Dairy Chit Chat- Please read Mod note in post #1

mahoney_j · 12-08-2016 12:00PM

yewtree wrote: »

But that is exactly what genomics will do, genomic testing allows far more Bulls to be tested each year so its more likely that the exceptional genetics will be captured. When only daughter proven Bulls were being used only a few hundred Bulls were tested now there are several thousand Bulls are tested each year.
Bulls are also been taken out of commercial herds so to your point think we are more likely now to identify the Steve job type Bulls.

I agree with the point made by @freedom regarding management and clearly not all the gains made are due to genetic gain but in my opinion ebi has produced a more fertile cow thAt gives a greater return on good management.

There is A lot of materialon the icbf website n publications section on valiadting the genomics proofs when the Bulls become proven. Any info I have see has shown a very close correlation between genomic proof and subsequent daughter proven proof.

+1

blackdog1 · 12-08-2016 12:22PM

mahoney_j wrote:

Fertility at the cost of so many other traits free ????.stan and myself have thrown up lots of figures here over time ,Stan further along than me but I think that's a harsh statement .weve both got high milk ,solids ,fertility ,good type and functional traits and both heavily use genomic Bulls .i made a decision 5 years ago that I wanted a more milky ,more solids type cow whilst mantaing the good fertility that my br fr base gave me .ebi and genomics provided what I wanted I havnt always chased the highest ebi Bulls at the expense of other traits as I wanted a balance I study my ebi reports and milk records and try to improve traits on what I have .sire advice programme on herd plus dose as good as same thing .there is a risk using all genomic sires but that's why u use a team of 5/6 Bulls .the only dud bull that I can think of that I used is ksk and luckily I only had 3 heifers by him .lots of farms around the country have embraced ebi and getting huge gains from it be it higher volume or lower volume

I'm all for genomic bull testing to identify world class Bulls but I will only use proven Bulls on my herd or a very small amount of genomic. Had 1 or 2 genomic before that just didn't do the job and your paying basically the same for a test sire as youd pay for a proven. If their was significant price difference it might be worth the risk.

stanflt · 12-08-2016 01:02PM

Ebi doesn't work

visatorro · 12-08-2016 01:08PM

stanflt wrote: »

Ebi doesn't work

Yeah Stan she's -7 for beef, what's going on there!!!

mf240 · 12-08-2016 01:17PM

Fair nice cow Stan.

pedigree 6 · 12-08-2016 01:22PM

stanflt wrote: »

Ebi doesn't work

freedominacup · 12-08-2016 01:33PM

stanflt wrote: »

Ebi doesn't work

How many generations of genomic sires in her ancestry Stan? How much of an improvement in her performance over her dam? Could not fault that cow in any way but I'd bet good money she's just following in her mother's footsteps.

kowtow · 12-08-2016 01:40PM

yewtree wrote: »

But that is exactly what genomics will do, genomic testing allows far more Bulls to be tested each year so its more likely that the exceptional genetics will be captured. When only daughter proven Bulls were being used only a few hundred Bulls were tested now there are several thousand Bulls are tested each year.
Bulls are also been taken out of commercial herds so to your point think we are more likely now to identify the Steve job type Bulls.

I stand to be corrected but as far as genomics itself is concerned, my take would be that it simply speeds up the proving and re-using process, in effect it allows you to evolve more generations in fewer years by bringing in candidates with a probable proof rather than waiting for an actual proof - taken across a whole population that would speed up development (although it might prove disappointing in individual herds where smaller number of bulls or even single bulls were over used, as there is a trade off between speed & certainty)

If I am right surely genomics will multiply the effect of a bad selection regime just as it will multiply the effect of a good regime? To my eye the issue is more with the numerical nature of EBI than whether or not the process is amplified by genomics.

Going back to my somewhat contrived example - would the bull with the infertile unmanageable dam actually get into the game at all? I take your point about commercial herds, perhaps in effect by widening the overall population of bulls we are actually increasing the chances of outliers but would the real wide of the mark cases actually make it in? Is it dependent on how people use EBI, for example targeting traits & sub-indexes rather than overall score?

