Drovers CattleNetwork news source   |   Updated: February 10, 2012

Ask any cattle producer, and they’ll tell you a good female is hard to find – and they’re not talking about their spouse. Selecting and developing replacement heifers requires a significant ranch investment. Not only does she stay in the herd for a long time, heifers chosen as replacements will help to define the genetic direction and profitability of a herd for years to come. That’s why many producers have turned to DNA technology, through the comprehensive IGENITY® profile, to assist in making important replacement heifer decisions.

“Replacement heifers are an important contributor to herd profitability and a key to the future of the herd,” says Kevin DeHaan, PhD, technical services director for IGENITY, a division of Merial. “Producers can help take some of the risk out of replacement heifer development by incorporating the IGENTY profile to their existing selection and management protocols to gain inside information about key economic traits that directly affect the profitability of replacement females.”

DeHaan says replacement heifer selection often begins at weaning with an initial sort of the female calf crop. Producers may collect DNA samples at this time and add the information from IGENITY to their existing selection protocols. By using the power of DNA technology to evaluate young females, producers can help to avoid the initial expense of developing heifers that will be culled at breeding.

“Producers have always done a visual sort of their replacement heifers,” explains DeHaan. “With the IGENITY profile, producers have an opportunity to take a look on the inside as well.”

Iowa producer, Gary Martens, agrees. He has been using the IGENITY profile in his purebred herd for almost three years. “The information from the IGENITY profile helps us select the top animals and where to go from there,” says Martens. “It gives you an idea other than just guessing and looking at the animals.”

Martens, who has DNA profiled his herd bulls and the majority of the females in his operation, says he uses the IGENITY profile to assist in important ranch management decisions. “Selecting the right replacement heifers not only affects the profitability of the individual female, but more importantly, it affects the profitability of the herd in the future.”

To illustrate how selection decisions affect a herd over time, Bob Weaber, PhD, assistant professor, animal sciences and industry, Kansas State University, developed a model for IGENITY that calculates the potential genetic outcome based on a given scenario.

“The purpose of this model is to explore the effect over time of different selection protocols and strategies,” Weaber says. “It is designed to illustrate the differences in genetic merit based on using the IGENITY profile to help select sires or replacement heifers, or the combination of both.”

click image to zoom The graph illustrates the change in genetic merit of progeny for marbling over time if producers use the IGENITY profile to select superior replacement heifers. Marbling is used in this example; however, this same illustration can be applied to any trait available from IGENITY. In this example, the herd size remains the same for both groups, and both groups improve their genetic potential by using sires with a score of 7 for marbling. However, for the herd represented by the solid line, the best 20 percent of the females are selected to return to the herd based on their scores from IGENITY. Random replacement selection is used in the herd represented by the dashed line.

In the graph at year eight, the additional lift that occurs from selecting the superior replacement heifers results in a 10 percent advantage compared with random selection. DeHaan says this demonstrates how the use of the IGENITY profile to select replacement heifers can help producers make faster genetic progress and gain efficiencies.

“By using the inside information from IGENITY to select replacement females, producers can help to ensure they are pointing their herd in the right direction to make faster genetic progress and return dollars to their bottom line,” he says. “A 10 percent difference over time can mean significant differences in profitability for traits such as feed efficiency or carcass traits.”

If producers are looking at short-term profitability of an individual female, or long-term genetic progress, DeHaan says they can’t afford to select another heifer without the IGENITY profile.

“Second to herd sires, young females have the greatest impact on a herd’s short- and long-term success,” he says. “Adding the IGENITY profile to heifer selection protocols can help producers ensure decisions made today will result in a productive, efficient herd for years to come.”

To get started, producers can order sample collection kits by contacting their IGENITY sales representative, call 1-877-443-6489 or visit the Igenity beef website. Results will be returned to producers several weeks after samples are received. Sample collection can be done at any time or age; however, collecting samples when animals are already being processed may be the most convenient. Planning ahead will ensure the information will be available in time to make selection decisions and provide results at production sales.

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