The Moos Room™

00;00;11;03 - 00;00;35;05
Brad
And welcome to The Moos Room. Kind of a cold day here in western Minnesota. We've had a lot of cold. It's been crazy. 30, 40 below Fahrenheit temperatures. Cows are doing well. No problems whatsoever. Maybe a little icy. I talked to one of the milkers today. We maybe had the cow slip on the ice. But it's overall, it's been pretty good.

00;00;35;05 - 00;01;01;22
Brad
Smoke cell counts are really low when it gets cold out of it. 150,000 or less. We'll make it through all of this cold weather. Most definitely. We can only hope for warm weather coming. The pastures are starting to green up early spring, so I can't look like I can't wait. I know I got lots of things going on, lots of good stuff that are going to happen with, grazing cows, virtual fencing, agro vortex, you name it.

00;01;01;25 - 00;01;24;15
Brad
We're going to try to do a little bit more. But I was thinking about some things that I've just been doing, maybe an idea on sire selection. What bulls are we using in our research? Herd. Just for fun. Some people might enjoy how my brain works and what sires I'm selecting and what we're using on our cows and Holstein.

00;01;24;17 - 00;01;55;01
Brad
Sure. See, we have more periods. Normandy and Norwegian Red. So some of you might listen to this and go, man is crazy. He doesn't know what he's doing. And some days I think that myself, because some of the bulls that I pick are probably not what I select for what I like. Maybe a little bit higher type than others, but I'll kind of talk about what you know, what I look for in sire selection and how that's all working.

00;01;55;01 - 00;02;16;17
Brad
And one of the and the bulls that we're using to bulls. First off, I do use numeric. I think we can debate the pluses and minuses of merit. There are some things in that merit that I don't like. Frankly, I don't select a lot for production. I think the production is there and a lot of bulls, obviously.

00;02;16;19 - 00;02;40;06
Brad
Well, I shouldn't say. Obviously I don't select negative production bulls because I have, but I typically don't select for milk production. I don't like the weight on milk pounds and merit. It's 3%. I don't see that. Obviously there's a lot of weight on fat right now and that merit. Maybe that's not good. Fat is not that. You know what it once was that's worth a lot less than protein.

00;02;40;06 - 00;03;05;16
Brad
Right now. Protein is a 13% net merit. I like to select for somatic cell count. I think that's pretty important. I've been trying to select for somatic cell count for a long time. Have we made progress genetically? Maybe phenotypically? No. But I still like to select for that. I like to put a lot of emphasis on fertility and productive life.

00;03;05;20 - 00;03;30;08
Brad
It's probably some of the big things, the weight on fertility and merit is 2%. I think that's I don't know why even why have a 2%, emphasis and merit if we're not going to do anything about that? I get it. There's other correlated traits that we can think about, but the positive weight on production negatively affects fertility.

00;03;30;10 - 00;03;57;16
Brad
So I'm not sure that having a 2% emphasis on merit, it's going to do anything to improve fertility in general. Yes. We have heifer conception rate, cow conception rate. There are 2.5 and 1.8% livability, which is ultimately death losses at 6%. Health traits one and a half. Maybe one day I'll just debate, oh, all these emphasis and about net merit and what I like and what I don't like.

00;03;57;16 - 00;04;20;22
Brad
There's a lot of things that I like in there, but some things I don't I don't like the reduced emphasis of fertility. I think fertility is important, especially in a herd like ours. We're talking about grazing. I don't like to look at bull proofs and have negative fertility. I you know, I don't like that TPI has similar weights on production.

00;04;20;22 - 00;04;48;18
Brad
Maybe not so much. Actually, emphasis on production is what Merit does. It has a little bit more emphasis on protein and TPI than what there is. Isn't America, but a lot less emphasis on fat? A lot of emphasis on type, of course, under composite feet and leg composite. So there's a lot more emphasis on type. They've taken out fertility for the most part in TPI.

00;04;48;24 - 00;05;29;23
Brad
A lot of that comes in to, a fertility index that they have, which incorporates DPR, cow conception rate, heifer conception rate and early first calving weight. And fertility index is about 13, which is probably a little bit higher if you add everything up in that market compared to the TPI. So maybe there's some good things happening in the Holstein world with fertility, but we'll debate index and what I like and what I don't like another day that that's a whole new podcast about, I need somebody to debate me on the beauties of net merit versus TPP or other things.