It does strike me that if we really could reduce it to numbers then many more of my friends would have won the arc de triomphe or the Champion hurdle than actually have

freedominacup · 12-08-2016 01:50PM

kowtow wrote: »

I stand to be corrected but as far as genomics itself is concerned, my take would be that it simply speeds up the proving and re-using process, in effect it allows you to evolve more generations in fewer years by bringing in candidates with a probable proof rather than waiting for an actual proof - taken across a whole population that would speed up development (although it might prove disappointing in individual herds where smaller number of bulls or even single bulls were over used, as there is a trade off between speed & certainty)

If I am right surely genomics will multiply the effect of a bad selection regime just as it will multiply the effect of a good regime? To my eye the issue is more with the numerical nature of EBI than whether or not the process is amplified by genomics.

Going back to my somewhat contrived example - would the bull with the infertile unmanageable dam actually get into the game at all? I take your point about commercial herds, perhaps in effect by widening the overall population of bulls we are actually increasing the chances of outliers but would the real wide of the mark cases actually make it in? Is it dependent on how people use EBI, for example targeting traits & sub-indexes rather than overall score?

It does strike me that if we really could reduce it to numbers then many more of my friends would have won the arc de triomphe or the Champion hurdle than actually have

I've heard this outlier argument a few times and imo it's complete b.s.. If they were actually trying to find outliers they would be randomly testing 10% of the bulls born in every herd every year. Instead their version of outliers simply means buying a few bulls from farms that weren't on the list of usual suspects in the past based purely on, shockingly, ebi figures.

yosemitesam1 · 12-08-2016 02:07PM

kowtow wrote: »

It does strike me that if we really could reduce it to numbers then many more of my friends would have won the arc de triomphe or the Champion hurdle than actually have

Thats the biggest problem with it, they can figure out what combination of genes will make a good cow because theres loads of cows around the average but the best possible cow might have a lot of different genes to a good cow and not be recognised by genomics

Buford T. Justice XIX · 12-08-2016 02:21PM

kowtow wrote: »

I know little enough about EBI and the specifics of breeding - but I have spent many years solving complex problems with multi-generational genetic solutions, and I would have a fairly solid instinct for statistical risk.

What concerns me about EBI, indeed all similar systems to one degree or another, is the over reliance on and the pursuit of an average. The average is the most abused concept in finance, political science, economics, and now also it seems in genetic theory. EBI is a fantastic concept in the sense that it will bring up the overall level (the average) performance of the national herd, it will also - one hopes - focus minds on breeding and the general traits to pursue. What I am not so sure about is whether, in the long term, it will continue to bring through great bulls and whether we won't suffer rapidly diminishing returns from the strategy at some point in the future.

In finance we sometimes use generational / genetic systems to "breed" a solution which mathematics could not possibly find with today's computers - we literally cross thousands of generations of populations of potential solutions and apply them to the problem until we find we have magically "bred" an answer which mathematics could not have derived by brute force. One of the things we notice is the importance of outliers - obviously wrong solutions - which nevertheless transmit their genes through to the winning end result. If you lose the outliers along the way you lose the whole benefit of genetics.

I suppose in cow terms the equivalent is the unreliably infertile, difficult calving, dam who is a one off but manages somehow to transmit her perfect udder and legs through a bull calf into a dam which fixes up the infertility and difficult calving despite having three legs - producing the ingredients of the wonder family along the way. It strikes me that the relentless pursuit of great EBI averages along the way might well remove these difficult but ultimately vital genetic candidates too quickly from the overall population.

Put in simple terms, if there was an EBI for children would it likely have put Mozart, Beethoven, or Steve Jobs in the gene bank? And would we not be the worse off in the long term if it hadn't? It's not the use of EBI but the capacity for reliance on EBI to exclude more traditional selection that might present a problem in years to come.

I think in the near term it's a wonderful tool and will improve overall national herd performance, I can't pretend to understand it well enough to comment on the specifics, but my instinct says that if you concentrate on averages when breeding then ultimately average is exactly what you will get, and by definition average performers don't win races.

