Genetic gain

[fargus]

I read through the herd management thread, and it was a super discussion. I wanted to add some thoughts, but they didn't really fit wholly in that topic.

To answer the original question about retaining vs purchasing females, we (almost) exclusively retain our own. I will purchase replacements only if I know the genetics and the price is right. With that said, we retained 9 of 14 heifers born in 2009 to calve next year. One was a free-martin and culled immediately, the other 13 were exposed to our jr herdsire and 10 caught. The three open females were culled, and one fence-jumping PITA also took a ride to town. That has us retaining 65% of our females from the purebred herd, and culling 2/29 mature cows this year. Our replacement rate is 7%, but we are trying to grow our herd as quickly as possible.

This may seem like it is counter-productive as we retain an overall lower quality of female. I understand only wanting to keep your top 10-15% of potential replacements, but there are reasons I believe that is limiting your future productivity. The goal for our herd of cows is to make steady genetic gain, both year over year, and as measured generation to generation. The balance we are trying to strike is to make steady progress, without limiting our potential genetic ceiling. It's been proven over and over that if we select too hard, too early in a breeding program we eliminate a lot of genetic diversity from our population. We have a few "deal breakers" as discussed previously in other threads that earn any animal a one-way ticket down the road. By maintaining that minimum standard we don't go backwards in terms of genetic gain. It also means that we sacrifice larger year over year improvements. The trade-off is keeping more cow families, and thus genetic diversity in play that we can pull potentially positive traits from down the road. My wife and I are both young (26) so compromising on our rate of genetic gain to give us a higher ceiling makes sense to me. As we retain more of our own sires, we get the genetics from our very best cow families mixed with the rest of the herd. Over time, we distill the most positive alleles, and combinations of those traits into more individuals within the herd. By starting with more diversity, we can "gather up" more positive dominant and recessive traits and express them in more individuals within our herd.

As the herd grows, the minimum standards will also rise. If they don't, we will stagnate, and our gains will go flat. This is a different take on the scatter-bred vs line-bred discussion, but I'm interested in what others on here think of my assumptions.

 

[novaman]

I understand what you are getting at when you are talking about keeping diversity in the herd. It makes perfect sense to me. The problem I see, and you even admitted it, is that you are limiting your gains by keeping that diversity in your cow herd. Now if I understand correctly you are keeping bulls from your herd. Are you raising them to sell or use back on your own cows? It sounds like you are keeping them for your own use and to that I have to question the practice. You preach diversity and genetic gain but you are recycling genetics within your own herd.

I operate on the complete opposite of you. I select replacements that are not diverse but rather fit the mold of what I want to see in my future cows. Ideally my group of heifers would be genetically identical. The reason behind my thinking is that it is far simpler and easier to use different bulls on these heifers to produce the calf I am looking for. I would rather keep the cows and change the bull than to have to get rid of a bunch of cows in order to change the directions in my breeding. I also believe that if one is using natural service you should never retain bulls from one's own herd. The best way to improve genetic gain is to bring in outside genetics that will enhance what you already have. If you are recycling your genetics you are giving yourself less of a chance to get ahead.

 

[dun]

The goal for our herd of cows is to make steady genetic gain, both year over year, and as measured generation to generation. The balance we are trying to strike is to make steady progress, without limiting our potential genetic ceiling. ............. If they don't, we will stagnate, and our gains will go flat.

I'm curious as to what you consider genetic gain, WW, Carcass, Structural Correctness, Milk, etc.

 

[fargus]

I guess I should clarify myself a bit. We have retained two bulls for our own use. One was out of a cow we purchased, bred to an AI sire that has worked extremely well for us. The other was out of my best cow. We purchase bulls and utilize AI, always identifying genetics that are as close to my "ideal" as possible.

At the end of the day, I want the purebred herd to have a relatively high level of homozygosity. The reason for starting with a more diverse background, and taking more generations to reach a higher degree of homozygosity is simple. There is often more than one way to skin a cat physiologically. The base-line for retaining females (using my 2009 example) is the top 60% of the heifers. Bulls on the other hand (because they can impact an entire herd directly) are only retained if they are in the top 1-2%. The top cows in the herd already encompass a lot of desirable traits we're looking for. By "breeding up" the rest of the cows we are taking the chance that they have something to offer that my best cows don't. Over time, we can pull those genes out. If we can't, those genetics do get eliminated because they don't hack it under our management regime.

