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Steering Your Way through More Bull Proofs
Dairy Pipeline: April 1998
by
Bennet Cassell
Extension Dairy Scientist,
Virginia Tech
(540) 231-4762 email: bcassell@vt.edu
This is the second year of new sire proofs every three months. Keeping up with double the information for service sire selection can be a challenge, but new sources of information will make the job easier. Lots of data on bull proofs are available through web sites you can access by computer. If this sounds a little challenging and you have children in school, ask them to check it out. They learn these skills in school, it might make a good "extra credit" project for some of their regular course work and it would help your business in the process. Two good sources are AIPL (the government agency which publishes the proofs at www.aipl.arsusda.gov) and the National Association of Animal Breeders (at www.naab-css.org) which has very complete information as well. Beginning with the Winter 1998 information, the Top Sire List and the Virginia Tech AI sire summary are also available on line at the web site for the Department of Dairy Science (at www.dasc.vt.edu/sires/index.html). We plan to replace these two lists four times a year, with each new sire summary, but only print and distribute proofs following the February and August evaluations. The next update will be in May. How can you use the information? Make a check of the proofs on your most heavily used service sires following May and November proofs and make adjustments based on possible changes in the evaluations. It would be a good idea to see if a newly released proven bull should replace some bull you are currently using. Or, plan semen inventories for three months at a time and choose new service sires four times a year. Try locating the most recent proofs by computer. There's some really good information out there to help you do a better job of sire selection. And you won't be dependent on other people or "snail mail" to get the new proofs to your farm.