Dr. Alan Couch is President of the Australian Red Poll Cattle Breeders Inc. He obtained a PhD in Ecology from University of Canberra where he used innovative genetic approaches to understand Murray Cod dispersal. He is keen to see the preservation of genetic diversity of heritage breeds in Australian agriculture.
Reinventing the livestock breed society
Dr. Alan Couch
Modern breed societies need a new approach, new tools, and a cost effectiveness focus to be relevant to today's livestock breeders.
For many decades, centuries in some cases, the use case for a livestock breed society has been slowly changing and it is fair to say that not all breed societies have kept pace with the requirement for change. Long term endeavours such as breeding a line of agricultural livestock require significant conservatism to succeed but this also limits the innovation and technological change that can be harnessed by thoughtful and careful embracing of technology.
A modern ideal breed society must retain the core function of maintaining an accurate pedigree but to assist breeders in their efforts, pedigree databases should include details of measurable traits, especially highly heritable traits. In addition to accuracy, images, video, and marketing tools are expected in any modern useful system.
Embracing a state-of-the-art database is the first necessary step. It must be one that can easily include user entered information to reduce administrative overheads as well as the ability to record photos, videos, pedigree with verification (parent verification), understandable and verifiable performance recording, and genomic trait recording. It should be available in the paddock on a mobile device and ideally integrated with useful farm management software.
Innovative database use allows for one-off lifetime registration for animals - no longer requiring annual renewals or expensive herd inventory costs.
Performance recording and trait recording, and parent verification which eventually becomes pedigree verification, specifically provide certainty for buyers and breeders alike. Furthermore, parent verification will obviate any downstream lawsuits that can arise from unintended and unavoidable real-life management issues.
While breed societies have existed in their own silos in the past, modern marketing specifications suggest commercial breeders would be better off choosing animals with desirable traits for their circumstances rather than adhering to some fashionable breed. Of course stud breeders are still entirely necessary to provide seed stock to composite producers. For this reason a modern breed database would be optimal if it was multi-breed and available to all beef producers to identify animals with traits and performance best suited to their local conditions.
Genomic assessment too needs to become better and more cost effective for the breeder. Rather than maximising profits with the traditional charge per trait approach, we can now provide parent verification and set of traits (currently 42 and growing) for a single low cost test. We can do this because we have created application programming interface (API) links between our HerdLogic database and the highly innovative Diversity Arrays Technology laboratory that allows us to reduce administrative overheads. Furthermore, this lab provides us with exceptional analytical capabilities that promise to allow breeders to discover more relevant genes that are associated with specific traits as we see breeders record more phenotypic information.
Stud breeders from all breeds, particularly small breeds that struggle to afford expensive breed society support services, as well as beef producers with interest in innovative performance recording, modern database technology and cost effective genomic assessment1 are welcome to contact us and learn more about what and how we have made these changes. In particular, they will be interested to learn about how cost effective our new approach has been.
REF 1: www.diversityarrays.com/dartreseq-finding-the-needle-in-the-genetic-haystack/
Six Top Trends In Cattle Genetics
● Achieving sustainability and carbon neutrality goals.
● Focusing on feed efficiency for economic and environmental benefits.
● Accelerated genetic progress through artificial breeding technologies.
● Precision breeding with digital twin technology.
● Welfare-driven selection for polled genetics.
● Leveraging artificial intelligence for genetic selection.
Source: Beef 2024.
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Trace minerals are required for optimal growth, reproduction, and immunity. Optimising trace mineral status relying solely on oral supplements across a herd may fail because of variation in individual intake and reduced absorption due to antagonism of other ration components and minerals. The use of injectable trace mineral supplements has been associated with positive reproductive outcomes including improved conception rate, increased odds of pregnancy and greater final in calf rate. A study conducted on 2,168 dairy cows, administered injectable trace minerals, four weeks prior to calving and again four weeks prior to the start of mating showed treated animals had a 3.3 per cent greater final in-calf rate, and a reduced time from start of mating to conception, compared to control animals 1 . The Importance of B12 Dr Carl Eden, Technical Services Veterinarian with Boehringer Ingelheim says “Vitamin B12 is sometimes referred to as a ‘super vitamin’ because it is only required in very small amounts but vital to many essential metabolic pathways. However, demand for B12 can vary considerably during the year and we see serum levels of B12 fall at critical times, such as the first few months after calving.” Vitamin B12 contains cobalt, so deficiency in cobalt can lead to deficiency in vitamin B12 because ruminants get most of their B12 as a byproduct of ruminal fermentation where the bacteria in their rumen assemble B12 from cobalt for use by the cow. Sub-optimal trace mineral and vitamin B12 status at calving, mating, and drying off has been shown to negatively impact growth, reproduction, and immunity. Using a trace mineral injectable containing vitamin B12 can improve trace mineral and vitamin B12 status at these critical times. Marks-Min with Vitamin B12 – The Evidence In the largest trace element study to date, Marks-Min Injectable Trace Mineral with Vitamin B12 demonstrated remarkable results when compared to a reference trace mineral injection. “Given the differences between Marks-Min and other products on the market, we wanted to generate a compelling data set to demonstrate how effective it was compared to the pioneer product. We entrusted this work to a third-party research company” says Dr Eden. “We chose farms that were at the top of their game from a reproductive perspective. We made sure that the farms had no evidence of trace element or vitamin B12 deficiencies or excess.” Across all outcomes of interest, Marks-Min demonstrated clear non-inferiority when compared to the reference product. Outcomes measured included submission, pregnancy and conception rates, and six week in-calf rate. Marks-Min demonstrated it is highly suited as an alternative treatment to the reference product. Reference: 1. Hawkins, D., and B. V. S. Franklin. New Zealand Dairy Veterinarians Newsletter 24 (2007): 12-16 Company website: livestockfirst.com.au Company email address: CustomerCare.Australia@boehringer-ingelheim.com Company video: https://vimeo.com/1138807630?fl=pl&fe=cm
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