DNA Dialogue – Creating Productive Females

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[The screen shows Troy Rowan speaking with cuts to images of beef cattle..]

SUPERIMPOSE: Troy Rowan, UTIA Genomics Center for the Advancement of Agriculture

Troy Rowan: I think that probably the most important trait for any commercial producer to think about when they're doing genetic selection is stayability. So, stayability is how long do we expect a cow to stay in the herd, right? Our economist friends tell us that a cow has to reach this age of about six years old before she becomes profitable. So in that case, right, she's recouped the costs of her development, she's recouped her annual maintenance costs, and only then does that cow start to be profitable. The good news about stayability is that it's genetically heritable right it's one of these lowly heritable traits—so, somewhere between 10 and 20% heritable—but it's probably one of the most important economic traits to a commercial cow herd. So if we can find bulls that will make cows that stay in our herd longer, we ultimately are a more profitable operation. So stayability is the most important trait for a commercial cow herd to keep their eye on.

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TITLE CARD: DNA Dialogue — Igenity® Beef — powered by Neogen®

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[The screen shows beef cattle on pasture running across a field.]

SUPERIMPOSE: Igenity Logo.

[A rancher speaks to the camera. With camera cuts to beef cattle and back to the speaker.]

SUPERIMPOSE: Hunter Horne, Director of Cattle Operations, Great Mark Western

Hunter Horne: I feel the use of genomics for cattle producers will be more widespread than we're seeing it now. I think we're just in the beginning stages of it. And I think a lot of people just see the side of the replacement females and increasing the predictability and future use of your females because we all know the cost that it takes to develop those into a cow. The large side of it that folks miss out on is the use of genomics to predict the product that they're making every year and in that, I mean, their calves. The feed yards are constantly after a more predictable product, more predictable days on feed, more predictable outcome on the rail. Through genomics we're able to accomplish a lot faster what used to take multiple generations.

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