The Moos Room™

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Dr. Joe Armstrong: Welcome to The Moos Room. This is Dr. Joe Armstrong talking about dairy genetics. Today we're going to try to do this in three parts. Again, we'll be talking about dairy cross-beef genetics. Beef will be used on a dairy, and then also beef genetics. In later episodes, Dr. Bradley J Heins will be carrying us today. He has a genetics background, so it'll be very similar to the grazing episodes where our expert was already in the room. Dr. Bradley J Heins.
Thank you for listening to this. We do want to hear from you. If you have questions, comments, ideas for the show, send them to themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-OM@umn.edu. Anything you need to reference, any additional information you want, you can certainly find it on our extension website @extension.umn.edu. Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoy the episode.
All right, welcome to The Moos Room, everybody. We're talking about dairy genetics today. Again, just the OG3. You're stuck with just Brad, Emily, and myself talking about dairy genetics, and Brad is the guy when it comes to dairy genetics. Brad, where did you start your background in genetics? Was that all in grad school or where was it?
Bradley: Yes, when I went to the University of Minnesota, I had animal breeding with Tony Succora and dairy cattle genetics with Les Hansen, and it sparked my interest--
Emily: Talk about OGs.
Bradley: It sparked my interest in dairy genetics. I was actually very interested in the dairy herd at Wasika. At one time they had 1964 Holstein genetics there and contemporary genetics, and I was very interested in how genetics changed across time.
Joe: You still have some of those '64 cows right up at Morris?
Bradley: We do at Morris. Yes. There's a few, about 20 cows left in the herd. It's quite interesting.
Joe: Those are fun to see when you can see them standing side by side with a contemporary cow, it's quite different.
Bradley: They're very different. They look like they're from the '60s. They act like they're from the '60s and they milk like they're from the '60s. They can be mean. They're fat with deep udders and small round cows.
Joe: I sympathize with them small and round.
Bradley: It's been a good project. I shouldn't say those cows produce about 10,000 lbs in 305 days, but get pregnant really fast and don't have any health problems. They do have some advantages.
Joe: It sounds like a beef cow.
Emily: I think that does offer a good opportunity to see. Like you said, having the 1964 cows next to a modern cow and just seeing where genetics has taken us. Really for me, genetics comes down to one question. Who's your daddy?
Joe: Yes.
Bradley: You are probably right, Emily.
Emily: I'm very smart. [chuckles]
Bradley: A lot in dairy genetics has to go with sire selection and what bulls you use on cows. That's probably how we make the fastest genetic progress.
Joe: I guess we'll just jump right in and who makes a bigger difference, that bull or the cow?
Bradley: It's probably debatable. I think you can ask different people that some people are very into cow families and tracing many lineages. If you're a student of the Holstein breed or other breeds, everybody has their favorite cow and there's still generation of excellent cows. I think there's somewhere in that 20 to 25 generations of excellent cows in the Holstein breed coming from one animal. It's pedigrees and cow families are deep, but I also think it depends on what sires you use and if you're trying to make genetic progress, sire selection makes up more than half of that.
Joe: I always look at it as just as far as how many cows are affected. If you have one cow, she produces one offspring, but sire selection, you're going to be having a sire produce a lot of offspring for your dairy. In terms of who makes a bigger difference, that bull is super, super important. I'm not saying the cow isn't, but that bull is a massive influence on what happens genetically on your dairy.
Bradley: Oh, I'd agree. Most people have more than one daughter of a bull on their farms. That's just the way if you're using AI or bulls to that matter of fact.
Joe: Yes. When we talk about genetics, I think one of the ways that I think has really helped us when it comes to genetics, both on the dairy and the beef side, is that we have certain ways that we can measure it. How do we measure genetics? How do we really look at that and say, "This cow is probably going to be better than that cow."
Bradley: In the US we have a genetic evaluation system where we can get genetic values for many different traits from production to fertility to health. We get PTAs, so predicted transmitting abilities for cows and bulls. As a geneticist, I really like to select for net merit. That's a measure of lifetime profitability for cows and bulls. You can compare animals based on a total merit index, which encompasses production, fertility, survival, and health.