If you are working within one breed you can approach a certain level of homozygosity through scatter-breeding by keeping a very consistent selection regime because any breed starts with a fairly narrow genetic base. I think eventually identifying the best out of a group and line-breeding will yield the best results. I think starting that process too early is a dead-end road however.

 

[fargus]

The goal for our herd of cows is to make steady genetic gain, both year over year, and as measured generation to generation. The balance we are trying to strike is to make steady progress, without limiting our potential genetic ceiling. ............. If they don't, we will stagnate, and our gains will go flat.

I'm curious as to what you consider genetic gain, WW, Carcass, Structural Correctness, Milk, etc.

Good question. I think as a herd evolves the answer changes. We focus on fertility, structure (feet and legs, sound udders, and adequate rib capacity are my favorite things to pick on) and WW performance first. Those are the traits that affect our profitability the most. Fertility seems to act as an indicator of a cow's maintenance energy requirements. My attitude is for us to fix what directly affects us first. After that we can focus on "output traits" whether that is YG, marbling, ADG and FC in a feedlot setting etc. We develop cows we can make a living on first, then start eliminating the ones that represent less profit potential for the guys further up the mythical "value chain."

 

[SRBeef]

...I select replacements that are not diverse but rather fit the mold of what I want to see in my future cows. Ideally my group of heifers would be genetically identical. The reason behind my thinking is that it is far simpler and easier to use different bulls on these heifers to produce the calf I am looking for. I would rather keep the cows and change the bull than to have to get rid of a bunch of cows in order to change the directions in my breeding. I also believe that if one is using natural service you should never retain bulls from one's own herd. The best way to improve genetic gain is to bring in outside genetics that will enhance what you already have. If you are recycling your genetics you are giving yourself less of a chance to get ahead.

I am about halfway between the two approaches. I bought a few registered heifers, some bred, from different areas of the country to bring in some diverse genetics but from now on all females will come from inside my herd. I have a new Huth bull which has the smaller frame size and beefy phenotype I want to develop.

However I did keep one very stunning bull calf from my best 1200 lb cow which I am going to use on my other commercial cows this coming year to get more of this cows genetics into my commercials and retain all the commercial heifers from this bull calf as a foundation for the future to combine with my Huth bull genetics.

In general it is easier to infuse new genetics with a bull. However the cow is still half of the calf and I am working to establish a base of cow genetics which will be combined with outside bulls down the road.

I am also starting a small registered herd with both the purchased bred registered heifers and my own registered bull on the registered heifer I bought open.

So I guess I would agree with Nova that bringing in outside bull genetics is important. Buying females the way I want them seems almost impossible and very expensive even if I could find them so I will raise my own females both commercial and registered.

Jim

 

[Stocker Steve]

You said you are "trying to grow your herd as fast as possible." That usually means purchasing cattle. Been there, doing that, and paying more than I used to reduce the fall out rate. The root issue gets into what is your management system - - and thus the fall out rate of purchased vs. home raised cattle. Both cows and bulls.

I had been buying about ten bred heifers a year recently and I expect to butcher two of them the summer they calve. I have not gone hungry yet, and the genetic gain is obvious. :cowboy: I choose to cull about one more per age class as 3 year olds and then we have some proven cows that make money.

Now that the herd is larger and the cull market is higher - - I will be retaining heifers and selling some bred cows. This will take the herd to the next level.

 

[fargus]

You got me Steve. We aren't buying too many replacements in. Besides the obvious of your replacement costs being higher because of the uncertainty of what you are purchasing, there is a cash-flow consideration too. So "as fast as we can" really means "as fast as my cows will let me."

I'd meant to say that we don't have a pre-determined age that a cow goes to town. If she's 21 years old, breeds back on time and still raises a good calf while maintaining her condition she stays. We don't have any that old currently, but in the last couple years we culled 3 over 20, and all three looked like they were 5 yos. They still have a good salvage value when sold dressed, even at that age.

 

[novatech]

The fastest way to herd improvement is to AI.
Consistency comes from breeding to those bulls that have high percentage scores (meeting your selected criteria for traits) and discipline in culling practices.
Anyone that thinks they have raised a great bull ought to try line breeding. A great test that may determine weather the bull should have been cut or not.

 

[SRBeef]

The fastest way to herd improvement is to AI.
Consistency comes from breeding to those bulls that have high percentage scores (meeting your selected criteria for traits) and discipline in culling practices.
Anyone that thinks they have raised a great bull ought to try line breeding. A great test that may determine weather the bull should have been cut or not.

