NANTON, Alta. — Who’s the daddy could turn out to be valuable economic information for a large commercial beef herd.
Three southern Alberta ranches that use a large number of bulls have joined a study using DNA to match the sires to their calves. The collections started in 2010 and results are starting to match bulls to their offspring that can be further linked to calf growth rates, health status and carcass quality.
The information offers tremendous economic benefits to a commercial operation with large lots of cows and multiple herd sires in one pasture, said Alberta Agriculture’s Jim Hanson.
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“I want to know the economic value that can be derived from knowing the parentage,” said Hanson, who is leading the study.
He suspects this work will prove certain bloodlines consistently produce desirable qualities like healthier animals or better grading carcasses.
“I suspect what we are going to get is identifying a certain bloodline that is going to do certain things or there might be a problem with a certain family,” he said at an Alberta Agriculture beef information day in Nanton Dec. 13.
At the Flying E Ranche west of Stavely, Alta., groups of bulls are turned out with three separate herds of females starting in June. Each bull is expected to service 21 or 22 females but the results are showing some produce more than their fair share of calves while others lag behind.
Owned by Larry Sears and sons, the ranch had good cow and calf records but until they joined the study, knowledge about the bulls’ performance was limited.
“We know what the cows are doing but we don’t know what our bulls are doing,” said Callum Sears.
DNA is collected from all the bulls and calves during regular processing times. In 2010 a limited group was sampled but this year all calves were collected. Information has been collected on about 50 Angus bulls.
The Sears have found out how many calves each bull sired as well as the gender. Their top bull produced 32 bulls and heifers, while another sired the same number but all the calves were daughters. That bull may be retained but could be used to mate with the best females to produce replacement heifers.
Ultimately the carcass information may be the most valuable information. They are learning which sire lines produce the AAA and higher yielding carcasses and other important economic factors. To get a credible set of statistics they must collect information over the course of several years to make good comparisons.