Joe: That index is a big word and then we'll talk more as we get into beef genetics and as we talk about dairy and beef cross genetics. That index is a powerful tool that we use to combine a bunch of these different traits into one thing that gives us an idea of overall profitability or overall performance, things like that. That'll keep coming up over and over as we talk more and more about genetics is this index. PTAs, we need to talk about because they're going to be dairy specific and breed-specific, right?
Bradley: Yes. PTA is typically what we find in the dairy world. It's very different in the beef world. We talk about EPDs and basically, it's just double the PTA to get the EPD or the breeding value of an animal. A PTA is basically what an animal would transmit from that parent to the offspring.
Joe: The big difference between PTA and EPD for me a lot of times is how you read them and how they're set up. In PTAs, they're averaged to zero. If you have a positive number, you're better than average. If you're negative, you're less than average for that specific trait. As we move forward, I'll mention it again when we get into the beef side. EPDs are not set up that way.
You have to have a chart that tells you what number is actually the average because zero is not the average for EPDs, but just want to make that clear because I think that can be really confusing as we see guys transition from dairy to beef or in the very, very, very rare people transitioning from beef to dairy. Let's talk net merit a little more. How is it presented? Is it actually a dollar amount or what number do we put on that?
Bradley: It is a dollar amount. It's an index that basically ranks animals based on their lifetime profit. If you have two animals, one's plus 100 and the other one is plus 200, one of those animals will produce a hundred more dollars lifetime than the other animal really is what it is. It's in a measure of economic value. That's why I really like it because it really gets down to the nuts and bolts of dairy farming and looking at the economics of it.
There are some other index out there. One is TPI from the Holstein Association. Not that those two, the net merit and TPI are correlated, but TPI does include a little more emphasis on type of animals and other breeds have their own. Jersey has their own JPI, which is Jersey Performance Index. There's a lot of them out there. You can use either one, but you should stick with one that you like based on what your management situation is.
I think if you talk to the geneticist, most of the net merit was developed from science-based information on economics and all of that, which a lot of the other index have as well but they're just a little bit different from each other.
Emily: Do you feel like net merit is playing a bigger role or a smaller role in sire selection currently?
Bradley: I think net merit plays a big role in sire selection. If you think about it from the commercial dairy industry, it's all about profitability and economics. Now, if you're into show cows and registered breeding stock and things like that, TPI or other may be more available. From the commercial standpoint, I think most people are talking net merit.
Emily: Yes. I think it's just do you want a cow that looks good or a cow that works hard? [crosstalk] personal opinion.
Bradley: Yes, but there is type. Type is included in net merit. It just doesn't have the emphasis that it does in some of the other ones. Net merit is probably more for a functional type cow. TPI maybe a little more show-type, showroom.
Joe: That's good. We now know for the most part there's a big difference between those cows in most cases, the show cows versus the commercial cows. I'm not saying that you can't have both.
Bradley: That's right. We're not putting down show cows. Emily used to show, and I showed, and everybody likes to look at pretty cows of course.
Emily: Although in 4-H, they do have the total merit contest that the state takes into account type and net merit dollar value. That's a cool way that they've combined it.
Joe: I like that a lot.
Emily: That animal that works hard and looks good.
Bradley: That's right. Minnesota has that, includes the genetic merit of the animal in some of their four 4-H shows, which is very unique. That doesn't happen in, we're not sure anywhere else in the United States. It is quite unique for us.
Emily: Just saying, my heifer won state champion one year, no big deal.
Joe: No big deal.
Emily: Huge deal. We still have the sign hanging up in the milk cows.
Joe: Of course, forever.
Emily: A proud moment for Krekelberg Dairy.
Joe: It would be a huge moment because you guys didn't milk that many cows, right?
Emily: No, like 40.
Joe: That's awesome.