I am trying some line breeding this year on my unrelated commercial cows. The problem with the "test" like almost everything in cattle is it takes a couple years before you get any feedback.

My registered bull will be on the registered cows and anything related to my homegrown bull. The homegrown bull is out of one of my 1200 lb cows, solid, a rapid weight gainer, good conformation... even the vet had an unsolicited comment on him as he came through the chute last spring. We'll see how this goes. I agree on the AI but just am not in a position to do it.

Jim

 

[redcowsrule33]

I agree that AI is very valuable. But with beef there is a problem.

Back when we had dairy cows it was made very simple by the AI studs as to choosing the bulls to complement the cows, as they tend to invest much more in gaining phenotype info on the dairy breeds. Even the studs that used to have good phenotype evaluations have seemed to have gone away from doing this in beef, so all we are left with is a picture and EPDs. Not all of us can travel to see a bull, his dam, granddam, and offspring before using him, so unless you have someone close that you trust and has the same type of cattle you do, it's really hard to get good info on what that bull is really like. Plus, fire and ice matings have become more popular so you can't depend on the EPDs of a young bull in a lot of cases.

For those of you involved with the studs, how hard would it really be to get a decent phenotype evaluation on a bull's progeny? I'm asking, because it's needed but no longer done well, and I'd like to know why.

In Jim's case, he might be better off starting out like he is by using bulls from a program he emulates rather than trying to sift through all the BS in the catalogs and on breeder websites. As he becomes more familiar with the bloodlines and other breeder's programs, then AI may become more valuable to his program.

I used to think a small breeder that didn't utilize AI was backwards but I've changed my thinking. I've come over to the side of the more closed herds and have grown to appreciate a breeder (big or small) that has a great deal of good consistent genetics and not necessarily the hot ones. Selecting bulls from these programs at least gives you a higher chance of having a consistent result that you want.

 

[dun]

Even the studs that used to have good phenotype evaluations have seemed to have gone away from doing this in beef, so all we are left with is a picture and EPDs.

ABS used to have a Genetic Trait Summary (GTS) on almost all of their bulls. Now it seems that they are getting fewer and fewer. I found their GTS to be generally pretty accurate

 

[upfrombottom]

I am also breeding a purebred herd and think it is a crap shoot either direction you go(bringing in genetics or building with what you have), but I believe (JMHO) that in bringing in outside genetics, the odds are slightly in your favor. When you say you are trying to build your herd quickly, it says to me that you maybe keeping unproven cattle within your own herd. It has always been my understanding that offspring will get half of their genetics from each of their parents. But you never know which half you'll get and may easily wind up with two, possibly three, generations of progeny that are not what you were hoping for. I believe that by using genetics from a proven herd you maybe slightly ahead just because those breeders have already done part of the work for you. And by using AI I can pull from a battery of bulls and don't have to bet the farm on one.

However I did keep one very stunning bull calf from my best 1200 lb cow which I am going to use on my other commercial cows this coming year to get more of this cows genetics into my commercials

This is the best way to find out what half of the genetic pool your going to get out of that bull.
JMO

 

[Stocker Steve]

The fastest way to herd improvement is to AI.

The fastest way to herd improvement is a 60 mph trailer on it's way to the sales barn. ;-) I use a trailer for the cows and AI for the heifers.

 

[SRBeef]

However I did keep one very stunning bull calf from my best 1200 lb cow which I am going to use on my other commercial cows this coming year to get more of this cows genetics into my commercials

This is the best way to find out what half of the genetic pool your going to get out of that bull.
JMO

Since one half of this bull calf's genetics is my best 1200 lb cow and the other half is my Huth T21 bull with his very good (high accuracy at least to me) EPD's I think will be happy with either half - and even happier with a blend of the two genetics.

Jim

 

[Oldtimer]

If you have hours of time to spend on some reading- you might try this site- and especially this thread... Some insight from some of the top breeders of old longtime developed herds (Larry Leonard, Mike Keeney, Gavin Falloon of New Zealand, Dennis Voss, Jack McNamee, Sam Wylie, etc. etc.) on differing uses of genetics-linebreeding and outcrosses- and how they used them to develop their herds over many years...
Takes some sorting thru some of the BS sometimes-- but hundreds of years of experience (and mistakes)- that could keep someone from making the same mistakes...
And some interesting history of some great cattle herds- along with pictures of old cattle...

http://kcorner.bigboardlive.com/t34-reflections-from-ll

 

[novatech]

I agree that AI is very valuable. But with beef there is a problem.

