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Showing posts from January, 2013

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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

Data-Driven Bull Buying

There are lots of ways to make a decision. We can act on our impressions or intuitions. Or, we can gather data and let the evidence guide our decisions. I call this a data-driven philosophy. This week, Amanda Radke and  Kris Ringwall gave their perspectives on a data-driven bull purchase. Both are great articles that I encourage you to check out. Here is my take—we need to make our decisions on a single metric that takes all available information into consideration. These metrics are expected progeny differences (EPDs) and economic indexes. EPDs combine performance records, information from relatives, information from correlated traits, and—in the case of genomic-enhanced EPDs—results from DNA tests. EPDs are the most accurate measure for a particular trait of the bull's merit as a sire. Economic indexes combine multiple EPDs and economic values of each trait to create a single measure of the bull's merit for increasing a producer's profit. We should not be selecting