Fall brings the beautiful colors to our landscape and also the expedited need to complete the “to-do” list before the first snow starts to fly. What I’ve discovered as I get longer in the tooth, is there will always be work to be done, it’s how we prioritize and attack it that leads to the sense of accomplishment and narrowly escaping a deadline, a sense of exhilaration. As we head into sale season, please remember to be kind, it is the busiest time of the year for Data Genie and I’ll do my best to meet your deadlines but let’s pull one from Benjamin Franklin’s notebook and ‘Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’
Spring & Fall Calving Herds
Review August’s news post for these notes or give me a call so we can visit in real time about capturing specific phenotype data and desired timing.
DNA Sampling Types
The preferred method of DNA sampling continues to be the Allflex Tissue Sampling Units (TSUs) and unfortunately those have not came down in cost and have actually increased in the past year. While we all search to save money, I would encourage you to avoid purchasing any collectors that have not been approved/promoted as an acceptable sample type. An example would be Caisley Tags. These are not an approved sample type by any breed association or lab yet, and therefore may yield higher sample failure rates. If you have any questions please reach out.
Simmental Members
Membership Annual Service Fees (ASF) were billed to every active account in July. These dues must be paid by October 20 to maintain your active status and remain in good standing.
Speaking of invoices, he Association made changes to this system in July and if you have an email on file you were updated to electronic billing notifications. if you prefer to be mailed monthly statements instead of receiving them electronically via email, please let me know and I will update your account to prefer paper invoices.
Spring 2024 THE – Opens October 15, 2023 and deadline to enroll is December 15, 2023. I’ll be sending out emails beginning at the end of October with preliminary inventory sheets.
DNA on 2023 born calves, consider collecting samples on >90% of the males and/or females and you can participate in the Calf Crop Genomics project and receive GGP100K testing for $25.00/ea. Aim to have samples collected and submitted to ASA once you finish calving.
Red Angus Members
Fall 2022 Calf Data inactivation’s occur October 27 so 2022 calf data or a reason why the female did not calve need to be turned in no later than October 20. A reminder, reactivation fees are now $50.00 per female so we want to ensure that each dam enrolled on THR receives a calf or reason code every year.
The Red Angus board of directors has some new faces, click here to review who was recently elected at the convention in September.
Angus Members
The World Angus Evaluation (WAE) was officially released October 13, 2023. The American Angus Association (AAA) hosted a webinar highlighting how these changes will impact AAA EPDs. In my opinion this is a great step and will be a useful tool for evaluating animals being utilized internationally as well as adding additional information on related animals into the evaluation. About 20% of the sire’s used in the Australian database are US registered. This will bump progeny counts as well as phenotype records for those sire’s. If you have questions on this please let me know.
Feet and Leg Scoring – this continues to be a hot topic so if you have not collected this information on your cow herd it may be a great time to get them scored and represented in the population. After all, if there’s not actual phenotype information recorded for the trait, the information is being inferred from related animals or supported by genomic data. Always ideal to submit data if we have the ability to do so. I have printed pamphlets from AAA if you would like one mailed to you, let me know.
Industry Tidbits
Bovine Congestive Heart Failure (BCHF) has been highlighted throughout the summer months by multiple entities and what I can say confidently at this time regarding BCHF, is there does not seem to be a clear consensus on what the best/ideal pathway forward is from a testing standpoint. There have been a few large effect genes USMARC has identified and we are exploring the desirable correlated traits that come along with these genes. We will continue to work with Allied Genetic Resources, Top Genomics and research experts in this area to bring you the latest information but the last thing I want is for someone to spend thousands of dollars on testing through a private company such as Simplot, when that may not be necessary at all to mitigate the breeding risk in this area. More thorough analysis and time is needed to provide insight into this trait. I hope to have more information available on BCHF in the coming months.
As always – reach out via email, text or phone for more information on any of the above.
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