Beef Actve Bull List Help Document The beef active bull list is a facility which allows you to see all available AI bulls across all AI companies, ranked on a single list. The list also allows the user to sort and filter bulls on various criteria. You can therefore search for the best AI bulls available to deliver the traits most important to your farming system. There are two lists available.
1. A Terminal list which ranks bulls on the Terminal Index and is associated with the following set criteria i. 50% reliability or greater on the Terminal Index ii. 50% reliability or greater on Calving Ease iii. Bull must have a valid genomic component to his evaluation iv. Bull must also have sired at least 1 calf that has a calving survey recorded on it. 2. A Replacement list which ranks bulls on the Replacement Index and is associated with the following set criteria i. 50% reliability or greater on the Replacement Index ii. 50% reliability or greater on Calving Ease iii. Bull must have a valid genomic component to his evaluation iv. Bull must also have sired at least 1 calf that has a calving survey recorded on it.
How to use the list Once you have chosen which list you wish to open (terminal or replacement), it will automatically have bulls ranked on the selected index. At the top of the screen you will see the filters for all of the columns in the list. You can filter the list by entering ranges in the respective columns. See the example below where the Terminal list is filtered for: - Charolais bulls. - With a calving difculty figure of less than 12%. - With a reliability of more than 80%.
This has narrowed the list down to 36 bulls that match the entered criteria from a total of 413. You can use as many or as few filters as you wish. The more criteria you enter in the various filters, the more it will decrease the number of bulls returned.
You can also sort the active bull list by clicking on the column heading of whichever trait you wish to sort. You can only sort one column at a time. See example below where the filtered bulls have been sorted on calving difculty from low to high. By clicking on the column heading again you can sort the bulls in the opposite order.
You can view any bull’s €uro-Star index in more detail by clicking on its AI code on the lef hand side. This will take you to that bull’s full index. See example below.
Semen details for each bull are displayed on the right hand side of the list. These include: - Availability— This refers to the semen availability of the bull and will depend on the number of straws that the AI company has in stock. There are three levels of availability; High, Medium and Low. - Calves Recorded— All Bulls must also have sired at least 1 calf that has a calving survey recorded on it.. - Price— This refers to the straw price for each bull. It is important to note that these prices are for the straw only and do not include callout and insemination fees. These can be obtained by contacting the respective AI companies. - Sexed Price— If a bull has sexed semen available, this refers to the price of his sexed semen. - Supplier— This refers to the AI company that sells semen from each bull. Bulls supplied by NCBC are marketed through either Munster AI or Progressive Genetics depending on the area of the country. The sort and filter functions work exactly the same for semen details. This may be useful to farmers that only wish to deal with a certain AI company and/or are only willing to pay a certain amount for semen. Exporting to Excel or PDF The active bull list can also be exported to excel or PDF. This is to allow the list to be altered and printed by the user. There is also the option to print which will print out the entire list of bulls. You will see these options on the top right hand side of the list as shown below.
If you do to export the list to excel or PDF the bulls will be limited to those that have a reliability of 50% or higher on the relevant index. Therefore, if you export the replacement list to excel, only bulls that have a reliability of 50% or higher on the replacement index will be included. This is to keep unproven young bulls out of the list. Special coded bulls e.g. S1234 are also excluded from the list.
Disclaimer
The accuracy of the semen details of listed bulls is the responsibility of the relevant AI companies. ICBF therefore cannot take any responsibility for inaccuracies in the semen details section of the active bull list. To ensure that a bull/bulls are definitely available, you will need to contact the relevant AI company.