Commercial Sire Selection: What’s Important and What’s Not

Profit or net income from a calf crop of a commercial cow/calf herd is determined by: (number sold X average weight X average price/lb) – (total cost of production).

Profit from a commercial herd should be figured in this way, across the total operation rather than on a per-cow basis. Why? Because larger and/or higher producing cows may make more profit per cow. But fewer such cows can be run on the same land resource.

Number sold includes herd size, reproduction, and survival. Weight is that when you market. Price is that received when you market. And cost includes everything that should apply, not just the dollars you spend out-of-pocket. Highest profit usually comes not from maximizing numbers, weight, or price or minimizing cost but from optimizing for each operation the level of each factor.

Methods of Sire Selection

Sires are the biggest source of improvement from genetic selection, the process of determining which individuals go into the breeding herd, how many offspring they produce, and how long they stay in the herd. Sires may be selected on visual appearance, individual records, or expected progeny difference (EPD). For traits where it is available, EPD has greatly improved selection of sires. Why is EPD such an improvement? Because EPD incorporates records from an individual, its relatives, and its progeny and allows direct comparison between all individuals across all types of management and all years. Some breed associations now have as many as 21 EPDs. What EPDs are currently available? The “universal” EPDs in the following list are reported by every association with EPD. The remaining EPDs may or may not be reported by an association:

Universal – Birth Weight, Weaning Weight, Yearling Weight, “Milk” (estimate of all maternal factors affecting weaning weight);

Other production – ADG, Yearling Height, Residual ADG (estimate of efficiency);

Reproduction – Scrotal Circumfer-ence, Direct Calving Ease (calf’s ease of birth), Maternal Calving Ease (dam’s birthing ease), Gestation Length, Heifer Pregnancy %;

Cowherd – Total Maternal (combines direct and maternal effects on weaning weight), Docility, Cow Energy Maintenance Requirements, Mature Weight, Mature Height, Stayability (estimate of longevity);

Carcass – Weight, Marbling, Ribeye Area, Fat thickness, Retail Product %, Tenderness, Ultrasound for ribeye intramuscular fat (IMF %, an estimate of marbling) ribeye area, fat thickness, and retail product;

$ Indexes – discussed below.

Basic Considerations in

Commercial Sire Selection

In order to decide what is important in selection of commercial sires we should know a producer’s place in the industry. Are you a typical cow-calf producer, selling at weaning or shortly after through a traditional marketing me-thod? You may retain ownership to market after a growing period or out of the feedyard. Or perhaps you are vertically integrated, from cow-calf through marketing of carcasses on value-based grids or even at retail. Which traits are important to your profit depends on where you fit in the industry.

Your breeding system should influence which traits to consider in selecting sires. If you don’t save heifers, but purchase them or raise them in another herd, you have a terminal breeding system, which usually involves crossbreeding but can be straightbred (using one breed). Because heifers are not saved in a terminal system, maternal traits are not important in the selection of terminal sires. (However, maternal traits are obviously important in the source of replacement females for terminal systems and so are important in the sires used to produce replacements.) If you do save heifers for replacements you have a continuous breeding system, which can be straightbred or crossbred. Because heifers are saved, you should consider in sires for continuous systems not only traits affecting performance and value of progeny destined for production of beef but also maternal traits transmitted to daughters.

Traits Important in All Commercial Production Programs

- Regardless of breeding system and marketing, bulls must have the ability to perform under prevailing production conditions. Selection of sires should consider structural soundness, which is evaluated visually. Structural soundness is important not only to ensure that a bull can function under prevailing conditions but also to prevent inherited structural defects in progeny which could adversely affect their ability to function.

Potential reproductive ability is important in all sires; it is best estimated in bulls by a Breeding Soundness Exam (BSE), which includes physical examination, semen quality, and scrotal circumference. (In AI sires, the relevant factor is semen quality.) In selecting commercial bulls, actual scrotal circumference should be used, rather than EPD. Remember, EPD predicts performance of progeny, so Scrotal Circumference EPD should be important in sire selection by a purebred breeder to produce commercial bulls with desirable scrotal circumference. But Scrotal Circumference EPD should not be important to a commercial producer, unless the size of a bull’s progeny’s calf fries is important. It is actual circumference that estimates a bull’s own reproductive potential.

Factors affecting price of sale animals should be considered. For most producers, the price of calves is usually determined by a buyer’s visual appraisal; the same is true of most feeder cattle and, in some cases, finished cattle sold live. So, factors such as color, perceptions of breed, and perceived degree of muscling can be important. Price can be influenced if a producer can merchandise documentation of future performance and carcass attributes. Producers who sell on carcass value grids are paid for the carcass attributes of their cattle; live appearance is irrelevant.

Factors affecting cost of production should be considered. For terminal sires, this involves such things as adaptability to the environment, resistance to disease and other health problems, and efficiency of gain. In addition to these traits, for sires in continuous systems, nutritional cost in cows for body maintenance and production is important.

