PrimeTime spring 2018

Akaushi Matters Janie Bain | Executive Assistant/Office Manager | jbain@akaushi.com AMERICAN AKAUSHI ASSOCIAT ION UPDATE

L et’s get started ALL Akaushi calves are recorded and DNA veri- fied, even the ones des- tined for the feedyard, we have a large number of calves in our database that are no longer active and need to be disposed with some spring cleaning! Because

been selected click “Make Updates.” If you are updating the status of a large number of calves, I would suggest updating 20 or so at a time. Don’t worry, these animals are not gone for good, they are just moved from your Active Herd to your Legacy Herd. If an animal is mistakenly moved, please contact the office and we can change it back to the correct status. DNA Testing – STR to SNP While you are updating the status of your herd, go ahead and check to see if your remaining animals have a SNP profile. Fol- low the directions above but look under each category that is applicable for your herd. The DNA column will display STR or SNP or both. If neither is present or if it only dis- plays STR, then you must retest that animal. You can submit a new sample for testing or another option would be to request a sample pull from the archived samples at the lab. With pulled samples there is always the risk that there would not be enough DNA matter to test. If that is the case it would be neces- sary to submit a new sample. We allowed two years for the conversion from STR testing to SNP. It has gone very well. SNP testing produces faster results and more accurate parentage determination. If you have

of. Updating the status of an animal is quick and easy. Log in to DigitalBeef using your member number and password: akaushi.digitalbeef. com. Click on the “Herd” tab. On the right side of the screen under “Terminal” choose either “Females” or “Bulls.” For calves that are no longer in your herd, click on the “Dispose” button on the right side of your screen. This will place the calves in the queue. In the “Work Menu” on the left side of the screen select “Herd Management > Update Status.” This will bring up a list of each animal you selected.

been putting it off, your time’s up. If you have adult animals to retest, please call the office and we can help you decide the best plan for the conver- sion. This is not optional. The

DigitalBeef example

lab is urging us to complete this transition due to the antiquated systems required for processing STR. Comparing the A4 Advantage Program to GridMax ™ Both programs were established to add value to your commercial herd by infusing

Indicate the reason for disposing of the calf by clicking the drop down arrow. Since the primary reason for disposing of percentage Akaushi calves is because they are sold to the Certified Akaushi Beef pro- gram, this screen defaults to that reason. However, there are many other reasons to choose from. Once the “New Status” has

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Akaushi Prime Time • Spring 2018

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