Waigroup Newsletter - August, 2007
Gavin Falloon - Angus Waigroup, New Zealand
Constant cold frost and cold southerly storms have kept the soil cold and so have held back grass growth.
Many stock on the East coast are still being supplemented something that is most unusual in New Zealand.
Still Spring cannot be far away and today is a beautiful day with temperatures predicted to rise to 16 degrees which will begin growth a little. Sheep and beef farmers have had a difficult year with 70% shown to run at a loss again this year. All prices have been rising a little as our dollar drops which we all hope will continue.
All meat marketing in New Zealand is abysmal with meat companies competing with each other to see who can sell our product the cheapest.. Something must be done and soon.
The Dairy industry is a constant reminder of what can be done, if only we had that much intelligence in the Meat industry
Research.
It takes four and a half of the amount of feed to put on a kilo of fat as it does a kilo of meat.
Fat is an unfortunate product and is constantly being abused but in the animal production cycle it is vital. The enzymes for fertility are carried in the body fats. Not to be confused with the hormones, enzymes trigger the hormones which begin the animal cycling.
This is why the fertility in thin cows is low hence the problem with fertility in the dairy industry. Sheep farmers have known this for years. Fat is also important as storage of energy and is important to maintain as a buffer for the winter months.
In the young animal while it is gaining weight fast it is using its genetic ability to grow in that period. As soon as it stops and gains weight much more slowly it has reached its genetic potential and is beginning to lay on fat.
Pushing an animal hard during its formative years will no increase its skeletal size but becomes a waste of feed.
Feeding young animals to make the most of their genetic potential is important, inadequate feeding will effect their lifetime production
Waigroup Newsletter - July, 2007
Wairarapa weather has remained difficult. We have gone straight from late drought into very cold temperatures and so restricting grass growth. Much of the on farm stock are being supplemented, something very rare for us. I do not remember ever having to supplement ewes at this time and for this period before. There is still little or no grass growing.
Let us spare a thought for the South Island that has just disappeared under snow for the third time this year. Where has the warm winter that the met predicted gone? Some districts in the centre and on the West coast are having a good season. Poor old stock being challanged again.
I still hear the comments made by breeders at bull sales that the bull that they are eyeing is going to make them famous.
The sooner that they learn that there is no such thing the better .Each individual is nothing in himself “it is what he produces” that is important. Breeders work on the assumption that like begets like in other words what you are looking at is what you are going to get. This is hopelessly optimistic and extremely doubtful.
Every bull or cow is only as good as the average performance of its progeny. Once you get your head around that, then its best son or daughter is better that it’s sire or dam and there of course is your method of improvement
Not only that but it is doing it in your environment under your conditions under your management etc. How much better can you get then that! How much more can you be sure to make improvement then that in what ever direction you wish to go.
Waigroup Newsletter - June, 2007
My apologies for last months Newsletter. I sent it, but the server failed to receive it. It was only when one of my readers enquired, that I found out that it was not up, thus it was a bit late
The Wairarapa is very dry . Unprecedented for this time of year. Farmers are unloading Capital stock as we move into Winter without the reserves of feed that we normally have. We will have to hope for a warm Winter (which has been predicted ) and that we will get some growth of grass.. In the meantime young stock are suffering. We will have to make maximum use of “compensatory growth “ this year. You remember the saying “Every animal is genetically coded to reach a given weight at a given age, and that weight can be achieved at any time”.
Cows will not return from grazing until just before calving so that means we should be able to save some feed of calving. Country is our district is usually shut up at the end of May . For cows calving in beginning of September.
For some reason the rising 2 year in calf heifers are holding on well. All our yearling heifers are put to the bull and those failing to conceive are culled. This is the first culling of our female stock. The second cull comes after their 2nd calf, when calf weights are considered.
My bit of research.
In the present system of breeding where the breeder regularly purchases bulls, that bull carries with it all the recessives and instability existent in its parent herd. The same applies to a cow of course.
You can improve growth by this method of selection but that growth carries with it the extra food demand relevant to the extra growth.
If you cannot or do not supply that food, then the first thing to suffer will be fertility.
Fertility is the most finely balanced trait in all biological species.
We are now entering a period when we will be making use of the two genetic sayings
“Every animal is genetically coded to reach a given weight at a given age and that weight can be achieved a any time”, and hopefully “the young cattle will be making use of compensatory growth”.
It has begun to rain, steadily Now we just have to hope for a good growth
Waigroup Newsletter - May, 2007
It has been a dry summer on the East Coast and we still have not had enough rain to start the grass growing. Added to a very low lamb schedule means that our coast has had a difficult season. Cows have gone off grazing which is unusual for us because of the treat of T.B. or other diseases. We have our fingers crossed that we shall get away with it on this occasion.