My understanding of Gene Ireland looking for outliers is their seeking those cows that show repeatedly low calving indices from different herds. I know a few lads who have had bulls tested and they wouldn't be traditional breeding-for-sale farmers, just good farmers who have a few exceptional cows (for them?)who would have been outside the traditional bull selection gene pool.

One point to note on EBI, there are no bulls being selected atm that have negative health traits sub-index. This is a very small part of the index but will have a huge bearing in resistance to TB in particular in the national herd.

blackdog1 · 12-08-2016 02:25PM

stanflt wrote:

Ebi doesn't work

You should cross her with a jersey and get some hybrid vigour going!.

I'm not against ebi but I don't think it's perfect and thankfully they are evolving all the time into an Irish system. I'm glad they're dropping the Base down by 70 points.

Don't want to turn this thread into an ebi debate, we have done that already. that cow looks like a fantastic cow but if she was on a Teagasc farm getting 300kg of meal a year how long would she last. She's probably not even your best cow or highest ebi cow. My problem is people think ebi will solve all your problems but it won't management is key and it doesn't matter if you have lower ebi than the next guy if you have better management skills I guarantee your making better profit.

blackdog1 · 12-08-2016 02:42PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote:

One point to note on EBI, there are no bulls being selected atm that have negative health traits sub-index. This is a very small part of the index but will have a huge bearing in resistance to TB in particular in the national herd.

TB should have been eradicated by now i know what you mean but ebi won't solve this problem. The department takes an average of 23 days to remove reactors. On countries that are TB free it takes their department 1- 7 days to remove problem cows. Cows with TB should be sent straight to the knackery the next day and the farmer then gets paid.

yewtree · 12-08-2016 02:52PM

blackdog1 wrote: »

You should cross her with a jersey and get some hybrid vigour going!.

I'm not against ebi but I don't think it's perfect and thankfully they are evolving all the time into an Irish system. I'm glad they're dropping the Base down by 70 points.

Don't want to turn this thread into an ebi debate, we have done that already. that cow looks like a fantastic cow but if she was on a Teagasc farm getting 300kg of meal a year how long would she last. She's probably not even your best cow or highest ebi cow. My problem is people think ebi will solve all your problems but it won't management is key and it doesn't matter if you have lower ebi than the next guy if you have better management skills I guarantee your making better profit.

Your right cows have to be managed correctly and badly managed cows will be unprofitable
The way I would look at it is if the same level of management was applied on a group of high ebi cows and low ebi group. Would the highs ebi cows be more profitable?
From the farms I have been on I think the higher ebi group would be more profitable. That's all a breeding programme can do identify the traits with greatest effect on profit and try and improve them. It's up to farmers to maximise the potential of their cows

RightTurnClyde · 12-08-2016 03:03PM

mahoney_j wrote: »

Fertility at the cost of so many other traits free ????.stan and myself have thrown up lots of figures here over time ,Stan further along than me but I think that's a harsh statement .weve both got high milk ,solids ,fertility ,good type and functional traits and both heavily use genomic Bulls .i made a decision 5 years ago that I wanted a more milky ,more solids type cow whilst mantaing the good fertility that my br fr base gave me .ebi and genomics provided what I wanted I havnt always chased the highest ebi Bulls at the expense of other traits as I wanted a balance I study my ebi reports and milk records and try to improve traits on what I have .sire advice programme on herd plus dose as good as same thing .there is a risk using all genomic sires but that's why u use a team of 5/6 Bulls .the only dud bull that I can think of that I used is ksk and luckily I only had 3 heifers by him .lots of farms around the country have embraced ebi and getting huge gains from it be it higher volume or lower volume

Genuine question,MJ, what was the base cow. How may generations are you gone from the base cow. As a whole, what percentage of the herd is made up of the base cow.
Is there a possibility that the base cow is carrying the production figures.

kowtow · 12-08-2016 03:26PM

stanflt wrote: »

Ebi doesn't work

Stan do you have a high res file by any chance?

Was thinking of getting 10 poster sized glossy laminates of that cow and putting them up in front of the mangers for motivational purposes.