Back when we had dairy cows it was made very simple by the AI studs as to choosing the bulls to complement the cows, as they tend to invest much more in gaining phenotype info on the dairy breeds. Even the studs that used to have good phenotype evaluations have seemed to have gone away from doing this in beef, so all we are left with is a picture and EPDs. Not all of us can travel to see a bull, his dam, granddam, and offspring before using him, so unless you have someone close that you trust and has the same type of cattle you do, it's really hard to get good info on what that bull is really like. Plus, fire and ice matings have become more popular so you can't depend on the EPDs of a young bull in a lot of cases. I would never use a new unproven bull. Most of the semen in my tank is in ampules.For those of you involved with the studs, how hard would it really be to get a decent phenotype evaluation on a bull's progeny? I'm asking, because it's needed but no longer done well, and I'd like to know why.I acquaint myself wit as many old timers as possible, They usually have nothing to gain with the advice they give and have a lot of experience with the older bulls. There are also more progeny one is able to see.In Jim's case, he might be better off starting out like he is by using bulls from a program he emulates rather than trying to sift through all the BS in the catalogs and on breeder websites. As he becomes more familiar with the bloodlines and other breeder's programs, then AI may become more valuable to his program. Emulating successful systems is the only way to go wither AI or bull.

I used to think a small breeder that didn't utilize AI was backwards but I've changed my thinking. I've come over to the side of the more closed herds and have grown to appreciate a breeder (big or small) that has a great deal of good consistent genetics and not necessarily the hot ones. Selecting bulls from these programs at least gives you a higher chance of having a consistent result that you want.There is nothing backward about either system as long as improvement is the goal.

 

[redcowsrule33]

I would never use a new unproven bull. Most of the semen in my tank is in ampules.

I agree with most of what you've said, novatech. But how proven does a bull need to be for you to use him? Amps are pretty old. Not attacking your system, just curious as to why you stick with such old genetics. I agree that unproven bulls are a real crapshoot in most cases but a bull that died 25 years ago is a bit on the other side of extreme for proven.

 

[SRBeef]

I was out with my bulls this afternoon giving them their weekly gentling sweet feed treat. This is maybe 5 lb each to keep them coming to me and following the bucket. It is VERY useful to have them trained to come, especially last week when some dummy (me) left the gate open to the town road!

As discussed earlier about genetic gain, I see value to bringing in outside genetics but I also think there may be value to working from my best current (and known) herd genetics also.

Here is a picture of my "OUTSIDE" genetics Huth U070 bull (on the right). I am really pleased with how he has developed right at 2 years old. I am going to use him on my registered heifers and cows and any commercial females related to the bull calf below. Sorry for the dark pictures but they were in the shadows of thepines as the sun was going down.

Here below is a picture of a bull calf (on the left) I retained out of my best 1200 lb cow and sired by my previous Huth T021 bull. His dam is long, low, gentle, raises a 50%+ ww calf every year, stays between 1200 and 1300 lb even when other cows zoom higher, calves unassisted every year and seems "smart" (for a cow!). I am going to use this bull calf on all of my commercial cows and heifers this summer to try to get more of his dam's traits into my retained commercial females. Here is his picture from late this afternoon. He was born 3/21/10 and weighed 848 lb at weaning 11/15/10. He is about 940 lb now at just 9 months old. Here is his picture. One solid, muscular calf.

Will be interesting to see how this 2-bull experiment develops. fwiw. Jim

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I would never use a new unproven bull. Most of the semen in my tank is in ampules.

I agree with most of what you've said, novatech. But how proven does a bull need to be for you to use him? Amps are pretty old. Not attacking your system, just curious as to why you stick with such old genetics. I agree that unproven bulls are a real crapshoot in most cases but a bull that died 25 years ago is a bit on the other side of extreme for proven.

That is exactly what I was thinking, but you said it much better than I would. :lol:
Genetic trends change - sometimes for the better, some times not. But, cattle, on the whole, are better now than they have been for many many years. Deep, thick, easy keeping, easy calving, growthy, etc.
I can understand not wanting to use new young unproven bulls, but AI bulls that are 4-6 yrs old should have plenty of proof on the ground. It may be a "breed thing".
We use some unproven bulls, just because we need to stay on the "cutting edge" - but, will not use him on very many. But, in our breed, our EPD's tend to be very accurate. I know, I know - another argumental statement. But, doing this for 40 years (about 37 years 100% AI) - I kinda have a good handle on it. And, I'm not saying I would NEVER breed to a bull from 30 years ago. We've used some pretty old bulls along the way.