The Leachman Spring Sale 2022

Leachman - Zoetis Update:

Zoetis Develops New Fertility (FRT) EPD

Using the 1.4 million animal Leachman database, Zoetis has developed a new fertility EPD. This FRT EPD predicts the number of calves that a bull’s daughters will have in their lifetime. When the Leachman genetic trend is analyzed – it shows a huge positive trend. This is further proof that the Leachman program indexes are selecting for improved cowherd fertility over time.

How it works:

Validation of FRT EPD:

Using the FRT EPD will allow commercial herds to improve fertility and daughter retention in their herds. This year all bulls and females in the cat- alog have been assigned stars based on their percentile rank for FRT EPD

An internal evaluation of FRT EPD for proven sires indicated favorable associated average number of calves produced by daughters. The evaluation grouped 109 sires according to their FRT EPD percent rank quartile. It evaluated daughters born prior to 2010 so that all were old enough to express recorded progeny up to eight calf crops at 9 years of age. Bulls with FRT EPD in the top 25% (highlighted in green) sired daughters that on average produced over one more calf by 9 years of age as compared to the number of calves produced from daughters of sires in the bottom 25% for FRT EPD (highlighted in yellow). Additional validation of the FRT EPD is currently underway. Since the heritability of cow Fertility is lower as compared to other traits (h2= .11), the accuracy of FRT EPDs for non-parents is also typically lower.

Fertility Stars The relative nuumber of calves expected from daughters of bulls in each star category

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The Leachman Database Ge - netic Trend for Fertility (FRT)

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