News
July 29, 2020
The National Association of Animal Breeders is pleased to announce Irma Vermeer as the Data Coordinator for NAAB. Irma began fulfilling her duties on the 27th of July.
June 4, 2020
Calving traits that previously were problematic for many U.S. dairy farmers have been successfully improved through better genetics and management.
June 1, 2020
CSS and APHIS renewed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) effective on April 23, 2020 that extends the unique private-public sector cooperation. This is a mutually beneficial relationship that recognizes the integrity of the CSS programs and demonstrates the close working collaboration with APHIS.
May 7, 2020
Prior to the April genetic evaluations, model changes were announced for both calving ease and stillbirth. These changes considerably improved the accuracy of the traits and improved the stability of the evaluations. A base change was applied for the calving traits as well; however, while PTAs for most traits decreased due to the base change, PTAs for the calving traits went up.
If we are making slow-but-steady genetic progress, why do you see higher PTAs for calving ease on your favorite bull? In fact, there are probably bulls that you have used frequently with no issues that have high PTAs for Sire Calving Ease (SCE). Why?
April 20, 2020
The April 2020 sire evaluation had more changes than usual. This is not coincidental. The most noticeable of changes was the genetic base change.
Because the genetic base change affects PTAs already, it’s beneficial to include others changes to models, traits and indices in the same evaluation. That way, the dairy industry isn’t hit with multiple large changes in a row but instead has one large “reset” and can then continue with a stable set of proofs. It can be confusing, however, to understand all the changes and how they affect the PTAs on familiar and new bulls.
This is a summary of all the changes to the genetic evaluation that were implemented in April 2020. While it is impossible to calculate what change caused what PTA to shift, the list below may give you an idea of why a certain PTA on a specific bull changed the way it did.
April 14, 2020
The National Association of Animal Breeders (NAAB) members report annual units for the categories of domestic sales, export sales, custom collected, imported units for dairy and beef breeds. With 95% of the US AI industry represented by NAAB members, these annual statistics give an unprecedented reflection of US cattle semen sales.
April 13, 2020
NAAB contributed to a recently published peer-review paper on the future of phenomics in dairy cattle breeding
March 26, 2020
March 20, 2020
The rapid spread of COVID-19 is affecting our AI industry as well. This new page will list all Federal, State, International and affiliated business restrictions that may impact our industry. If we miss anything, please do not hesitate to let us know.
March 3, 2020
The US genetic evaluation system will have a genetic base change in April 2020. This is in accordance with global standards set by the International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR). This ensures that everyone evaluates the genetics of their animals to an up-to-date average population. Every base change brings a considerable shift in PTAs even though the genetics of our breeding stock obviously don’t change overnight. The more genetic progress we make, the bigger the base changes are.
Why do we do this, what does it mean exactly and what will be the changes in April?