Bradley: It is good to see some of those 4-H youth get recognized for their genetics in their herds because sometimes those are not the animals that win the show. It's nice that you're recognizing kids that yes, you have type and pretty cows and pretty show heifers, but not every farm is selecting that way. It's nice to recognize those farms that do select for genetics and they're good functional cows, but they might not be that show winner.
Joe: One of the big questions that we had talked about, maybe we shouldn't get into this, but I think we have to. The big question is that one of the biggest genetic choices you can make right away is what breed of cow you're going to have on your farm, whether that's Holsteins or Jerseys or [crosstalk]
Emily: Dutch Belted.
Joe: Yes, or Dutch Belted.
Emily: I'm going to have a dairy farm one day and I'm going to milk 40 Dutch Belted cows.
Joe: Or Ayrshires, or whatever you want to call it. How do you make that choice, Brad? Where do you start when you're deciding on breed?
Bradley: Boy, that's the question of the year there. Obviously, everybody's biased towards certain breeds. Emily has her bias for Holsteins. Brad has his bias for Jerseys. If people are listening, and I've done a lot of cross-breeding research, I do like Jerseys. That's my breed of choice.
Emily: Joe, what's your favorite breed?
Joe: What's my favorite breed?
Emily: Yes.
Joe: Beef.
Emily: What's your favorite dairy breed, Smart Alec?
Joe: I'm a Jersey person. I like Jerseys a lot.
Bradley: We have voted you out, Emily.
Emily: What else is new?
Joe: I'm a little biased. I'm a veterinarian who's short. I like short cows to work on and I like cows that are a little smaller that I can manhandle around if I need to when I'm in a calving or I'm working on a surgery or something like that. I'm just a little biased towards Jerseys.
Emily: You don't like dragging a step stool out to palpate a cow?
Joe: I don't, I don't. It's really hard on the shoulder. I like Jerseys. That's my bias on the dairy side.
Bradley: There's lots of reasons why people choose different breeds. Tradition, that's what they have now. Some people select different breeds based on what their kids want to show in 4-H. I think it's not one for all. Some people use it for marketing. I was on a Midwest Dairy webinar the other day talking about A2 milk, and some farmers are using Guernsey to help increase A2 in their herds. Like I said, I've studied cross-breeding for a long time and some herds are using European breeds.
I think sometimes we think that all of the breeds that we think about are only based in the US or confined to the US, but there's many other breeds of dairy cows actually outside of the United States, whether you're in Europe or there's a whole bunch of different dairy breeds in France, actually, besides Holstein. It's quite fascinating to learn. Albeit some of them are small, but they make specialty cheeses, you name it, but breed diversity is good.
Joe: I've always wondered how often does breed choice happen based on where the milk is going? Because one of the main differences in the breeds is fat content. How often does that influence what breed ends up on your farm based on where you know your milk is going to go?
Bradley: Lately in the US and maybe the last 10 to 15 years, you've probably seen an explosion of Jersey genetics just because of milk marketing are moving more towards components, fat and protein, and cheese production. Jerseys have increased in a lot of Holstein herds and a lot of Holstein herds have converted to Jersey to take advantage of that higher premium fat and protein in milk. Jerseys have increased in those regards which is quite fascinating because when I was younger, Jerseys were not that popular at all and just a few people had them.
Now we're even seeing larger herds, 3,000 to 10,000 cow dairies to have all Jersey because of their milk going to a cheese market.
Emily: I think that is not a bad question to ask, Joe, but I think the real influencer in this is how milk is sold. How are farmers paid for it by the hundredweight? What's going to give you more weight in the same volume of milk? I think that that's where some of these traits come into that. Some of it could be influenced that we're a heavy cheese area. There's some butter in Minnesota too, little bit of fluid milk but just the fact that really no matter what your product gets made into, every farmer gets paid the same way. That's by the hundredweight.
Bradley: I've been on quite a few Holstein herds, Holstein dairies that are over 4% fat and high protein. If you want high fat and protein, that doesn't mean that you have to go with Jersey or any other.
