Progeny testing is a bit like milk recording – for me it should be compulsory that each dairy herd owner should do some of it. Progeny testing for dairy sires in Ireland is called the Gene Ireland Programme and is co-ordinated by Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) for the AI organisations.
The objective of any young test bull programme is to identify and screen young bulls on a small scale so they can be used on a bigger scale to drive national gain so that the best AI sires are identified and offered to farmers. By using these young bulls on a small scale you can test them for calving ease, deleterious gene defects (like the udderless cows) and eventually rank them on fertility when they have daughters milking in herds three and four years later.
Remember you don’t really know how good a sire is on fertility until you see how quick his daughters finishing second and third lactation calve down again. To put this in context, for young test AI bulls used in 2018 we won’t have a real good picture of how well they rank on fertility until the years 2023 and 2024. It’s a long term play and the accuracy of the data supplied by farmers back into ICBF plays a big part.
What is happening this year on Gene Ireland?
Again there are a number of packs available and farmers are asked to use 25, 50 or 75 straws at €8.50 each, with sires used randomly across the herd (not only on the late calvers) and farmers asked not to pick and choose what AI straws are used.
Gene Ireland has had its fair share of detractors – farmers complain about big variability in the type of sires in the packs, low EBI sires in packs, AI straws arriving late on the farm etc.
There is so much detraction that many farmers have asked are there any other options to the current model? In this day and age of genomics and fast science, do we still have to complete what seems like a very laborious process to identify young test bulls?
The experts suggest the short answer is yes, we still need to do it the old-fashioned way. Genomics is playing a part – all bull calves with a good pedigree, good EBI with positive traits get a genomic EBI to reinforce, verify the EBI and parentage. This sorts out the men from the boys at a very young age and hopefully means any money spent on a bull calf has a better chance of making it.
Teagasc scientist Donagh Berry says: “I’m not so sure that we should be doing it any different to what we have always done. It is more accurate now with genomics. If I was asked how do we improve then I’d say we need to get more young bulls tested.
“The way genetic gain works is if you test more sires you get higher gain so for example if on the Irish dairy herd you test 100 young bulls potentially you get close to a €40 national gain in EBI, if you test 80 you get maybe €25 gain in EBI, 40 bulls back down to less than €20 gain in EBI etc.”
So why not test more bulls?
The AI companies will argue that there are big costs to buying, rearing and holding bulls until genetic data starts to flow back from herds. This prompts the question should the bulls be kept for this long at all? Should 1,000 straws from high-EBI sires be used in a test bull programme and then when they have been screened for genetic defects a certain volume of semen is retained and the next crop of young sires takes up the mantle?
So how long does it take for the AI company to get a return on investment for purchasing a bull calf.
Essentially the more they pay the longer it takes. So if they are paying €10,000 to €25,000 for a high-EBI bull calf then it means they need to get more semen from this bull to attempt to pay back this investment.
What might be an alternative model for testing young sires?
We could get the Department of Agriculture to set and enforce governing criteria. As an industry we all want to progress – the farmers, the AI companies, the ICBF and the Department all play a role in making this happen. Should we have a cohort of farmers that buy into a charter, that limits how much a bull calf is worth and an industry that is prepared to invest in genotyping females on a much bigger scale?
Instead of paying €25,000 for a bull calf a farmer would get a maximum of €1,000 but royalties would follow if the sire made it at the top? Surely this type of a model is the holy grail for an industry that has a database owned and controlled by farmers? How the young sires would be allocated to an AI company for sale would then depend on their investment in the programme among other criteria.
International genetics expert Dorian Garrick was in Ireland recently and the Irish Farmers Journal asked him what was the best model for young bull testing in Ireland.
He said: “Ideally you need to have flexibility on steering the breeding focus onto what traits are important for your industry – polled calves could be a big issue in the future, A2 milk protein could be an issue, or fat to protein ratio could change (as it has).
There are two main models so to explain first let me use an example from the automotive industry.
Car manufacturers decide that they will make diesel, electric, gas cars etc and they will go down that route and make those cars and hence there is no choice for those buying the cars.
“Alternatively, the second model is an industry body decide with levy, and innovation funding etc if there is enough scale to fund an industry plan. The upside of this is essentially farmers keep control of their destiny and can react to changes as the industry changes. Ireland has a bit of both models ongoing and I can’t say which is the right way to go – the Irish experts must decide that.”
In brief
Every dairy farmer should be using some test sires to help identify the best upcoming sires and push on genetic gain.Genomics has helped improve the accuracy of selection but the ‘age old’ model of getting daughters milking in herds to measure performance still remains the same.Time to consider if there is an alternative industry model to test young sires to further improve the rate of genetic gain.
