Thompsontown, Pennsylvania | my wife and i have a small registered herd and are of the belief that genomics is a bit of a crock. Just overblown parent average with an asterisk. The gtpi numbers are getting completely out of line on the high end mostly because a high testing cow/heifer is mostly bred to a high testing young bull which generally has more high testing matings and or heifers already tested but generally no proof in the system, which causes the numbers to just get higher and higher based just on the g test. The asterisk is the occasional outcross bull or heifer that tests high but mostly if the animal is out of already known, high testing progeny, they test high. The worst part is when you take a cow that pre-genomics had a 1720 PTPI and earned herself a 1890 CTPI and a spot on the locator list, you get a bull contract on her, g test her for craps and giggles and she drops to 1741 GTPI. Btw the bull was born, g tested and came back at 1830 GTPI. Destry x Encino, genex didn't take him so he's making more hardworking nice looking offspring for some farmers in sc/se pa lol. We ARE using genomic bulls, we just flushed our Windsor Manor cow to Proxy PP red last week and he's so young/new his genomics just came out in december. We still focus on young bulls out of good cow families and/or proven bulls. There are exceptions, my MIL has one of the first milking russell daughters and she has decent GTPI number and bought some epic semen from genervations to breed her to, out of the emilyann family which is a cow family we haven't typically used from but sometimes you just can't ignore a chance to make money. When the lady in the white gloves begs you for a ketchup popsickle even if you know it might be a mess, you sell it to her. $10k? $20k? $30k? just for a fairly common looking or even ugly heifer just cuz a computer test says she better.....we can play that game when the situation merits but mostly breeding as i said about. Young and/or proven bulls out of good cow families, solid conformity, components and atleast a look at the productive life and dpr. My wife has a few in the herd we are breed almost strictly for show type but mostly i atleast get a say and like to atleast see positive components.
Edited by kylesupplee 12/29/2011 16:12
|
genomics
