GENETIC TOOLS TO MANAGE INCOME OVER FEED COSTS INSIGHTS INTO FEED EFFICIENCY Chuck Sattler, vice president of genetic programs, Select Sires Inc.
With inflation pressures increasing costs for nearly every industry, it’s never been more important for dairies to tightly manage income over feed costs. Selecting bulls for increased production is an obvious component of sustaining a high producing herd. But, there are additional traits that deserve consideration because they impact how effectively your dairy herd converts feed into milk.
While selection for improved production has always been a part of Select Sires’ sire development, we’ve had an explicit focus on feed efficiency since 2008. That’s when the FeedPRO® designation was introduced to highlight sires that excel in transmitting the combination of traits that maximize income over feed costs. The initial version of FeedPRO focused on production and body size as indicators of feed intake. The designation identified bulls that transmitted high production and moderate body size while maintaining fertility and body condition. Today, thanks to investments by USDA, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding (CDCB), we have a new tool to add to sire selection that helps us do better. Recently, CDCB has begun publishing genetic evaluations for residual feed intake (RFI) that provide additional insight into how efficiently cows convert feed into milk. 14 u
These evaluations are based on data gathered at a handful of research herds in the U.S. and Canada that have taken detailed feed intake records on genomically tested cows. These efforts have produced a genomic evaluation reference population that includes more than 7,700 cows and grows each year. Thanks to the power of genomic selection technology, the genetic insights from this intensively studied reference population can be extended to all genomic-tested animals. Decoding RFI evaluations Genetic evaluations for RFI are expressed as predicted transmitting abilities (PTA) like other CDCB evaluations. PTA RFI are expressed in pounds of feed per lactation. Values for currently available bulls range from -250 to +250. Even though the reference population is small, RFI measurements have a moderate heritability of 19 percent. Based on these two factors, CDCB published