00;05;29;23 - 00;05;49;21
Brad
And I think we'll come to a consensus at the end and maybe form our own index, which might be a good thing. I'm not against forming your own index either for what works in your herd. So what do I do? How do I select for bulls? I start out with the top net merit list. That's that's typical what I like.

00;05;49;23 - 00;06;13;22
Brad
I am not, a large huge fan of genomic bulls. We use some genomic bulls. Not many, most of the genomic bulls are pulled bulls that we're using. So I've not really gotten all too much on the genomic bulls with no daughters bandwagon. I like to select bulls that have daughters. Been doing that for a long time.

00;06;13;22 - 00;06;34;13
Brad
So I, you know, some people might look at the genetics in our herd and think that it's a little bit older. We're not making genetic progress, but I think we're doing pretty good from a genetic standpoint. Could be better. But I like to use the proven bulls. I like to see the production statistics with daughters of those, bulls.

00;06;34;13 - 00;06;55;03
Brad
And, you know, maybe I might change my mind one day, but I'm still going to stick with the proven bulls, and I use a sprinkling of genomic bulls in there just from the standpoint of of pulled right now. So what do I look for? I look for productive life. So I want them to be positive productive life good somatic cell count.

00;06;55;05 - 00;07;19;18
Brad
Good on fertility. That's really what I look for. Don't look much at other composite feet and legs. I look at heifer and cow conception rates. I like those to be positive ones. I don't necessarily look at RFI early first calving, calving is not really anymore. I don't look at that. I used to look at Cavan use, but I don't look at that anymore.

00;07;19;21 - 00;07;39;27
Brad
Body weight you there's a lot of things I don't look at. Like I said, fat and protein, not really any more productive life, fertility, health traits. That's what I'm selecting. Most of the bulls now you might look at think about some of the bulls that you hear and go, why in the world is he selecting those bulls? Makes no sense.

00;07;39;27 - 00;08;10;15
Brad
Let's start out with the bulls that I'm using some of these. So you might know, some you might not know. And we'll go through all Holstein Jersey and then some of the colored breed bulls that we're using. So to start off I, I use from a number of different bull studs, mainly genetics, select sires because easy to get that that's some of the main reasons.

00;08;10;18 - 00;08;32;21
Brad
Most of those are out here in western Minnesota. I find it easy to get bulls from from these eye studs. And that's kind of how we go. We'll start with the St Bulls captain Geno source captain. How can you not use him. He's not the top net bull right now. I think he's overtaken by one of his sons.

00;08;32;21 - 00;08;55;26
Brad
But I've I've been using Geno source. Captain. I have actually three daughters on the ground right now from captain, so I'm pretty excited to see what those look like. Captain is positive for production. Really high set bull. Maybe a little bit higher than somatic cells is 3.09. So he's a little bit higher in somatic cell positive for mastitis DPR right now 1.4 negative.

00;08;55;26 - 00;09;24;01
Brad
So not terrible for fertility is really good for productive life 3.6 he's got 12,000 daughters. Some people might not think that he's usable in their herds because of his type. You know, he's only he's still positive 0.37, but maybe not quite as strong as cows, a little bit shorter type cow. You know, that's maybe the bull that I'm looking for some kind of more medium sized cows.

00;09;24;03 - 00;09;43;25
Brad
But with his production figures, fertility, productive life, I don't think I cannot use him. It's like I said, I have three captains on the ground right now, and we're breeding more to captain right now. So I think we're going to we're going to use captain. I'm going to like the captain's daughters and we're going to see where we go from there.

00;09;43;25 - 00;10;17;14
Brad
The next bull is laser P, so. 551 oh 5981 St bull homozygous pulled bull. It's a A2P2 his desire of this bowl out of a delta lambda. So why might I use this bull. So he's a genomic bull doesn't have any daughters. The main reason for using laser P homozygous pulled. I'm trying to convert or increase the pulled genetics in our herd.

00;10;17;16 - 00;10;45;08
Brad
And I think by for me, the fastest way to do it is use homozygous pulled bulls. So laser is one of them. He's good for production. Low somatic cell count DPR not so great. -2.4 productive life. He's a little bit negative. His type is 2.39. So we'll see what happens when he gets daughters. And his proof pulled is, the real reason that I'm using that bull.

00;10;45;11 - 00;11;19;28
Brad
Another homozygous pulled that I'm using. Seabrook. Another bull here, 5884. So this name is St Jen Seabrook. So he's a seamers. Hanks which wears the pulled bull comes from. And he's out of a captain. So kind of that following that Captain Blood good for production. You know he's a genomic bull as well. No daughters yet. Maybe not quite as high a production as laser but respectable production, low somatic cell count, good mastitis resistance.