Progeny testing is a bit like milk recording – for me it should be compulsory that each dairy herd owner should do some of it. Progeny testing for dairy sires in Ireland is called the Gene Ireland Programme and is co-ordinated by Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) for the AI organisations.
The objective of any young test bull programme is to identify and screen young bulls on a small scale so they can be used on a bigger scale to drive national gain so that the best AI sires are identified and offered to farmers. By using these young bulls on a small scale you can test them for calving ease, deleterious gene defects (like the udderless cows) and eventually rank them on fertility when they have daughters milking in herds three and four years later.
Remember you don’t really know how good a sire is on fertility until you see how quick his daughters finishing second and third lactation calve down again. To put this in context, for young test AI bulls used in 2018 we won’t have a real good picture of how well they rank on fertility until the years 2023 and 2024. It’s a long term play and the accuracy of the data supplied by farmers back into ICBF plays a big part.
What is happening this year on Gene Ireland?
Again there are a number of packs available and farmers are asked to use 25, 50 or 75 straws at €8.50 each, with sires used randomly across the herd (not only on the late calvers) and farmers asked not to pick and choose what AI straws are used.
Gene Ireland has had its fair share of detractors – farmers complain about big variability in the type of sires in the packs, low EBI sires in packs, AI straws arriving late on the farm etc.
There is so much detraction that many farmers have asked are there any other options to the current model? In this day and age of genomics and fast science, do we still have to complete what seems like a very laborious process to identify young test bulls?
The experts suggest the short answer is yes, we still need to do it the old-fashioned way. Genomics is playing a part – all bull calves with a good pedigree, good EBI with positive traits get a genomic EBI to reinforce, verify the EBI and parentage. This sorts out the men from the boys at a very young age and hopefully means any money spent on a bull calf has a better chance of making it.
Teagasc scientist Donagh Berry says: “I’m not so sure that we should be doing it any different to what we have always done. It is more accurate now with genomics. If I was asked how do we improve then I’d say we need to get more young bulls tested.
“The way genetic gain works is if you test more sires you get higher gain so for example if on the Irish dairy herd you test 100 young bulls potentially you get close to a €40 national gain in EBI, if you test 80 you get maybe €25 gain in EBI, 40 bulls back down to less than €20 gain in EBI etc.”
So why not test more bulls?
The AI companies will argue that there are big costs to buying, rearing and holding bulls until genetic data starts to flow back from herds. This prompts the question should the bulls be kept for this long at all? Should 1,000 straws from high-EBI sires be used in a test bull programme and then when they have been screened for genetic defects a certain volume of semen is retained and the next crop of young sires takes up the mantle?
So how long does it take for the AI company to get a return on investment for purchasing a bull calf.
Essentially the more they pay the longer it takes. So if they are paying €10,000 to €25,000 for a high-EBI bull calf then it means they need to get more semen from this bull to attempt to pay back this investment.
What might be an alternative model for testing young sires?
We could get the Department of Agriculture to set and enforce governing criteria. As an industry we all want to progress – the farmers, the AI companies, the ICBF and the Department all play a role in making this happen. Should we have a cohort of farmers that buy into a charter, that limits how much a bull calf is worth and an industry that is prepared to invest in genotyping females on a much bigger scale?
Instead of paying €25,000 for a bull calf a farmer would get a maximum of €1,000 but royalties would follow if the sire made it at the top? Surely this type of a model is the holy grail for an industry that has a database owned and controlled by farmers? How the young sires would be allocated to an AI company for sale would then depend on their investment in the programme among other criteria.
International genetics expert Dorian Garrick was in Ireland recently and the Irish Farmers Journal asked him what was the best model for young bull testing in Ireland.
He said: “Ideally you need to have flexibility on steering the breeding focus onto what traits are important for your industry – polled calves could be a big issue in the future, A2 milk protein could be an issue, or fat to protein ratio could change (as it has).
There are two main models so to explain first let me use an example from the automotive industry.
Car manufacturers decide that they will make diesel, electric, gas cars etc and they will go down that route and make those cars and hence there is no choice for those buying the cars.
“Alternatively, the second model is an industry body decide with levy, and innovation funding etc if there is enough scale to fund an industry plan. The upside of this is essentially farmers keep control of their destiny and can react to changes as the industry changes. Ireland has a bit of both models ongoing and I can’t say which is the right way to go – the Irish experts must decide that.”
In brief
Every dairy farmer should be using some test sires to help identify the best upcoming sires and push on genetic gain.Genomics has helped improve the accuracy of selection but the ‘age old’ model of getting daughters milking in herds to measure performance still remains the same.Time to consider if there is an alternative industry model to test young sires to further improve the rate of genetic gain. 
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