It is our cows that I consider is our strongest asset. Year after year they are subject to the harshest conditions and year after year they conceive with out effort.
I have been handling cows all my life, some 60 years now. In the early times if your cow was not fat they failed to conceive. If you took too much fat off them in the winter they would not come back in time. Now they are a different animal. The pressure that we have been having them under for all those years is showing us just what can be done
Fertility must be the main economic character.
No calf, no profit.
I have some 20 genetic sayings that I have picked over the years from Geneticists that have been to stay. Over the next period I shall discuss these sayings and explain them -
“For every characteristic that you add to a breeding programme, your progress goes down by “square roots”!
If you have a simple breeding programme and are selecting for one character ‘Growth’ then the heritability is 50%. So if your bull is +20 and he is mated to an average cow, his progeny will be +10.
That is straight forward enough. If you have a multi character selection programme and add Dam Traits then you are down to making under 1 kilo per year at the most so you can see how slow progress becomes. This does not mean that you should not be in a multi selection programme because you must. There is no economics in having the fastest growing bulls if your fertility is so, that you only have very few of them. Dam traits are more important, then growth but less heritability.
Waigroup Newsletter - April, 2007
Autumn is upon us and the trees are turning. Their golden leaves make a beautiful sight in the valley below me. Grass is short and the country around me still dry. There has been a little rain but not enough to start the grass. However more rain is predicted for the end of the week. We will have to wait and see. From where we are we will go into the winter short on grass which will make it hard on the cows again. Not much rough feed around to clean up this year as well so the cows will end up living on rushes and rubbish.
Calving weights are about a kilo down this year owing to the very poor winter last year. The calves should soon compensate.
“Every animal is genetic coded to reach a given weight at a given age and that weight can be achieved at any time” - A genetic saying.
Monthly research:
In my wandering around the country, I have been constantly reminded about the concern commented by the older breeders” is the present Breeding Programme pointing their selection in the right direction.”? If you use the best bull identified on your programme you have a faster growing bull but it also requires more feed. The object of any breeding programme must be to produce faster growing bulls on the same amount of feed.
Every environment has different requirements and cattle must fit their environment if they are going to become more efficient. If you close your herd, as we have done, then your environment becomes dominate. If anyone wishes to see the type of animal that is productive to a high stocking rate of sheep, and is fertile and able to stand the fluctuating feed condition and remain fertile, all they must do is to come and see our herd. Not only that but you will see bulls that compete, on a lot less feed, then so called best of the American cross cattle and is up with the best of them.
Having cattle that are able to handle an environment is vital if you are going to raise efficiency.
I have noticed latterly that a number of breeders have begun to use some of there own bulls.
If at the same time if they demand that every cow calves every year then they will begin to start producing more efficient environment friendly cattle as the years go by.
Waigroup Newsletter - March, 2007
It is getting very dry and no reasonable amount of rain is being predicted until May.
Just the thing to cheer up farmers in a year when all stock prices except beef are down! Summer has been cold and cloudy until the last month but now it is making up for it. It is surprising how such a small two islands can host such a variation in the weather. The mountain range that bisects both Islands has a dominating effect. Wet in the West, dry in the East.
It is water as is always, that plays an important part in keeping the animals going and contented. Plenty of good clean water and some shade and the animals will keep going.
Environment how much does it control our lives as much as it does animals.
An interesting observation is that all humans are the same genus and if you can believe the book the “Seven daughters of Eve” we all trace back to 7 women. Which means that all the observed differences among us is caused by our environment
My bit of research is going to be a comment Let us define a breeding programme and its objectives. Firstly we must define to ourselves whether we wish to improve the animals or we wish to make money. Unfortunately they are quite different
(Making money requires following fashion and giving farmers what they think that they want.
(Improving animals requires often deciding what the industry needs which can be quite (different and may require cutting right across fashion. This can and often is expensive.
I do not and never have recommended, closing a herd as we have done. It takes many years , during which time you are unlikely to sell many bulls. Scientists said to me when they heard that I had closed my herd “My goodness you are game” I did not know what they meant, but soon found out.
In all populations there are high performing genes residing in the population. I suspect there is the same proportion of high performing genes in the least fashionable herd as there are in the most fashionable.
The objectives should be to improve all those characters that make you money, and as in our country, cattle have always been used to keep sheep pastures at their best ,, then the cattle must be able to perform while living off the left over rubbish.
Modern breeding programmes have shown us how to raise our animal growth, but as the growth has risen so has the food required. We are now at the stage when the cost of supplementary food is making beef production unsustainable.
Where have the Range cattle gone? Because they most certainly have gone!
How can we get them back? That is the test of the modern breeder!!
