No matter how many farmer groups visit my farm, the conversation always comes around to how I choose what bulls to use on my cows.

I don’t keep a stock bull, preferring instead to use artificial insemination (AI).

In the past, I used to flick through the lovely glossy catalogues that the AI companies produce. I would choose a bull based on the picture and some well-chosen words written about the animal.

Sometimes my choices would turn out to be reasonable, but a lot of the time it would turn out that I hadn’t chosen that well.

It’s very easy to make a bull look good in a photo. But the important thing that I discovered is that it’s not what they say about the bull, but what they don’t say. If there was a trait that wasn’t as good, they certainly wouldn’t highlight it.

Now I still flick through the AI catalogues but it’s not the pictures that I’m interested in, or even the well-chosen words. Now I’m looking for the facts and figures.

Balanced

There are several different systems for displaying this information but I am generally looking for bulls that are well balanced across most traits and that have good reliability.

Over the last few years, I have used some young bulls that had great figures but the reliability of this information was low. Some of these bulls turned out to be disappointing, and their figures are now poor, but, of course, with good reliability.

This has meant that I am more inclined to use older bulls that are proven. This has left me with some really good calves that do just what I want them to.

The problem is that by the time I have discovered how good they are, their semen is often limited and usually very expensive.

I always tell other farmers that I am on the lookout for the next superstar of a bull. The sooner I can get hold of straws from this super bull the quicker I can make genetic improvement.

But being afraid to use unproven bulls has left this difficult, and has slowed the potential for making genetic improvement on my farm.

Genomics

However, with the introduction of genomics (DNA technology), the potential to identify the next super bull two or three years earlier is now in place. I think that genomics could possibly propel livestock breeding into a whole new, and exciting, future.

It’s sad that there is so much reluctance among some breeders to embrace this technology. I suppose, if you are a pedigree breeder, you don’t want someone telling you that your best-looking bull hasn’t the best genetic potential. Or if you have a bull that wins at a lot of shows, you don’t want to arrive at a sale and discover that he is well down on the genomic index.

In my opinion, breeders should be embracing this technology and using it to make sure they produce the bulls with best figures possible.

It’s very easy to dismiss these new advances and to say that you can sell your bulls without it but, be warned, it will take off. You have a choice to either be a leader or to be left behind.

We, as farmers, have a choice as well. We should demand the best genetics possible.

Buy your AI straws on figures, or if you are buying a bull, pay more attention to the figures than the fluffed-up coat of wavy hair as he walks the ring. How many farmers could say that their bull looked as good 12 months after they bought him?