00;11;20;00 - 00;11;52;04
Brad
Fertility -0.7. Productive life 3.5. His type is 1.47. Overall a good bull I think. Pretty good for for pulled genetics. You know I don't know really what's going to happen on these genomic bulls. And again the real reason to use him was homozygous pulled. That's the biggest reason for that okay. Here you go. If you want to be critical about what I'm doing the next bull from St is called architect is a red carrier.

00;11;52;06 - 00;12;16;22
Brad
Now why in the world would you use architect? Why would I use architect? He's a Hancock or a king. Doc seamers doc Hancock out of the Apple family. That goes back to that. Why would I use that bull elk cross. Elk cross. It's probably the the biggest reason for putting architect into the herd was out cross that don't have any of those real genes.

00;12;16;22 - 00;12;40;06
Brad
Yes. There's some King doc in our herd, but not much from the Apple family, really. So he is negative for production, a little bit higher on somatic cell count. Livability. Not so great. Productive life negative. He's really high on type 3.02 168. Daughters. Why would I use them out? Cross. Am I going to get 10 or 15 daughters out of him?

00;12;40;06 - 00;13;05;04
Brad
Probably not. Maybe 3 or 4 in the herd. We'll see what happens. But architect again, for inbreeding you I select a lot for inbreeding. Probably one of the things that I look at as well when we're doing this is, is really inbreeding, trying to reduce inbreeding in our herd. It's a problem we we can of discuss inbreeding another day genomic testing all of these cows into the next bull airdrop.

00;13;05;04 - 00;13;37;13
Brad
Another high type bull 3.13 for type. He's a drop box. It goes back to a Geno source. Captain. This got some captain bought in there. But for the most part a pretty high tight bull but not as great on proofs really. Fertility negative productive life point nine. Not as high in production as some of the other bulls, but really the reason for using him is out cross as well, out cross genetics and we'll see what happens.

00;13;37;15 - 00;13;59;18
Brad
Might destroy my herd. I might not using some high type bulls. Most of the high type bulls are there because of out cross genetics. Trying to find something else. That's not what I all have. You know, I've got a lot of Delta limbed. I've got a lot of King, doc and King boys. And inbreeding is is one of the big things that, that we've used.

00;13;59;24 - 00;14;20;29
Brad
You know, it's kind of why I've used some of these other bulls. I've got a quite a few Miami daughters, which is an St bull. I've got six of those on the ground. He was used a lot for Elk Cross. Now he's a a proven bull, not higher type 0.91 for type respectable good productive life. Good day. Is he going to make show cows?

00;14;20;29 - 00;14;41;26
Brad
Nope, not at all. He's going to make good production cows that are going to last a long time. Kind of the same thing with Tampa, another st bull, a little bit of use for out cross. Sometimes he's a little bit more harder but respectable cow good fertility good productive life. High milk bull good. Overall a pretty good bull.

00;14;41;28 - 00;15;05;00
Brad
If I think about Tampa, I have eight daughters, eight calves on the ground by Tampa right now, and I kind of like I like his proof. Good fertility, good, productive life. He's a little bit positive on type, but good moderate size cows that are going to last a long time. I think the Tampa will outpace some of the other bulls, certainly that that we're using.

00;15;05;07 - 00;15;35;04
Brad
Okay. Well let's talk about some of the other bulls. Go over to my select sires list here. What are we using. Perfect seamers. Renegade. Perfect I love the bull. Respectable production levels. Not as high net married. He's got almost 20,000 daughters in his proof. So he's got lots of daughters. Is 1.88 for type positive unproductive life. Not so good for livability minus seven minus one for DPR.

00;15;35;04 - 00;16;01;13
Brad
I used renegade is sire part of the reason I love that bull too. You know why use perfect. Well, I liked renegade and I like Delta Lambda, so what a better combination to combine those two and and use them. So you still using some perfect. Maybe not as as much now as what I used to have 12 perfect on the ground in that are purebred Holstein or crossbred.

00;16;01;16 - 00;16;27;08
Brad
So I'm pretty excited about the perfects looking to see where they go and how well they're going to do in our herd. Also using sheep stir. So 7H1 6276 so OCD trooper sheep stir comes out of a Oakfield Corner dairy in Oakfield, New York. It's a trooper son a little bit different and out cross genetics from our herd.