Waigroup Newsletter - February, 2007
It has been a funny season, but then I suppose that most of them are. After all they are all different.
A very long cold winter put a lot of stress on cows especially as they began to lactate as they were already in low condition. Calf weights are down this year demonstrating the cow condition effect. This calf effect is very hard to overcome demonstrating how important nutrition is at this period.
Much to our gratification, at Pinebank, we have come up with another outstanding bull in Pinebank Waigroup 14/02. He demonstrated his superiority in the Glanworth Herd where Joe had borrowed him for the season.
His progeny test is
Calv Ease -0.6 Ges.length-2.2 Bth Wgt+2.8 200 dy wgt +27 400 dy wgt +67
6ooDy Wgt+81.
This is only one herd’s progeny test and we are anticipating that he will improve on this, when other herds are included. Also like some of the Group Herds it is a high performing herd and as such will tend to disguise his true performance.
Either way we have a very real replacement for 41/97 when he has to be replaced. So much for the future.
My bit of research. It is clear that many breeders have not read about or do not know that “80% of weaning weight is produced by the calfs ability to grow during this period. Only 20% comes from milk.”
These findings comes from Trangie. Which means that selection for milk is a waste of time and could be detrimental to long term fertility in the cows.
Some years ago I used a bull which had a dramatic affect on weaning weight.
I thought to myself how could this be. The bull does not produce milk, it has no control on fertility or gestation.
The conclusion was its calves grew faster during this period. So I had no trouble accepting Trangie’s finding, in fact I have know this for many years, with the result that milk production has never been a criteria in my Bull selection, provided that milk was of course adequate .
High milk production in cows lowers their fertility. This is straight biology. Lactation is far harder on an animal than gestation, and if your cows are run under commercial conditions then you will find that excessively high milk production cows will keep missing conception owing to failure of cycle.
Waigroup Newsletter - January, 2007
Gavin Falloon - Angus Waigroup, New Zealand
Too many breeders place too many of their own prejudices on their breeding herd. They also put their own preconceived ideas on the population of cattle that they are producing. These are too often based on what their fathers taught them, or, what they think the industry requires.
All these goals are laudable if they happened to be right. There is always a conflict between what the freezing industry wants and what the animal requires in order to be efficient.
Freezing industries will wish you to breed a bigger and bigger animal and will constantly bring up reasons why you should. They want the bigger animal because it costs as much to kill a very big animal as it does a small animal. As you breed your animals bigger so you must carry less or feed them more and often both. What you really require is an animal that is best suited to your environment, i.e. in N.Z. a grasslands environment.
Recording programmes are of necessity rigid. They must cater for all environments, all farming methods, and make no adjustments for the variations in climate. Farming methods,
soil fertility etc. Climatic changes can often make big differences in performance and ranking of animals.
If you have ever done your own calculations, as I have done, for a number of years, you quickly see errors appearing. These you try to adjust and correct something that a programme is not able to do. For instance if you are making “genetic gain” in your herd.
The standard adjustment of 15% for yearling heifers is far to much. In fact seeing how your yearling heifers are performing in relation to your old cows is a good measure to find out how well you are progressing or whether you are actually making genetic gain at all.
All this is not a criticism of the existing B.L.U.P. programme but just does indicate the limitations of any computer programme. In fact if the Angus breeders consider that the breed is a Dam trait breed (which it is, although many breeders try to turn it into a terminal sire breed) the BLUP with its accent on historical data is the best possible programme.
Dam traits of course are firstly fertility, secondly survivability of calf, then longevity of cow, then the ability to lose and recover weight quickly in order to conceive etc.
Either way the breed has a long way to go to achieve efficiency.
Gavin Falloon
Waigroup Newsletter - December, 2006
I am picking up a degree of concern about the latest B.L.P. breeding programme and the direction that it is taking the Angus breed. It is a very sophisticate programme and is largely based upon historical data.
What people are concerned about is its apparent inability to identify efficient cattle as opposed to those responding just to heritability with the consequence that although the cattle grow faster that they take more feed to get there.
Recording programmes are after all just a guide and breeder must use his own knowledge and skill to select his sires. About every so many thousand mating a “outlier” bull appears.
Unfortunately the modern breeding programme can disguise these bulls because of their background information.
The genetic saying goes: “Any animal demonstrating superiority in any characteristic carries with it its heritability (as estimated) regardless of the performance of its parents”.
Where these animals come from is!
In any mating genes come together purely by chance. Every animal has a number of high performing genes. These outlier bulls just happen to pick up from both parents a number of these high performing genes so out pops one of these superior, sometimes very superior individuals.
The programme, because of its basis of historical data , writes these bulls down.
Any breeder will recognise these animals when they appear because they stand out from your population. These bulls should be used , and they will eventually demonstrating their superiority by their progeny test.
