (+5.3).  While results are sure to be highly variable, Yoder will certainly be worth taking the shot on if you are looking to produce that next generation of extreme production daughters and sons from a large framed high production cow.  If you are looking for more on outlier sires check out The 10 Outlier Sires that will Accelerate Your Genetic Gain the Fastest.

 

 

 

AltaGreatest

Den-K Altagreatest011HO10928
Den-K AltaGreatest
Planet x Bolton x BW Marshall

The highest new release gTPI proven sire this round was Den-K AltaGreatest and he is also an extreme health and fertility improvement sire.  He comes in at #5 gTPI on the US proven list. AltaGreatest is from the Den-K Rudolph Cub Kiddy EX-91 2E GMD DOM family. An extreme production sire with high components, AltaGreatest also has functional type. Look for AltaGreatest daughters to have shallow udders with strong suspensory ligaments. One area the AltaGreatest daughters will need to be protected on is their rump angle and pin width. AltaGreatest will work well on your straight legged cows, as long as they have good foot angle.  It is interesting to note that AltaGreatest`s official proof is within 60 points of his initial genomic proof back in April 2011 of gTPI +2315.  For more new release highlights from the past round check out April 2014 US Holstein Sire Proof Highlights.

 

 

 

Pure

Ste Odile Pure200HO10024
Ste Odile Pure
Mogul x Man-O-Man x AltaBaxter

When looking for an outcross sire to improve health and fertility, there is Denver 1426, Yoder, Montross and PURE.  PURE’s dam, STE ODILE MANOMAN MOD PLATINE VG-86-2YR, is the #5 GLPI cow in Canada and is a full sister to the #1 GLPI cow in Canada for 3 consecutive runs, STE ODILE MANOMAN MODEL SAPHIR VG 2Yr.  PURE combines outstanding production (+2239 lbs Milk, +87F and +74P) with strong type (+3.17 PTAT, +2.91 UDC, +2.71 FLC) and outstanding health and fertility traits (+5.3 PL, +2.89 SCS, +5.9 Sire Calving Ease, +5.0 Daughter Calving Ease).  Pure will work best on big opened framed cows, as these are areas that he needs to be protected on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Science P

200HO06584
Bryhill Science P Bryhill Science P
Numero Uno x Shottbolt x Goldwyn

For those looking to get really ahead of the marketplace, there is no better way to do than to combine polled and health and fertility traits.  In addition to Eraser P and Socrates P, there is SCIENCE P.  SCIENCE P is the Numero Uno brother to Socrates P by Shottle from VENTURE SHOTTBOLT SIZZLE P VG-86.   Look for SCIENCE P for average production with strong components. He will also offer a strong type improvement but needs to be protected on his rump angle. Where he will really shine is in his health and fertility traits (+4.1 PL, +2.68 SCS, +7.3 SCE, +5.9 DCE).

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bottom Line

There is no question that the rate of genetic gain is as fast as it has ever been in the history of dairy cattle breeding.   What we are now starting to see is that the top genomic sires are becoming the top proven sires and the top proven sires numbers are holding better than the ever have before.


The Dairy Breeders No BS Guide to Genomics

 

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 10 Extreme Type Sires Most Likely To Sire the Next World Champion

top read 14 iconThere is no question that breeding the next World Champion, World Dairy Expo Holstein Champion or even a Royal Winter Fair Grand Champion is the dream of almost every breeder who has ever entered the show ring.  The challenge is that achieving such a feat takes a combination of many factors.  First you have to have the genetics to win.  Then you need to have the will to win.  And of course, then everything must come together on show day if you are to achieve that dream.  In looking at the first part of this equation, there is no doubt that breeding is part science and part art form.  But at least from the science part, we thought we would take a deeper look.  So we went looking for two key things, first those sires that excel in those traits that are in demand in the show ring, and secondly those sires that  have the ability to produce the extremes, not just the averages.  You see we are not wanting those sires that will give you five out of  five VG-85-2YR olds.  We are wanting those sires that stand the best chance of giving you that 89 point2YR old that turns into your 97 point mature cow, which can then contend for all the big show awards.

An Explanation about Outliers

The easiest way to find outliers is to compare two sires for their daughters’ performance.  Then identify those sires that have the greatest deviation from their average daughter.  This is not to be confused with Type scores in the US that are expressed in Standard Deviations.  The best way to describe this is by an example.

Let’s say we have two bulls each with 10 daughters.  The following table shows their level of improvement for type across the 10 Daughters.

daudevconfind

Both of these sires would have an average improvement of 12 points.  Hypothetically if this was the whole population of their daughters they both would get the same conformation score.  The problem is they are two very different sires and the numbers tell us that.  However these are not the numbers that most breeders get to see.