Alternatively is she available for speaking engagements?

awaywithyou · 12-08-2016 03:28PM

jaymla627 wrote: »

If ucd would get their act together their should be a realm of information coming out regarding ebi and if the high ebi holstein actually lives up to her quoted ebi regards litres/solids/fertility, find it comical that's bulls like legend and especially classic are so low on ebi their daughter proven data abroad shows they are producing cows preforming way above their irish data, talk to any English dairy farmer in grass based systems and they rave about classic daughters they have milking in terms of fertility/solids/and longevity

Have you a few classic millers yourself??

stanflt · 12-08-2016 03:38PM

blackdog1 wrote: »

You should cross her with a jersey and get some hybrid vigour going!.

I'm not against ebi but I don't think it's perfect and thankfully they are evolving all the time into an Irish system. I'm glad they're dropping the Base down by 70 points.

Don't want to turn this thread into an ebi debate, we have done that already. that cow looks like a fantastic cow but if she was on a Teagasc farm getting 300kg of meal a year how long would she last. She's probably not even your best cow or highest ebi cow. My problem is people think ebi will solve all your problems but it won't management is key and it doesn't matter if you have lower ebi than the next guy if you have better management skills I guarantee your making better profit.

shes not my best cow or my highest but she is the grandmother of a high ebi bull

if i had a herd of cows likeher id be really happy

thisyear · 12-08-2016 03:48PM

Sorry lads don't post much, but this EBI conversation has got me feeling the need.... I was looking at my milk recording report the other day and hell there is some difference in solids sold per cow with the calved in Feb vs April. My understanding is the EBI is so heavily weighted to fertility because you will get more solids produced per annum by sorting out days in milk ie calving date/fertility than selecting for production traits alone. It makes sense too, if Im getting a cow in 10days earlier and my cows are doing 2kg/MS on average per day then that's worth 20kgs MS/cow! Add that to selecting for positive solids +20kg FP then Im getting over 40kgs. The EBI is heavily weighted towards these. Its also taking into a account survivability. My Co-Op hammers me for volume at -4c/lt so that's not of no value.. I think anyone ignoring EBI is needs a relook. Look at your milk recording report if you don't believe me. Crap milk price years like this year have really brought it home as to which cows are making us money. Calve in Feb and get grass into them asap and target MS sold all day long.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 12-08-2016 04:03PM

blackdog1 wrote: »

TB should have been eradicated by now i know what you mean but ebi won't solve this problem. The department takes an average of 23 days to remove reactors. On countries that are TB free it takes their department 1- 7 days to remove problem cows. Cows with TB should be sent straight to the knackery the next day and the farmer then gets paid.

Oh, I won't argue with you on that.

The point I was trying (badly) to make was we are now able to identify bulls whose sons and daughters will have a lesser chance of catching TB and will have other important resistance characteristics.

To me, that is one of the huge bonuses of EBI, the identifying of economically important traits and breeding those strongest in those traits. There is an argument that you are narrowing the gene pool but we had that done before with RBI and selecting bulls from a breeding population of only a couple of thousand cows. Tbh, I don't see it happening easily this time around as there is a huge emphasis in limiting the number of sons of bulls in the breeding herd and in avoiding inbreeding in the female herd.

jaymla627 · 12-08-2016 04:30PM

awaywithyou wrote: »

Have you a few classic millers yourself??

None milking yet but have 15 incalf classic heifers hitting the parlour next spring, their beautiful heifers

Mooooo · 12-08-2016 05:27PM

jaymla627 wrote: »

awaywithyou wrote: »

Have you a few classic millers yourself??

None milking yet but have 15 incalf classic heifers hitting the parlour next spring, their beautiful heifers

Is that LCK? had a cow off him serious milker. Unfortunately an injury saw her out in second lactation.

jaymla627 · 12-08-2016 09:11PM

Mooooo wrote: »

Is that LCK? had a cow off him serious milker. Unfortunately an injury saw her out in second lactation.

