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ly recorded. Needless to say, the association goes to great lengths to try to get calves qualified. Generally, if we cannot qualify a calf, we will look at exclusion rates of all the sires in a member’s inventory. If the calf is failing with 10 or more exclusions for each potential sire, it is pretty conclusive that the sires have been excluded from parentage. If there is a potential sire that is failing with just three or so exclusions, there is a potential that a new profile on that sire would be in order. At this point, it might be advantageous to submit a new sample from the sire to see if one of the genotype values will change enough to qualify the marginal calves. Now, before I open a can of worms, the DNA process is 99.5 percent accurate. The odds of inaccurate DNA results are very slim. But there can be valid reasons to explore that may resolve DNA issues. That begins with good records. Making sure all possible parents are identified and have the correct DNA profiles up front is the best preventative against bad DNA results. The options above will cost the member addi- tional DNA fees and time, and do not guar- antee better results. Finally, for those who submit hair DNA: Effective Jan. 1, 2019, the cost of hair samples is increasing to $22, and will then increase to $24 at the end of the year. Hair samples require a lab tech to manually punch follicles from the sample, which slows down the lab’s output. For these rea- sons, GeneSeek® is encouraging submitters to switch to other sample types. PT herds with every breeding season, which is something Akaushi breeders have been doing very well. “It’s important that all breeders are out there promoting our cattle and promoting the breed,” Beeman says. “The more people who are talking about Akaushi and provid- ing the Akaushi experience of the quality of the cattle and the quality of the beef, it helps us grow. I think that’s the reason why the product is the best product you can buy; it’s the best beef eating experience you can have. It’s the work of everybody involved, not just one person.” PT

DNA MATTERS Continued from page 8

comparison is done. Concerning SNPs, each allele (DNA marker) is a pair, which is called a genotype. One half of the genotype comes from the dam and one half comes from the sire. Each half will have one of four values: A, C, G or T. As an example, if the offspring being verified has A/T for its values at a particu- lar genotype, it must get the “A” value from one parent and the “T” from the other. Since the majority of our members are test- ing for sire verification only, the bull must have either an “A” or a “T” value. If the bull has neither, that is what is referred to as an exclusion . For SNPs, we allow one ex- clusion and are still able to verify the bull as being the sire of the calf. If the bull has two or more genotype exclusions, the bull is excluded as the parent. When we process DNA results and have problems qualifying calves, it is because the bulls listed as potential sires have too many exclusions. In these situations, we expand our search to include all bulls in a member’s inventory or in their legacy inventory; se- men sires (if they have purchased it and it is in their inventory); and any leased bulls that have bull agreements listed in the associa- tion’s DigitalBeef® software. If there are calves that are still not veri- fied after those searches, we will search the entire database to see if there is a po- tential sire in someone else’s inventory that might have been borrowed and not proper- the ground up,” Beeman says. “Bubba and Janie have been a team as long as I’ve known them. They’ve been a team here and a great part of HeartBrand and the Akaushi Association, helping build it to where it is today.” During the convention, Beeman recog- nized and thanked many breeders for their help to grow the breed to where it is today, noting that it is vital to a breed’s growth that all breeders work to improve their BEEF WITH THE BEST TEAM Continued from page 23

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