00;16;27;08 - 00;16;56;14
Brad
He's got 400 daughters and is proof one of the top bulls at select sires. So good for production. High net merit. Bull 1111. Net merit maybe not so under composite is positive, but close to zero body weight. Composite is zero is positive for productive life. So 5.5. Productive life 1.1. Livability 1.5. Heifer conception rate 1.3. Cow conception rate.

00;16;56;15 - 00;17;23;17
Brad
Now you kind of get to the gist of what I've been selecting for a good, productive life. High fertility bulls. You know, sheep stir is kind of a moderate sized bull. It's going to have moderate size cows. So going to like that not overly high for type. So good production fertility and productive life. Also using another bull. Here we go to my some pulled bulls that I'm using.

00;17;23;19 - 00;17;49;06
Brad
One is called Hanks is not homozygous pulled. It's heterozygous pulled is another bull from the seamers out of Wisconsin. But kind of goes back to luster P and King Duck. I used a lot of luster pea in the herd. I like luster P. We used a lot of them. I've got quite a few daughters, 15 daughters. Two of them were pulled the the genetics just didn't work out for that bull.

00;17;49;06 - 00;18;11;22
Brad
I didn't get a lot of pulled by using luster B, but Hanks pretty good productive life positive for DPR. He's 2.8 on type, not as high production. You know production. I don't necessarily look at a lot. He's close to 400 net merit, but I've used him probably the biggest reason at least to get some more calves for for pulled.

00;18;11;24 - 00;18;41;14
Brad
Definitely the pulled genetics. Another pulled bull to select sires pen England two so £0.02 bull out of Pennsylvania goes back to luster P as well. 450 daughters and is proof not very high on production. Used him probably for the pulled but pulled genetics as well. 1.87 on type positive actually positive for heifer conception rate. Cow conception rate positive for productive life.

00;18;41;16 - 00;19;09;24
Brad
Going to be some good moderate cows, but really shows him because of the pulled genetics in the herd. So some of you might think am crazy with all of these bulls, but a lot of them kind of go back to really pulled and why I wanted to use those bulls because of their pulled genetics, and some of them might not make too much sense to you.

00;19;09;26 - 00;19;37;25
Brad
Trying to balance out production and type in pulled is it's not easy. Okay, let's talk about jerseys quickly. What Jersey bulls are using Charlton how to select sires. He's a guess live song. So kind of goes back to Danish genetics. He's got some daughters and is proof 362 net positive productive life positive for livability positive for DPR. That's why I kind of like this bull.

00;19;37;28 - 00;19;59;05
Brad
He's not going to be overly big. Moderate sized Jersey cows with good fertility and good production. He's negative on type minus 0.6 on type. So but I'm you know, doesn't really matter to me. I like the productive life. I like the fertility of him. Cronos people coming out of cash in Jersey sort of to Larry California genomic Jersey Bowl.

00;19;59;10 - 00;20;36;27
Brad
He's positive for productive life livability. Dr.. Only using him because he's homozygous pulled homozygous pulled trying to increase the pulled genetics, especially from the Jersey standpoint. I'm using some Thrasher as well. He's a Jersey bull. He's a Pilgrim Viceroy really high net bull good production 6.3 for Productive life 3.2. Dr. is genomic bull still doesn't have any daughters, but using that bull because of his high production, high fertility and high DPR, those are the select bulls.

00;20;36;27 - 00;20;58;00
Brad
The other bulls that I'm using from St genetics LA spotter. I've got a few LA spotters on the ground already. I think I have, 3 or 4 of them. Kind of like LA spa is a proven bull. Positive, productive life positive. Dr.. He's negative milk. So I guess I don't necessarily look at production, but I like I like he's a chrome I used a lot of chrome.

00;20;58;00 - 00;21;33;14
Brad
I love the Chrome daughters in our herd. So I like a good chrome sun. Also using Judson P, which is another pulled bull out of Stand Well and pulled another pulled bull out of genetics. So some that are positive productive life for for the so pulled is probably the biggest reason for those. I think if you've been if you're still following along, a lot of this kind of goes down to back to the pulled back to the pulled world and to what I'm using for for pulled genetics.

00;21;33;17 - 00;22;00;16
Brad
Okay. Let's talk a little bit about some of the Norwegian bulls that I'm using. Gone to Norwegian Red here on the season to, to look at those bulls using a bull called going is a Norwegian Red bull and are one to 2 to 2. If I look at the US proofs on these you know, you can find the Norwegian Red Bulls have a US proofs if you go to Council on dairy cattle breeding.