There must be a lot of bulls missed because they were never identified and just disappeared into commercial herds.
Gavin Falloon
Waigroup Newsletter - November, 2006
It has been a strange Spring. Soil has remained cold and this has restricted growth.. Some dairy farmers here are already down to once a day milking and they are wondering where they are going from here. To make matters worse the gale force winds that we have been having are acting like a giant refrigerator and as they suck moisture from the ground they cool the soil even further. That grass that is beginning to grow is showing a tendency to go straight to seed.
The cows who came out of a very wet cold winter in light condition are taking a long time to recover. It will be a big test on their fertility to see how many get back in calf. To make matters worse it is the second year in a row that they have approached going to the bull in light condition.
Over the years I have picked up a number of Genetic sayings which I thought that I would share with you and where necessary explain them to you. These form the basis of all animal breeding. The first one is the equation that you use to make progress
The maximal amount of progress in any Breeding Programme is the heritability of the characters used, multiplied by the selection differential and divided by the Generation Interval.
The heritability for growth is 50%, so that is easy enough.
Selection Differential is how far above the herd average are the sires you use. So if you are using three sires and they are + 10 +6 and +5. Your selection Differential would be +7
Generation interval is a little bit more interesting. You must realise that for every year that you use the same bull, you remain on square one. In other words you make no progress. A number of Stud breeders use the same set of sires year after year.
“You” are getting older and you are going nowhere. To make maximum progress you must change your bulls every year and hopefully pick better and better bulls.
This would be an interesting exercise.
Gavin Falloon
Waigroup Newsletter - October, 2006
We have gone from what is probably the wettest winter on record, to the driest. Three weeks of bright sunlight and warm temperatures baked the surface hard.
The Met office was predicting a dry season on our coast and so farmers began to think that the drought was already here and so began dumping stock.
Then came the rain which varied all over the district but was adequate everywhere. But still the grass has refused to grow. Most farmers a relieved that they took the precaution to lower stock numbers
Oh the vagaries of the weather
We began mating 15 month heifers in the mid 1970's at the suggestion of our geneticist. He said that the industry would eventually demand it, so I ought to be well on the road with experience when the demand came.
Much to my surprise there is still very few yearling heifers mated. Beef farmers must be so rich that they do not require the extra money.
Mating yearling heifers has many advantages. Firstly you get an extra years income. Then you get a look at your cows, this allows you to get rid of the shy breeders, bad milkers etc.
We had been selecting straight for growth for sometime and with the resulting lift in birth weights.
We had a lot of calving trouble at the beginning. We tried everything to reduce calving problems. Science told us that the main time of foetal growth was the last 3 weeks of pregnancy, so we reduced feed for the heifers during this period
Nothing worked and we were still having to calve far too many heifers and wrecking some.
Because of our breeding programme we have control of our genetic input and so we began selecting for low birth weights.
For the last 20 years we have had no trouble calving yearling heifers. We have found that as the years progress that we are getting what the industry calls more and more “line bending” bulls. Bulls that have low birth weight but high growth.
Next month I shall talk about analysing 20 years of heifer mating and subsequent performance.
Gavin Falloon
Waigroup Newsletter - September, 2006
We have just been through the wettest Winter on record, but now we are out the other side in the most beautiful weather. The grass is still being held up by too cold ground temperatures, but it must begin to grow soon
Outlook for the coming season, so the met office tells us, is for a dry summer on the East coast, which is where we live. Oh well that is farming and the stock will be tested again to see how they cope with the vagaries of the seasons. Right now the weather could not be better. Day after day of blue skies but cool with temperatures of around 14o. We have had no wind this year so far which is unusual. strong North-westerly wind is very limiting to our district. As the wind blows it sucks the moisture out of the soil acting like a giant refrigerator cooling the soil and stopping grass growth. This is the reason why the East coast often had such poor Spring growth. Not this year so far.
My bit of research
Some years ago it was fashionable to mass screen large commercial herds for selecting the cows which were weaning high weights of calves and collecting them into herds for breeding bulls. These herds were expected to leave calves that were well above average in weaning weight and hence put the breeder well ahead in a herd of efficient cows for bull production.
When you have a large volume of back data of grassland production you can do all sorts of things with it.
I decided to go into my data and theoretically screen the cows for weaning weights and then follow them through to see what happened
I found that it did not work. That you would have done just as well by taking a random herd of cows and begun selecting them for weaning weight. Why? I suspect it is the bulmar effect coming in and everything returning to the average
I sent my data off to the scientists and they agreed that my data indicated that mass selecting did not work
Selecting to improve genetic structure must be intensive, additive, cumulative, and directional.
Gavin Falloon
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