Emily: You can select for that within each breed. Some are better than others, obviously.
Bradley: I agree, I agree. You can select for that even within the Holstein breed.
Joe: Well, good. I've always wondered that to Emily's point with getting paid on weight. Traditionally, those cows that have a higher fat content are also milking less milk. For the most part, they're making less milk. A Jersey is not going to have the volume that a Holstein has, but the energy-corrected milk can be similar if not more than a Holstein herd.
Cross-breeding, Brad, explain to me, just gimme a brief overview of what that looks like just in general. How is it done? What are--
Emily: Brief, Bradley
Joe: -some of the advantages?
Bradley: This could be hours long podcast if I were to do that.
Emily: We know.
Joe: We'll make it a whole episode, but just briefly for now.
Bradley: Cross-breeding is using two different breeds and crossing them whether you have either sires or dams. Mostly it's using a different breed of sire on a cow, Jersey on a Holstein, Jersey sire on a Holstein cow. That's really where cross-breeding started in the US was using Jersey bulls on Holstein cows to take advantage of calving ease. Jersey's very good for calving ease and that's really why it started. People are using cross-breeding to take advantage of increased fertility, increased health of cows, and greater longevity. In the end, we've shown more profitability. We'll make it brief today.
Joe: That was good. That was very brief. That was good. We mentioned earlier, and we didn't really jump into it. We mentioned dairy health traits as being part of the things that we can now measure with genetic testing and things like that. They are being added into a lot of different genetic tests now. What kind of things can we test for, Brad?
Bradley: On the health traits, they'll give you genetic values for milk fever, mastitis, ketosis, DAs, retained placenta, and I think metritis is the other one that they're doing now. You can get genetic values for those health traits. I should mention though, if farmers and the dairy genetics world wants to get good information on health traits, we need to have farmers recording all that data. That's probably the important way to get good health numbers on cows and bulls is for farmers to record that data.
I urge everybody to record all of the health data that they have on their farms. If a cow has a problem, please record it because it makes better evaluations from a health standpoint.
Joe: That's something we see. I was always frustrated with in practice. If you don't write it down, if you don't record it, then the records and the analysis of those records really can't do you a whole lot of good and it plays into the genetics as well. The more information we have, the better it is for everybody. Writing it down is the first step in all of this.
Bradley: I agree. That's just one additional thing that farmers can use to select on bulls now is the addition of health traits. We just had that start here in April 2020. It's brand new. We're learning about it and trying to make more accurate evaluation.
Joe: Now we're getting into what should producers be selecting for and what should they be looking at when the genetic company comes to them and gives them a selection of bulls. What should they really be looking for? What should they be trying to improve and grow on their farm?
Bradley: I think if you're selecting bulls, you should have goals where you want your herd to go. Whether it's increased production, increased fertility, increased profitability, or if you have some health problems, we also have calving traits in there. Selecting sires to use in your herd based on those metrics. Obviously, as a geneticist, I'm going to tell you you should select for net merit because it encompasses all of those and you should select the top net merit bulls but really farmers should have a goal of where they want to go to and select based on that.
I think using an index, whether it's net merit or TPI or JPI or some of the other ones, I would use the index because it includes more stuff versus selecting individual traits. That's probably not a good thing.
Joe: Where do you stand on using a proven bull versus using the newest, greatest youngest bull out there?
Bradley: Oh boy. That's a subject for another podcast, so I select all.
Emily: Did you hear that, that was a can of worms opening?
Joe: Yes, I heard it. I heard it.
Emily: [laughs]
Bradley: I will be brief on this comment too. I pick all of the bulls for our university dairy here in Morris, and I use only proven bulls. I've just seen too many genomic bulls drop and fall off the face of the earth. I really like bulls that have daughters behind them and daughter information, and I continue to do that. I do not use genomic bulls in our herd.