00;22;00;18 - 00;22;34;18
Brad
Gives you the proof numbers of these bulls is positive for net merit. So is 1005 for net merits are pretty high. In this breed is pretty high for milk, 2,700 pounds of milk, high fat, high protein, low somatic cell count, 4.1 DPR 6.5. Heifer conception rate 4.3. Cow conception rate 2.7. On livability. So it's pretty high for all the functional traits high fertility, high productive life and he could see benefit of production as well.

00;22;34;18 - 00;23;07;03
Brad
So good Norwegian bull there. The other one I'm using from Norway is called Raman stead is a little bit higher for net merit 1200. Net merit is even higher for milk in the US, 3000 positive for milk, high fat, high protein a little bit higher and productive life high DPR both 5.1 good heifer conceptual good cow conception rate so I like those bulls because they're certainly positive for all of the functional traits that I'm trying to select for.

00;23;07;03 - 00;23;33;06
Brad
And I'm trying to make in our herd. What about the most desired bulls that I'm using right now? Two more busy, hard bulls from one is called Upolu. He's a pulled bull, so there is some pull genetics in the more period. I think this is only pulled bull that I could find anywhere. There's not much pulled genetics and in the might be the hard breed.

00;23;33;06 - 00;24;11;21
Brad
But I did find one. Upolu is pulled so we'll see what happens there. And see if I can get any pulled pulled bulls out of him. The other more period is Jupiter. Another good productive life. Bull and good milk. Bull. And the last that we're using for is Normandy mine, a Normandy bulls that were using our Paris tenor, Rossi and zest that are all a2 a two good production bulls, maybe not the highest for their index.

00;24;11;24 - 00;24;42;14
Brad
This is 157 I assume is not the highest, but he's pretty good generosity. Rossi's really good as well. They're a little bit negative. Stature bulls good for fertility, good productive life. These two bulls generosity and this have positive. Other composites are pretty good bulls. So like them and we'll see what the future looks like there. It's got a lot of Normandy calves on the ground right now, a lot of Pele Paco or some of the other ones that we've used in the Normandy.

00;24;42;14 - 00;25;04;26
Brad
So it's kind of the list of bulls that I have. So what what kind of calves that I got on the ground right now, the ones with over five daughters. So I got half x 12 lustrous piece. So it's, stable that I used a lot. Probably a high type bull. Three points on type, but he's homozygous pulled, so I have 11 daughters of lustrous on the ground.

00;25;04;29 - 00;25;32;00
Brad
Eight Tampa's, six Miamis. I also have six eye candies. You're like, why would you use eye candies at top tight bull select sires? One of them was it's probably cross, and he did really well at getting cows pregnant. Some of the Viking Red Bulls fan of and fuzzy our two pulled bulls that I use there. So probably and Fitbit was another pulled bulls that I use out of Viking genetics.

00;25;32;04 - 00;26;01;15
Brad
So really I don't know what what you might have heard today. Probably the thing that you've learned is bred selecting a lot for pulled genetics. I'm moving towards pulled. So I got a USDA grant to help move our herd more towards pulled genetics. Like I've said before, we're going to be looking at pull genetics in the US and how well that fits with the national herd, what pulled genetics look like for us and where we're going to go with that into the future.

00;26;01;22 - 00;26;25;09
Brad
I like high fertility bulls, high productive life bulls with good mastitis resistance. Once in a while it's sprinkled in with some high type and the high type is because about cross out cross genetics. So I have to really balance, especially when the Holstein. It takes me a long time to meet all the Holstein cows. I look at inbreeding, I look at type in.

00;26;25;10 - 00;26;47;22
Brad
Breeding is probably the biggest thing that I do for, looking at the Holstein matings, purebred Holstein mating. So I want lower inbreeding. It's it's inevitable. We're going to have a lot of inbred cows, but I try to use some of those other bulls that are a little bit less for inbreeding. So with that, I hope you learned something about what I'm selecting for in in genetics.

00;26;47;24 - 00;27;21;23
Brad
Like I said, pulled high fertility, high productive life once in a while, sprinkle in some high type bulls because of inbreeding and we'll see what happens as we go into the future. So if you have any comments, scathing rebuttals, because you don't like the bulls that I used or that you like the bulls that I used, feel free to let me know at the Moos room that's MOS or M, indwell or contact me on the web, in RFC dairy or shoot me an email as well.

00;27;21;25 - 00;27;33;15
Brad
I'm always willing to talk bulls genetics with people and and, debate you about whether that's good or not. So with that, I hope you have a good week. But.