A General Introduction
The Namibian Santa Gertrudis Society uses the BREEDPLAN
International evaluation system. The USA and Australian
Santa Gertrudis also use BREEDPLAN International.
This has many advantages for the Namibian Santa Gertrudis
producers because it will eventually allow the direct
comparison of animals across countries. No breed Society
can work in isolation and Namibian producers are first
working at strengthening the linkages between herds to
allow across breed EBVs.
The judicious use of bulls from the USA, Australia and
South Africa in our Namibian herds will eventually create
the required linkages to allow these across country analyses.
The Namibian Santa Gertrudis Society are working with their
International counterparts to make this happen.
FOR MORE INFORMATION DOWNLOAD:
Breedplan and Santa Gertrudis(ENGLISH)
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Breedplan en Santa Gertrudis(AFRIKAANS)
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BREEDPLAN WEBSITE
Breedplan document download:
By definition, an EBV is an estimate of an animal's true breeding
value...
Interpreting Accuracy
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You are presented with a detailed set of BREEDPLAN EBVs
for a particular animal...
Interpreting BREEDPLAN EBVs
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Breedplan document download:
BREEDPLAN currently calculates three growth EBVs - 200
Day Growth, 400 Day Weight & 600 Day Weight. These EBVs
are the best prediction of the animal's ability to grow
to weaning (200-day), yearling (400 day) and later ages
(600 day). The Growth EBVs are expressed in kilograms
(kg) and are calculated from the live weight performance
of animals when they are between 80 and 900 days of age.
Recording Weight Information
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What is BREEDPLAN?
BREEDPLAN is a modern genetic evaluation system for beef
cattle. It offers the potential to accelerate genetic
progress, tighten up breeding operations, improve productivity
and increase prices for cattle sold for breeding and
slaughter.
BREEDPLAN has been implemented as the national beef recording
scheme in Australia, New Zealand, Namibia, Thailand and the
Philippines, and its use is also increasing in the United
States, Canada, United Kingdom, Hungary, South America and
South Africa.
BREEDPLAN uses the world's most advanced genetic evaluation
system (based on Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP)
technology) to produce Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) of
recorded cattle for a range of important production traits
(eg. weight, carcase, fertility).
FOR MORE INFORMATION DOWNLOAD:
Breedplan General Introduction
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INTERNATIONAL TRENDS IN BEEF CATTLE
1. Introduction
At the outset let me congratulate those who have organised the
Aldman Stockman School and LRF Symposium for their vision in
having your industry address such a wide range of topics that
impinge on how to ensure the profitability of your beef industry.
Thank you to the organisers for inviting me to participate in
such an important event.
My talk will discuss:
- How performance recording has developed to cover a
balance of production traits;
- How modern performance programs balance individual
traits to obtain a selection index or indexes;
- How selection indexes form the basis for genetic
tools that can be used to maximise genetic progress
in economic terms;
- How gene marker information is being used to improve
estimated breeding values;
- Software for minimising the effects of genetic defects;
- The progress that is being made with multi-breed
evaluations;
- Progress with across-country evaluations;
- Trends in how genetic evaluation services are being
delivered;
- The challenge - how better performance recording
systems can make beef more competitive internationally.
2. Traits Recorded
Initially beef cattle performance recording systems focussed
mainly on weight gain. The rationale was simple:
- Farmers can easily record weight.
- Weight gain is moderately heritable, and
- Many cattle are sold by weight so heavier cattle
make more money.
However, long term selection based mainly on weight gain can
be detrimental to some other production traits such as calving
ease.
Modern performance recording programs cover a wide range of
production traits. For example, Table 2.1 shows the traits
that are evaluated in the BREEDPLAN® genetic evaluation system.
FOR MORE INFORMATION DOWNLOAD:
INTERNATIONAL TRENDS IN BEEF CATTLE
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One of the most common questions asked by breeders with a
relatively small herd is "what size herd do you need to
obtain effective results from BREEDPLAN?" This is a
difficult question to answer as it depends on a number of
factors, however the following document briefly outlines
how BREEDPLAN works and what breeders with small
herds can do to maximise their results from BREEDPLAN...
Small Herds
Obtaining effective results from BREEDPLAN
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