Braunvieh World Summer 2023

head cost of the program as these calves all have their individual costs to be accounted for. All of these things are why there are only a couple other programs like this in the entire country, and they are either very expensive, highly subsidized or very small. The only comparable program is the Meat Animal Research Center Germplasm Evaluation project, however it only measures breed differences and does not provide individual sire data. Future The good news is that many breeders, including breed ers from many additional breeds, recognize the value and are willing to enroll sires in upcoming tests at the needed amount. Braunvieh has tested a significant amount of our breed and will continue to be a part of every test moving forward with beneficial pedigree ties to a multi breed test, positioning them to be able to compete as their genetics earn it and merit it. The planned breed participation breakdown for the future is 25 percent each for Braunvieh, Angus, Santa Gertrudis and 25 percent additional mixed breeds. The additional breeds will add a lot of value to the data. Ad ditional breeds planned to be added in the next year include Charolais and SimAngus. As this was a seven-year agreement, the project will go on at least four more years. However at this time, it is the intent of everyone involved that this be ongoing indefi nitely. There are also possibilities for this to be multiplied in additional cow-calf herds and feedyards. The first AI-sired daughters were retained and bred this year, beginning the process of maternal phenotypes. Additional traits are hoped to be evaluated, including

disposition, calf vigor, feet and udder scores, longevity, tenderness and red meat yield. A genomics partner is being sought to recoup value from this unique program to help fund it and to apply the phenotypic measures into a genomic test that rewards the highest value sires in the marketplace. Summary Braunvieh as a breed has long been recognized to have a lot of potential industry value, but has not been ad equately evaluated to the industry’s satisfaction, due to a lack of volume of data and much of it coming from small er herds with single-sire contemporary groups. This sire evaluation will correct this issue and provide Braunvieh breeders information to better their breeding programs. This is not intended to be an individual breed competi tion, but an evaluation that recognizes individual sires’ values within a multi-breed database. At the same time, this evaluation will become increasingly valuable for com mercial producers to know what genetics to utilize with proper perspective into crossbreeding programs. The Braunvieh Sire Evaluation is one of the most important things being done for Braunvieh in our 40 year U.S. history. It provides data for breeders to make informed sire selections not just to breed better Braun vieh, but also to market Braunvieh genetics as the breed of choice to be used with other breeds in maternal and terminal crossbreeding globally. Over time, this evalua tion is positioned to become one of the best and largest multi-breed lifetime progeny datasets in the world, pro viding many opportunities to apply data in many benefi cial ways. BW

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Most breeding programs have choices... There’s always ONE that stands out and maybe it has pink wings.

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