the
BEEFMASTER Pay Weight
a publication dedicated to serving commercial cattlemen and produced by Beefmaster Breeders United SPRING 2020
Vol. 6, No. 1
Section 1
www.beefmasters.org
Leveraging “Good” Genetics in Commercial Heifer Selection By Jamie T. Courter, Ph.D., Neogen Genomics Genetic testing in the calving ease, and milk. seedstock industry has These things have had become a well-established a large influence on the practice. Experience has seedstock industry, leading shown the addition of to faster genetic gain. genomic information (DNA) Gratefully, these effects to an existing pedigreetrickle down into the based evaluation has several commercial industry as impacts: well, especially as cattlemen 1) It increases the accurecognize the importance of racy of the expected genomic testing and begin to progeny difference require it in the bulls they are (EPD) providing more purchasing. But, here is the confidence in a bull’s conundrum – if seedstock performance. and commercial cattlemen 2) It decreases the gener- invest in the technology for ation interval. Progeny their sires and believe in equivalents illustrate the benefit it brings their that by testing an anoperation, why leave the imal, you know as other half of the mating to much about their gechance? netic potential as if Commercial producers they had already sired up to 30 calves, deplace a large investment pending on the trait. in seedstock bulls, with the intention of improving 3) It allows for more acthe genetics of their herd curate evaluation of traits that are hard to by selecting superior measure, or are meareplacement females sured later in life like from superior matings. carcass traits, maternal
Unfortunately, biology is not their friend in this instance. Due to random sampling of chromosomes from a bull or cow, closely related cattle have shown significant variation in genetic potential for a trait. Some data have shown that a single bull sired calves that ranged from the top 1% to the bottom 91% of the breed for calving ease maternal, with other half siblings falling in between. How does someone determine which heifers inherited the “good” genes they paid for, and those who did not? Easy, test them. There are genetic testing products for almost any kind of commercial cattleman. More importantly, in August of 2019 Beefmaster Breeders United (BBU) released their own commercial product – Igenity Beefmaster. Unlike traditional genetic evaluations, these estimates of genetic merit, termed a
molecular breeding value (MBV), are based solely on the DNA of the animal. Without knowing any performance or pedigree information these tools identify the genetic potential of animals, helping select the best replacement heifers in a calf crop. So, how would a producer incorporate this information? 1) Use it as a tool to gauge the genetic potential of replacement females. These products offer a prediction for many important traits such as birth weight and tenderness - things that cannot be determined by just looking at an animal. However, this is still a tool, not a final decision. Physical assessment of the animal is necessary. If she has bad feet and leg structure then she will not last long in the herd, continued on page 4
Top 5 Reproductive Failures in Beef Operations (and how to avoid them) By Ryon Walker, Ph.D., Noble Research Institute Achieving high pregnancy rates is an important goal in every cow-calf operation. After every breeding season, we are either satisfied with the results or wondering why our pregnancy rates were so low and focusing on ways to improve them. Traditional thinking trains us to be satisfied with our results when we have met the industry average, or are as good as, if not better than,
our neighbor’s pregnancy rates. Nontraditional thinking should redirect our focus more on the causes of some of these failures and on correcting or minimizing the problem. Reproductive failures can occur in any cow-calf operation and account for a significant chunk of the financial loss incurred from a poor calf crop. Let’s take a look at the top 5 reproductive
failures that I believe are often seen in a cow-calf operation, beginning with No. 5. 5) Leaving the Bulls in Too Long I can already tell that some of you are shaking your head “yes” in agreement with this statement. This is not scientific but rather common sense. continued on page 5