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Hereford and Red Angus Heifers Recruited for Genomics Research

The University of Missouri is recruiting 2,500 Hereford heifers and 2,500 Red Angus heifers to participate in a heifer puberty and fertility genomic research project. Heifers should be registered Hereford, registered Red Angus, or commercial Hereford or Red Angus. Hereford x Red Angus crossbred heifers targeted for the Premium Red Baldy Program would also be a good fit for the research project. Producers must be willing to work with a trained veterinarian to collect the following data: ReproductiveTract Scores collected at a pre-breeding exam 30 to 45 days prior to the start of the breeding season. PelvicMeasurements (height and width) collected at the same pre-breeding exam 30 to 45 days prior to the start of the breeding season. Pregnancy Determination Using Ultrasound reporting fetal age in days. Ultrasound will need to occur no later than 90 days after the start of the breeding season. In addition, heifers must have known birth dates and have weights recorded eithe
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"Fawn Calf" Genetic Test Being Redesigned To Be More Accurate in Gelbvieh Pedigrees

MAGNUM - AMGV38
Picture from search.gelbvieh.org
On January 14th, Dr. Jon Beever of the University of Illinois sent a letter to the Board of Directors of the American Gelbvieh Association informing them that his lab had resolved issues with odd results when testing fullblood Gelbvieh animals with the DNA test for Contractural Arachnodactyly (CA, “fawn calf”). One of the oldest fullblood Gelbvieh bulls, Magnum (AMGV38) tested as a carrier of the CA abnormality, and several other Gelbvieh animals with little Angus influence tested as either affected or carrier.

Dr. Beever took several lines of action to evaluate what was producing the odd results and after DNA sequencing the region in the Gelbvieh animals found that the protein sequence was still functional in the Gelbvieh animals. But, the DNA base pair used in the diagnostic test was the same in affected Angus and normal Gelbvieh. Thus, the test was producing false positives in Gelbvieh animals.

Dr. Beever originally designed the test to minimize the false negative rate. His lab is currently in the process of redesigning the DNA test so that it accurately identifies carrier Angus animals without falsely calling normal Gelbvieh animals as carriers.

As announced by Rob Arnold, President of the American Gelbvieh Association, the Association is in the process of removing all CA carrier (CAC) statuses from animals wrongly identified as such.

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