Joe: I tend to agree with you, Brad. Maybe I'm biased as well, but on the beef side, I see too many of these unproven bulls or these new bulls, genomic bulls, that accuracy is not there on their PTAs or the EPDs. As they learn more and more about them, a lot of them do drop out or drop off and it can be a little scary when you use a high percentage of that bull and then you see his numbers fall off. I agree with you.
Bradley: That probably won't make very some people happy, but you know what? That's my opinion. If some people like the genomic bulls and want to use those, then that's your choice and more power to you. I choose to use proven bulls.
Emily: Brad, people don't have to agree with everything we say on this podcast. If they don't, they can die mad. Not our problem.
Joe: I think that's good. We need to have more people disagree with us.
Bradley: Yes, I agree, I agree.
Joe: Get some rioting in the streets going.
Emily: Yes. Send us some angry hate mail.
Joe: Do it. Themoosroom@umn.edu.
Emily: [laughs] I was waiting for that pop in there.
Joe: Send it.
Bradley: We can give out Emily's email address if you'd like.
Joe: Absolutely.
Emily: Yes. Cell phone number.
Joe: All of it. What goes along with selecting for and what you should select for is what actually makes the dairy money. Is it milk production? Is it energy-corrected milk? Is it the actual longevity of cows?
Emily: If the spouse that works off the farm.
Joe: If the spouse that works off the farm
Bradley: Yes, there's all of that that's included. Hey Emily, that's true.
Emily: It's a valid point I think.
Bradley: It's a valid point.
Joe: Absolutely.
Bradley: If you're looking at a dairy, obviously we get paid for production. You have to get milk fat and protein somehow, but it's not necessarily you need to strive for high production to do that. Example, at our university dairy, our cows only milk 55 to 60 pounds of milk and we do quite well because we're running a 4, 5 fat and a 3, 6 protein. We're doing well on the fat and protein and we don't necessarily strive for high milk production.
Some herds do well selecting for high milk production. I just think there's other things out there in good fertility and less health problems. I think we talk about studies in our cross-breeding podcast, but one of my grad students, Mike Donnelly, we'll give him a shout-out.
Emily: What up, Mike?
Bradley: Yes, exactly. He worked with Les Hansen and I and we looked at the health of Holstein cows in dairy farms. As those Holstein cows got older, they had more health problems and cost more. Trying to reduce health costs can be a big advantage as well.
Emily: You really need to view genetics not only as it's what can make you money, but it's also what can save you money. If you're thinking about fertility, other health issues.
Bradley: That's right, that's right. I think trying to reduce some costs by genetics can be a win-win too.
Joe: Yes, and productive longevity is what I always go to. That's the phrase I use. You can have a cow that sticks around for too long and they have longevity, but maybe they shouldn't have been there because they weren't productive that whole time but productive longevity is what makes you money, in my opinion.
Bradley: We have a cow in our herd at Morris, she's 17 years old. She doesn't necessarily kill herself in the bulk tank, but she gets pregnant all the time and doesn't have many health problems. She can stay as long as she wants.
Joe: Exactly. That's the cow that I love.
Bradley: She's been profitable and has had like seven or eight heifer calf.
Joe: There you go.
Emily: She's earned her keep.
Bradley: She sure has.
Joe: That only gets to be more important as we look at how much it costs to raise a heifer. They got to be able to stick around and at least break even and hopefully do a lot more than that. All right. I think we've covered the basics, so we've got most of it in there. We're going to come back to cross-breeding. Obviously, we have a lot to talk about.
Bradley: We talk about inbreeding and cross-breeding. That's our goal.
Joe: Inbreeding too. That's one we didn't ask today that I think we should leave alone. We'll wrap it there. We'll cut it there because we're going to come back to this. It's a topic that's going to continue to come up. We'll continue to do episodes on it as we find more things that we want to talk about as we ask questions that get Bradley all riled up. We'll make sure to write those down so we can cover them in the future.
If you have any questions, comments, ideas, angry letters, send them to themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M @umn.edu. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next week.
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Bradley: Sassy today, aren't you?
Emily: I was pretty sassy, wasn't I?
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