Doug Blair recognized | Other owners plan to carry on Rocky Mountain Holsteins ranch
COCHRANE, Alta. — Selling a young dairy heifer for a record price in Western Canada was like a farewell toast for Doug Blair.
The July 9 sale marked Blair’s friendly goodbye to his partnership with David Chalack and Glenn Hockley, who will continue the Rocky Mountain Holsteins brand at the Cochrane area farm.
The 10-month-old female, named Rockymountain Uno Cheyanne, sold for $265,000 at the Rocky Mountain sale. Stanton Brothers of Ilderton, Ont., were the buyers. It also bought her full sister, Rockymountain Uno Clarisa, for $95,000.
The sale offered 104 lots, which sold for $1,136,950 and averaged $10,535. The farm also sold 62 embryos for an average price of $667.
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Blair plans to retire to Cobble Hill, B.C., with his wife, Anne, and write a book about his experiences in the cattle genetics business.
He said he has watched the dairy industry adopt new technology, starting with artificial insemination in 1944. That technology was the beginning of a journey that made Canadian Holsteins respected around the world, he added.
“When artificial insemination arrived, it was a milestone,” he said.
Blair founded the artificial insemination company Western Breeders Service in 1968 and was chief executive officer until 1988, when a merger resulted in the formation of Alta Genetics Inc.
He continued as chief executive officer until he retired in 2002.
He watched artificial insemination offer faster genetic improve-ment for the beef and dairy sectors.
Breeding decisions were further improved with computer power in the 1960s that could create databases and rapidly evaluate sires.
Even so, calculations of parent averages had only a 35 percent reliability in predicting the heritability of certain valuable traits.
Genomic calculations changed all that.
“Genomics finally were able to get the DNA profile in cows, but what really makes it work is there are about 10,000 proven Holstein sires that have about 26 million daughters,” he said.
The big database allows producers to correlate DNA information with breeding results.
“Now when we take a DNA sample from a heifer calf, for example, we correlate what her DNA says against a very large database of genetic information,” he said.
The database is updated every three months. The reliability of the data is 70 percent for a young animal, 80 percent for a cow and 85 percent for a proven bull.
“We know just about as much about a calf when it is born now as we did before, after she had two lactations,” said Blair.
He has judged Holsteins around the world and still values the visual assessment of proper conformation.
However, added genomic information means that harder to identify traits, such as daughter fertility and herd life, are now more accessible at an earlier age.
He said producers are now willing to spend big money on heifers such as Cheyanne because the genetic information indicates superiority before a calf ever hits the ground.
Selling the concept of genomics was met with skepticism in the early days, but others were keen to adopt it, especially since 2010 when genetic information became more stable and reliable as more data was added.
The cost of testing is also lower, so commercial dairy producers are starting to test their heifers. Those with the best numbers become replacements.
“It is not just the elite dairymen that are using DNA,” he said.
“It is basically progressive commercial dairymen who are using it, too.”
As for Cheyanne, the new owners will send her to an embryo transfer centre, where she will enter an invitro fertilization program.
Her oocytes will be harvested and fertilized in a petri dish with semen from top performing sires.
The heifer’s eggs will be collected every two weeks until she is 15 months old. She will then be bred, and more IVF work can be done for another two months once she is 60 days pregnant,
“If she works like she should work, they will probably end up with 20 or 25 progeny from that heifer before she is two years old,” he said.
“We still like to have the verification of the actual production records and what they look like when they are milked.”
Blair said the Stanton brothers are progressive dairy producers and have one of the highest genomic rated herds in Canada.
“They are concentrating on having the very best dairy herd in Canada, and she is a step along the way for them,” he said.
There have been other honours since Rocky Mountain was formed 10 years ago, first using traditional breeding methods and later genomic evaluation.
In 2011, the farm won the breeders herd award at the World Dairy Expo at Madison, Wisconsin. Its herd was the unanimous choice among 17 judges for conformation.
The farm has also placed 21 bulls in AI centres, and the Rockymountain prefix is gaining recognition around the world.
Blair will continue his involvement with various boards in retirement. He has also received considerable recognition for his contributions to the dairy business and agriculture.
He was the founding president of the Canadian Association of Animal Breeders and the Canadian Embryo Exporters Association, and is a past president of the Canadian Livestock Exporters Association.
He also served as co-chair of the Canadian Sectoral Advisory Group on International Trade for four years, which advises Canadian agriculture and trade ministers.
Blair was chair of the Canadian Dairy Network (CDN) and the National Association of Animal Breeders in the United States.
He received the Pinnacle Award for outstanding business success, the Canadian Export Achievement Award and the Commemorative Medal for Contributions to Canada and was inducted into the Canadian Agriculture Hall of Fame in 2003.
In 2007, he was made an honorary member of the Klussendorf Association at World Dairy Expo, and in 2008 he was the first co-recipient of the Dairy Cattle Improvement Industry of Distinction Award by CDN.
