Nominations are now open for beef bulls suitable for use in B+LNZ’s long-running Dairy Beef Progeny Test.
Nominations are now open for beef bulls suitable for use in Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s long-running Dairy Beef Progeny Test.
Selected bulls will be used in what will be the third mating in this phase of the Dairy Beef Progeny Test (DBPT) which aims to highlight the value superior beef genetics generate at every stage of the supply chain.
Anna Vaughan, B+LNZ’s Senior Genetics Operation Specialist says, they are looking for bulls representing commercially available beef breeds whose EBVs make them suitable for use over dairy cows.
“We welcome nominations from bulls of all breeds. Across the last two matings under the new phase, we’ve assessed 10 different breeds - Angus, Changus, Charolais, Hereford, Murray Grey, Profit Maker, Simmental, Shorthorn, Speckle Park and Stabilizer.”
All nominated bulls are put to a selection panel of industry experts who make the final decision about which bulls will be used at this year’s mating. After being run at single-sites for many years, the DBPT is now being run on five host farms; two Dairy Trust Taranaki farms, two Massey University farms and an owner-operated commercial dairy farm at Five Forks near Oamaru. Jersey cows are now also included in the DBPT through a small herd run on one of the Dairy Trust Taranaki farms and at one of the Massey Farms.
Two of the three new host farms are rearing and finishing the progeny within their own farm systems, while calves born on the Dairy Trust Taranaki farms are reared and finished elsewhere. For this reason, the panel is particularly careful selecting suitable sires, and not all bulls are used across all farms. All performance information is reported back to the owners of bulls involved in the Progeny Test.
All host farms are recording mating dates, pregnancy diagnosis, calving dates and calf weights.
The calves are reared in cohorts, with rearers recording how they are reared and the weights and date of weaning.
Finishers record 200,400 and 600-day weights and a contractor eye-muscle scans the cattle prior to slaughter, with B+LNZ analysing all slaughter data.
To ensure a fair comparison of the genetics, finishers run the DBPT cattle in mobs which represent the sires used. Nominations for the Dairy Beef Progeny Test close on Friday 3 July. Find the nomination form here.