Choosing the right bull can be tricky. At a bull sale, you are often presented with a detailed set of Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) for a line of bulls.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s (B+LNZ) Selection Indexes simplify this by identifying ‘overall profitability’ and weighing up the balance of genetic merit across all traits relevant to a particular production system. It’s a single figure and presented as a dollar value ($ per cow mated), so it takes the confusion out of using lots of EBVs with a range of different units.
B+LNZ’s Indexes enable farmers to make “balanced” selection decisions; taking into account the relevant growth, carcase and fertility attributes of each animal to identify the animal that is most profitable for a specific system and market. They reflect both the short-term profit generated by a sire through the sale of his progeny, and the longer-term profit generated by his daughters in a self-replacing cow herd.