Looking closer we see that Bull A daughters have a range of 18 points while Bull B’s daughters only range 4 points.  Sure both bulls, on av
erage, will perform the same but, when you are looking to breed for the extremes (such as show breeders are), or you are wanting to produce the most consistent results possible, you need to know these differences between bulls.  (Read more: Duds and Studs – Why you shouldn’t use the same sires as the AI units).  This is also the reason you will often see AI units using a sire of sons that is maybe not #1 on the list, but rather a few places lower.  That is because he has exhibited the ability to show the greatest range in his progeny.  (Read more: The Number That Will Change the Way You Look at Genetic Evaluations Forever)

The following are the top 10 sires we found:

#10 –LAUTHORITY

COMESTAR LAUTHORITYCOMESTAR LAUTHORITY
HOCANM103455217
200HO05588

First let’s be clear about what we are talking about.  We are talking about breeding the next generation of World Champions.  There is no question that Goldwyn is dominating this generation, but who will be the next sire to achieve such greatness.  So it’s only natural that at least a couple of Goldwyn’s make the list.  Lauthority, a Goldwyn from the great Laurie Sheik family, may not be as much an extreme sire higher up on our list, as he is more of a mister consistent sire, but his tall dairy daughters are just too special to not have on our list.  His daughters can tend to be a little flatter in the loin than would be desired, but his extreme mammary systems, combined with wide rumps will certainly catch the eye of many judges.

#9 – GOLDEN DREAMS

HEAVENLY GOLDEN DREAMSHEAVENLY GOLDEN DREAMS
HOGBRM642262
206HO00148

The 2nd Goldwyn sire on our list is HEAVENLY GOLDEN DREAMS.  This full brother to Atwood had a very impressive showing at the recent Italian National Show (Read more: Cremona Italy National Holstein Show Results).  Golden Dreams actually has higher genomic tests for all the major conformation traits than Atwood, especially in rumps, an area that if I was going to fault Atwood on it would be thus area.  Golden Dreams daughters may not be as deep as Atwood’s.

VISION-GEN SHF MAXIMUS

#8 – MAXIMUS

VISION-GEN SHF MAXIMUS
HOUSAM69314816
076HO00647

It’s no surprise that the first genomic test sire on our list comes from one of the hottest genomic families in the world the Rudy Missy’s.  Maximus is an Atwood son from PINE-TREE SHOTTLE MINNIE, who is a sister to the popular type sire, Pine-Tree Sid.  It’s no surprise that when you put the cow family that produced Sid, combined with Atwood/Goldwyn bloodlines that the potential for greatness is there.  You can expect Maximus daughters to be tall, walk uphill and have extreme angularity, though you will need to protect him in the pin setting.  However, with a genomic conformation test that is 6 points higher than his parent average he certainly got the best these two great cow families had to offer (+20 vs +14).

#7 – SNOWY

LOOKOUT PESCE SNOWYLOOKOUT PESCE SNOWY
HOCANM108250917
200HO06610

For those of you who are not afraid of genomics, but rather see it as a way to get ahead, there is Snowy.  No surprise this genomic giant came from the De-Su, considering that De-Su seems to be the only breeder that is able to keep pace with the large genetic corporations.  (Read more: Dairy Breeders vs. Genetic Corporations: Who are the True Master Breeders?)  In Snowy you have some legends when it comes to producing sons.  Through Let it Snow (his sire) you have Broeks MBM Elsa EX 1* NLD and LYLEHAVEN LILA Z EX-94 18*, both Golden Dam Finalists. (Read more:  BROEKS MBM ELSA – 2012 Golden Dam Finalist and LYLEHAVEN LILA Z – 2012 Golden Dam Finalist).  Through his maternal side you have another Golden Dam finalist MD-DELIGHT DURHAM ATLEE EX-92 GMD DOM 6* (Read more: MD DELIGHT DURHAM ATLEE – 2012 Golden Dam Finalist) and DE-SU 7051 EX DOM.  It’s no wonder that Snowy is tied for the highest DGV Conformation test at +24.  Expect his daughters to be tall and dairy with great feet and legs.  While his rumps may not be great for calving ease, they should be fine for the show ring.

#6 – BROKAW

MR ATWOOD BROKAWMR ATWOOD BROKAW
HOUSAM140602463
007HO11118

In an era when it seems that genomic sires come and go quickly or, more accurately, are constantly being surpassed by the new hot sire, Brokaw has been able to stand strong.  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 Intermediate Champion at Madison in 2005 followed by her grand dam 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 be extremely tall and have the necessary frame, dairyness and bolted on udders to get the job done.  While his rumps may not be ideal for classification, expect them to be bang on when it comes to the show ring, demonstrating the necessary width and boxcar rumps that judges love so much.

