patsy_mccabe wrote: It's the Genomic testing that I don't understand. When you genomic test an animal, there is feck all change in their figures. If there was so much to learn about the animal from genomics, why aren't the changes bigger? It's as if the whole project is still in 'work in prigress' mode and they have identified feck all genomic makers to date.
GiantPencil wrote: » Anyone notice any big swings? Didn't see any big changes myself only that cows I had genotyped had their milk figures come closer to my expectations
tanko wrote: OKH and Bivouac are up anyway. Have a two year old GJB first calver here this year off a good milky CHX cow. She has no milk and terrible confirmation, dont know how her calf didnt starve to death, she ony has one ovary as well, wiil be out the gate shortly.
wiggy123 wrote: have used him over the years numerous times on different females, none ever held to him.. maybe a god send for me
patsy_mccabe wrote: » Hedge your bets with low reliability bulls. Use plenty of them and don't overuse any one bull. They should average out with half going up and half going down.
Simmental. wrote: » Kilbride Farm Escalop 13 has seen his terminal index drop by €46 going from a 4 star to a 2 star compared to this time last year. It would put you off using low reliability bulls. He has great milk figures as well but his calving difficulty might put allot off using him
Never wrestle with pigs wrote: » Feck. Iv a smashing pedigree escalop heifer due in December and her figures have crashed. Not going to be easy to sell a bull out of her. Wouldn't mind but she's a big long tank of a heifer. I'd love 20 of them.
Simmental. wrote: » How did you find him for calving?
Never wrestle with pigs wrote: » I bought her in. Fella I bought her off used him a good bit on pedigrees and can't understand why his cd is so high. She looks like she should have a right good bit of room for calving. Big frame with shape and extremely quiet.
Simmental. wrote: » Once a bull has 95% reliability the figures wont change much but by that time they are old and wont be available for long. It does take time to get data on how a bull's progeny is breeding and that seems to cause the replacement figures to jump up and down. Hopefully the BDGP will allow the ICBF to improve a bull's reliability earlier.
furandfeather wrote: » I appreciate all that,but how many Bulls have 95% reliability. As a predictive tool the star system is not fit for purpose imo. When you cant have reasonable faith in figures that have 83% reliability why even bother publishing stars for young bulls at pedigree sales, only to mislead farmers and make perfectly good bulls almost unsellable
Never wrestle with pigs wrote: » To many people are fixated with the replacement index I think. How many replacements do we need? Cerberus is still a savage good terminal bull with easy calving. I wouldn't mind having a few to sell. Iv changed my bulls to terminal bulls for next year and I will ai a few for replacements. I've bought pedigree heifers with lower stars and savage breeding. I walked into the places and looked at what I liked first and asked about stars later. I think there is a shift in how important it is to people lately. Don't get me wrong I'm a supporter of the icbf data base that can only get better with the more information fed into it. But I think we need to go back to breeding good quality. The marts are proof of that at the moment in this small recession at the moment.
patsy_mccabe wrote: » The big issue with Cerberus is, he was sold as THE bull to breed females. His daughters were winning shows left, right and center. 1379 offspring listed in the herdbook. A lot of pissed off breeders around, I can tell ya. I had one here and she was stone mad. Had to get rid of her. Twice she nearly killed me. Jumped a gate once without putting a foot on it, to get away from her. Had to load her with me up on a wall with a long stick (like them boys on the island of Terceira out in the Azures).
Sheep breeder wrote: » To many people getting caught up in the fashion circles that go around about certain bulls and Ai stations pushing the next big thing with out any proofs. Look back a couple years ago you were not a limousin breeder unless you were using vantastic.
Hard Knocks wrote: Notice the Stars have been updated Bigger change to my herd then from the September proof
patsy_mccabe wrote: Any big movements with the AI bulls?