ZlC is irish ai code, he's out of a fay cow from the laurelhill herd that was dispersed in 2013, was some serious stock bred out of their think their is another 3-4 bulls out of laurelhill in ai stations in the UK aswell

jaymla627 · 12-08-2016 09:18PM

thisyear wrote: »

Sorry lads don't post much, but this EBI conversation has got me feeling the need.... I was looking at my milk recording report the other day and hell there is some difference in solids sold per cow with the calved in Feb vs April. My understanding is the EBI is so heavily weighted to fertility because you will get more solids produced per annum by sorting out days in milk ie calving date/fertility than selecting for production traits alone. It makes sense too, if Im getting a cow in 10days earlier and my cows are doing 2kg/MS on average per day then that's worth 20kgs MS/cow! Add that to selecting for positive solids +20kg FP then Im getting over 40kgs. The EBI is heavily weighted towards these. Its also taking into a account survivability. My Co-Op hammers me for volume at -4c/lt so that's not of no value.. I think anyone ignoring EBI is needs a relook. Look at your milk recording report if you don't believe me. Crap milk price years like this year have really brought it home as to which cows are making us money. Calve in Feb and get grass into them asap and target MS sold all day long.

Last I checked theirs no issues with milking on march/april calvers for a 305 lactation, quotas gone.....
Thinking of moving away from Feb calving here and pushing to late feb/March for csd, early calving cows are just taking to much of a hammering here the past two springs with the way weather patterns are going plus it's costing a solid fortune for extra meal, every year magic day is occurring later makes no sense calving a cow in feb and heavily subsiding here with meal/silage to make up for zero growth and crap weather

jaymla627 · 12-08-2016 09:22PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Oh, I won't argue with you on that.

The point I was trying (badly) to make was we are now able to identify bulls whose sons and daughters will have a lesser chance of catching TB and will have other important resistance characteristics.

To me, that is one of the huge bonuses of EBI, the identifying of economically important traits and breeding those strongest in those traits. There is an argument that you are narrowing the gene pool but we had that done before with RBI and selecting bulls from a breeding population of only a couple of thousand cows. Tbh, I don't see it happening easily this time around as there is a huge emphasis in limiting the number of sons of bulls in the breeding herd and in avoiding inbreeding in the female herd.

Was glancing through genus website and they now have a Tb index created that ranks bulls for their daughters resistance to TB, -3 to 3 is the scale with a -3 bulls daughters been alot more prone to the disease then a +3 bull....

kowtow · 12-08-2016 09:27PM

jaymla627 wrote:

Was glancing through genus website and they now have a Tb index created that ranks bulls for their daughters resistance to TB, -3 to 3 is the scale with a -3 bulls daughters been alot more prone to the disease then a +3 bull....

Is it possible to get genus / Dovea or other straws sent to Munster AI (for example) for our own AI man to use? Think someone said that it was ?

jaymla627 · 12-08-2016 09:32PM

kowtow wrote: »

Is it possible to get genus / Dovea or other straws sent to Munster AI (for example) for our own AI man to use? Think someone said that it was ?

Yeah sure progressive/munster ai are now carrying a selection of genus bulls..

Buford T. Justice XIX · 12-08-2016 09:36PM

kowtow wrote: »

Is it possible to get genus / Dovea or other straws sent to Munster AI (for example) for our own AI man to use? Think someone said that it was ?

Yeah, you can get straws from any Irish AI company sent to your AI mans flask for you to use. The imported ones may be more difficult to get, I think.

Edit, Jay has answered that better than me.

jaymla627 · 12-08-2016 09:41PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Yeah, you can get straws from any Irish AI company sent to your AI mans flask for you to use. The imported ones may be more difficult to get, I think.

Edit, Jay has answered that better than me.

As regards say bulls that genus might have but progressive/munster don't stock, to get them specially imported theirs a minimum order of 50 straws last time I done it

kevthegaff · 12-08-2016 09:57PM

jaymla627 wrote:

Was glancing through genus website and they now have a Tb index created that ranks bulls for their daughters resistance to TB, -3 to 3 is the scale with a -3 bulls daughters been alot more prone to the disease then a +3 bull....

Very interesting to me as in a subsebtible area, if I go back to breeding my own stock ill seriously consider. When I went down last time none of the crossbred had lumps, hybrid vigour?

Dairy Chit Chat- Please read Mod note in post #1

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