#5 – HIGH OCTANE

STANTONS HIGH OCTANESTANTONS HIGH OCTANE
HOCANM11696704
080HO06052

For those who are willing to take a flyer on a non-show family and a sire stack that may not be proven in the show ring there is the extreme genomic index sire Stantons High Octane.  High Octane also has a DGV for conformation of +24.  While his sire stack does not say it, his genomic conformation break down has High Octane built for the show ring.  He ranks in the top DGV’s of the breed for conformation, Mammary System, Dairy Strength, and Rumps.  The challenge for many breeders will be that there isn`t any show pedigree behind him even though he does trace back to the Barbie’s through Golden Dam finalists REGANCREST S CHASSITY EX-92-4YR-USA DOM GMD 9* and her dam REGANCREST CINDERELLA EX-92-2E-USA DOM GMD 6*. (Read more: REGANCREST S CHASSITY – 2012 Golden Dam Finalist)

#4 – DILIGENT

CLAYNOOK DILIGENTCLAYNOOK DILIGENT
HOCANM11595050
200HO10095

A third sire with a DGV for conformation +24 is CLAYNOOK DILIGENT.  This early Velthuis Let It Snow is from the WINDSOR-MANOR RUD ZIP EX-95-4E-USA DOM GMD 1* cow family.  Similar to High Octane, Diligent’s pedigree may not read as a who’s who of the show ring, with sires like Snowman and a double dose of Planet, but if you have confidence in the genomic system, this sire is sure to deliver.  The nice part about Diligent is that there is no Goldwyn in his pedigree.  Therefore he can be an outcross sire to use on your Goldwyn daughters.  In fact Diligent is a nice conformation cross on the typical Goldwyn as he excels in both pin width and body depth without sacrificing the mammary system.

#3 – AFTERSHOCK

MS ATLEES SHT AFTERSHOCKMS ATLEES SHT AFTERSHOCK
HOUSAM65249839
094HO14105

While AFTERSHOCK daughters are not as silky or refined as many Goldwyn’s, he does make a great proven cross on your Goldwyn’s.  As proven by his Goldwyn brother, Atwood, there really is no question that the cross can deliver at the highest levels.  While you won’t typically get that all black heifer that the show ring loves, you will get extreme loin strength, feet and legs and dairy strength.  That is just what many Goldwyn’s require to take them to the next level.

#2 – SAVIOR

LADYS-MANOR SAVIORLADYS-MANOR SAVIOR
HOUSAM71057277
200HO03855

The last of our genomic test sires and the greatest outlier in the breed for type is LADYS-MANOR SAVIOR.  This Lauthority son (#10 on our list), has insane genomic tests.  His genomic test for conformation +24 is tied for tops in the breed and is 10 points higher than his parent average (+14).  From the same cow family as that produced Shamrock, Savior’s third dam is LADYS-MANOR RUBY JEN EX-94-2E-USA DOM GMD.  When looking to produce an extreme outlier, you need to mate them to exactly such   an extreme outlier as this.  SAVIOR is that extreme outlier.  His linear is perfect for the show ring, and he will certainly leave a range in his daughters, as he is also a list topper when it comes to daughter deviation.

#1 – ATWOOD

MAPLE-DOWNS-I G W ATWOODMAPLE-DOWNS-I G W ATWOOD
HOCANM8956379
007HO10506

Call it playing it safe, or call it the smart choice, either way you look at it, Atwood and his extensive use and consistent transmitting ability will certainly leave the most daughters that will contend with those of his sire Goldwyn.  There are so many reasons to choose Atwood.  First you have the magic Goldwyn on Durham cross, then you add in his dam who was  the exceptional MD-DELIGHT DURHAM ATLEE EX-92-4YR-USA DOM GMD 2*.  Atlee also had extreme conformation herself, winning Reserve Intermediate Champion at Madison in 2005, and going on to be named unanimous ALL-AMERICAN SR.3-YR that year.  She comes by it naturally with her grand dam being MS Kingstead Chief Adeen EX-94.  Combine that with the greatest type sire of the past half-decade, Goldwyn, and you have yourself an unbeatable show-winning package.  Atwood offers the great mammary systems his pedigree would indicate but needs to be protected for flat loins and high pins, much like his sire.  While he may not pass his sire in accomplishments, there is no question that Atwood is establishing himself as the heir apparent.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

While playing it safe will certainly give you the most consistent type herd from top to bottom, sometimes you need to search for those outliers that can throw you the extremes.  In this list we give you a mixture of proven sires, genomic sires, and sires that are going to leave you some extreme ranges.  While you certainly must always consider corrective mating when breeding for the show ring, it’s also important to try some sires that will give you the extremes.

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