Of course, a sire’s calving ease (estimated by birth weight or, preferably, direct calving ease) is important in all cases.

Traits Important for Specific Commercial Production Programs

Beyond the above, traits that should be important in commercial sire selection are:

- for a terminal breeding system marketing at or shortly after weaning the additional important trait is weaning weight;

- for a terminal system retaining ownership through a growing period and/or finishing with live marketing out of the feedyard the additional important trait is yearling weight;

- for a terminal system with retained ownership through marketing on a carcass grid the additional important traits are carcass weight, retail product % or USDA Yield Grade, and marbling, IMF%, or USDA Quality Grade;

- for all continuous breeding systems add to the above, depending on how you market, any additional traits affecting maternal aspects of reproduction, maternal calving ease, maternal ability, temperament, and longevity.

$ Indexes

Various $ Index EPDs may be useful in sire selection. These indexes combine relevant EPDs (weighted for production importance and value) and cost of production to estimate net value. Depending on the breed association, there are indexes for marketing at weaning, out of the feedlot, and on a carcass value grid. Some indexes calculate value for individual carcass traits. Some are for terminal sires and others include maternal factors. Be sure you use the right index. And, just as with individual trait EPDs, if an index doesn’t apply in your operation, don’t use it.

A case might be made for using a $ Index alone and not even considering the EPDs that are included in the index. For example, forget traits for calving ease, weight, and carcass and just look at a terminal sire index. However, sires with the same $ value can differ drastically in the component EPDs. And the weightings used in the index may not be appropriate for you. My preference is to use indexes as a screening tool, then look at the components to avoid problems from selecting for biological extremes that do not fit your operation.

Molecular Tools

In recent years, DNA-based technology has been developed to aid in genetic selection. The first use was for such things as validation of parentage and simply-inherited traits such as horn/ polled and hair color. Later, markers were identified, primarily for marbling and tenderness. Most recently, larger genomic panels have been developed to estimate genetic content for many traits. How should these panels be used for commercial sire selection?

Panels are most useful in traits that are low in low heritability, are difficult or expensive to measure in the live animal, can only be measured in offspring, and are expressed later in life. Panels are most applicable when used in the population (such as a breed or sample within a breed) from which they were developed and less applicable in other populations. At least for now, most experts in this field agree that the best use of panels is to incorporate them into EPD, as genomic-enhanced EPD. Some breed associations are now implementing panels in this manner.

Final Thoughts

In selecting commercial sires it makes sense to consider traits which affect the four factors in profitability, those being number of head sold, their weight, their price, and the cost to produce them. What about traits that do not affect a particular operation? It is often said that a cow-calf producer should be concerned with things important to subsequent production sectors, even if the producer does not directly benefit, for the overall good of the industry.

Growth promotants are widely used in feedyards, even though many of the products have documented negative effects on carcass quality grade. Why? Because the financial return from increased weight gain and, in some cases, improved yield grade often more than offsets lowered return from decreased quality grade. Feedyards often feed cattle for extended periods, even though cattle get fatter and yield grade is harmed. Why? To increase carcass weight, which can more than of set price penalty from over fat carcasses. Electrical stimulation of carcasses improves tenderness, yet this process is not widely used by packers. Why? Extra cost and, at least to this point, difficulty in getting paid for tenderness. So, feedyards still use growth promotants and over feed cattle and packers forego electrical stimulation, even though carcass merit may be reduced, to improve profit. These are examples of how industry sectors beyond cow/calf do things, or don’t do things, which reduce carcass merit but improve their bottom line.

Without question, those producers who can benefit from improved carcass merit should certainly consider it in sire selection. But there is a limit to how much total genetic selection pressure can be exercised. More emphasis on one trait = less emphasis available for other traits. If cow-calf producers increase genetic selection for carcass merit they reduce selection pressure available for other important traits. Types of cattle adapted to harsh subtropical conditions are not superior in carcass quality. And types of cattle capable of producing very lean carcasses lack inherent fleshing ability; brood cows of this type may not be able to maintain adequate body condition under marginal nutritional conditions. Misdirected genetic selection and use of poorly-adapted types of cattle can reduce production and efficiency. This may more than offset any monetary benefit from selection for improved carcass merit, resulting in reduced profit.

Using proven principles of Beef Quality Assurance, cow-calf producers, along with all sectors of the industry, are responsible for doing everything possible to ensure the  production of a safe, wholesome product. But producers have no responsibility to produce any particular type of cattle. Market price signals, along with production and efficiency, ultimately determine what types of cattle are produced. So, in selecting sires, commercial cow/calf producers should pay attention to what is important in their operation, not that of somebody else.

* This paper was presented at the 2011 Texas A&M Beef Cattle Short Course. It is based solely on the author’s formal education, experience, observation, judgment, and opinion and is not to be construed as representing anything or anybody else, especially the Final Thoughts.

SLS