Hello Group,
The article for DairyBusiness entitled, “August 2018 CDCB Sire Summary and New Lifetime Net Merit” has been uploaded to the >Consultant Files location on the CWT Group site. The live DairyBusiness link is here: https://www.dairybusiness.com/august-2018-cdcb-sire-summary-and-new-lifetime-net-merit/
The new formulas for Net Merit $, Cheese Merit $, Fluid Merit $, and Grazing Merit $ ensure that these indexes are some of the most comprehensive and accurate in the world for ranking sires and dams for marginal profit potential of their progeny. Commercial, profit minded dairies can be confident to use the most relevant of these indexes as the primary genetic selection and ranking tool in their herd genetic programs.
Please come back with your insights, questions, and discussion on this, and any genetics topics on your minds and on the minds of your clients.
Marj –
Marj, two questions for someone generally clueless about the processes related to genomic evaluations and rankings. One, will you clarify if the Aug 7th changes to the calculations will impact JE and HO equally? Two, as the calculations are adjusted where does a breeder look to find the new data for a female in their herd? For example Clarifide results are reported at the time of testing but with the recalcs it seems a producer will need a new set of genomic values for every animal in their herd. Clearly some of the rankings will change.
Very pertinent questions. I’ll try to answer these in order. By the way, genomic values for every animal change every time there is a full evaluation run. Refreshes are done weekly and full official evaluations are produced every April, August, and December.
1) On the changes to the calculations on fertility traits …. Based on the preliminary data that has been shared, we expect to see similar changes to Holstein and Jersey for DPR where the figures going forward should be much more in line with the Dec 2017 DPR values as opposed to the lower April 2018 figures.
For Cow Conception Rate (CCR), the picture is a bit different for the two breeds. For Holsteins, the revised CCR values are more in line with Dec 2017 values and trends. For Jerseys for CCR, the revisions seemed to cause very little difference in August 2018 values, meaning that Jersey CCR values and trends will remain in line with the April 2018 trends.
2) Herds will need new sets of genomic values as you say. For herds that participate in DHIA, their provider and/or processing center should be providing genetic/genomic updates with each new Genetic Evaluation release (April, August, December). If herds are not receiving these updates routinely they will want to speak with their provider about getting genomic updates to come through with their monthly report files and uploaded into the on-farm management software. Presumably, DRMS is the processing center for herds in the CWT Group (https://www.drms.org).
On the other hand, for herds that are not on DHIA there may be no provisions or provider-specific provisions for capturing new values which ARE generated with each new Official Genetic Evaluation release (April, August, December). If these are not being provided by the genotype provider (Zoetis, Holstein USA, etc.) herds should be able to access these directly through the CDCB query. The query accepts individual cow requests using the ID format provided below.
CDCB cow genetic/genomic query:
https://queries.uscdcb.com/CF-queries/old_qs.cfm?qname=getcow&single
Format required by the query for cow IDs:
cow breed, country, and ID number (e.g., HO840000008036612 or JEUSA000008036612)
For herds that wish to find the cow ID that is recognized by the system, the following query can be useful:
https://queries.uscdcb.com/CF-queries/old_qs.cfm?qname=getbrd&single
Sorry for the detail, but I hope this helps address questions that can come up.
Marj –
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MARJORIE A. FAUST, Ph.D.
DATA DRIVEN GENETICS | m: +1 608 219 1834 | f: +1 608 849 9194 | e: marj.faust@gmail.com