Is DNA testing for genetic “value” the future? Or a fad??

It is clear by now that lots of useful traits can be determined at birth from a DNA test.    It is less clear that selecting on DNA alone insures we will have the future herd that an ever-changing economic and agronomic picture dictates.

Those pursuing “Genomic ranked” breeding animals in both Beef and Dairy breeds are now in many cases three generations beyond ancestors with realized (=actual) performance.    Traits we overlook (as in soundness of feet) can get extreme over that many generations, and surprise us when the calves hit the ground and after.

Phenotypic selection will always have a place for those traits that relate to sorting between “maternal” and “terminal”;  for mating to control costs of production (as well as show and sale ring appeal); and learning to observe epigenetic effects from changing environments.    Observing relative adaptation from behavior as well as data  may be a big part of how we select cattle for future performance.

Mich Livestock Service, Inc        “For the Best in Bulls”   since 1978        ph (989) 834- 2661

How much help do your calves need?

Bos Taurus breeds have been selected over time to be fertile all year long (this is not true of many Bos Indicus and Bos Africanus breeds, where fertility follows the seasons).    The result of this is many of you calve cows in winter, to enhance the salability of those calves later.

For winter calving, we have some aids to calf comfort:
Calf  Ear  Warmers    (from Sullivan Supply)   fleece-lined, waterproof
Calf  Jackets   (lined with 3M Thinsulate)   come in small, medium, large sizes

For respiratory protection, we stock the usual vaccines.   This now includes:
Tri-Shield  First Defense   (from Immucell)   colostrum-derived antibodies
Focuses on K-99+ E-Coli, Bovine Coronavirus, and Bovine Rotavirus—major causes of scours.
Effective when given orally within 12 hours after birth.
Packaged in a box of 12 single-dose syringes.     Refrigerate until ready to use.

What if a calf is born adversely, and momma struggles with nursing it?
We stock freeze-dried COLOSTRUM:  “Bovine IgG Just Like Mom” label      (Aspen Vet Resources)
Effective when fed within 2 hours of birth.    If no maternal colostrum is available, a second dose within 8 hours is quite beneficial.    This is a powder that mixes easily in warm water.

What if a calf has had a setback, and needs to catch up?
FASTRACK  Ruminant Gel is pretty hard to beat.    5cc oral doses, restores appetite and speeds up rumen development so that all newly introduced feeds can be digested.

Results of a DNA study at Iowa State on causes of scours

Iowa State vet college received a grant to study calf diseases  (in hopes of developing DNA tests to enable gene therapies, replacing antibiotics being banned from food animals).    After 11,000 DNA samplings on sick calves and their healthy herdmates, they found a marker gene appearing to prevent debilitating scours from Salmonella and E-Coli infections.    Of interest was this gene is linked to the recessive Red hair color gene…    thus suggesting that the feeder market fixation with Black cattle (hoping to ride on the success of “certified Angus beef”)  may begin to change.   Iowa State has licensed this discovery to a company that will test your cattle for the marker.

The big debate that is arising from all the use of DNA testing in both Beef and Dairy cattle, is does DNA testing replace Genetic selection, which is based on trait measurement and behavior observation?     Advocates of DNA tests claim animals can be culled after birth just on genotype characteristics, and faster breeding progress made from a reduced gene pool of animals with an “ideal” genotype.     Critics of DNA selection point out that focusing only on a single genotype is a sure path for accumulating “inbreeding depression”.      They further note that we do not make our livings from the genotype, but from the phenotype (the living result that grows up and has adapted to our individual environment). 

The latest area of genetic exploration is “epigenetics” which documents how any sustained change in the environment alters the functions of genes.    And the environment will always be changing— starting with nutritional choices, and genetic changes in the feed themselves.

We keep learning as we go (ways DNA affects phenotype)

Mark Curry        (989) 984- 7027    Route Services and Sales/       OvSynch AI groups

Sue Palen           (989) 277- 0480    Order desk/  Product program manager

Greg Palen         (989) 277- 6031    Certified Seed Specialist/    AI Refresher training

Mich Livestock Service, Inc    “For the Best in Bulls”   and the forages to feed them
110 N Main St  (PO Box 661)   Ovid,  MI  48866           office phone (989) 834- 2661
www.michiganlivestock.com                              email: greg@michiganlivestock.com

 

There are three major proteins found in milk composition:  Alpha, Beta, and Kappa  caseins.    In the dairy industry, there is a growing consumer demand for milk that is only A2A2 Beta Casein.   This is of benefit to people with auto-immune diseases or the underlying DNA related to them, as having the best digestibility of that protein form.    (A2A2 is the “normal” beta variant for all mammalian species, but sometime in pre-history a mutation occurred in the Bos Taurus species [cattle of European origin] sometime before breed characteristics were segregated.   Mutations are called A1, B, and a few further mutations of the original mutation.    A1 molecule looks like a histamine molecule, and that interferes with digestibility.

Thus you can find the mutated beta caseins in beef breeds as well as their dairy breed cousins.   Some enterprising Angus breeders in Kansas and Nebraska decided to find out if A2A2 offered any benefit to newborn calves nursing their mommas (or surrogates).    They DNA tested all the bred cows for their Beta Casein markers, then tracked their next crop of calves.

What was the result?     Calves born from cows with A1 genes had more scours and digestive issues;  calves born from A2 cows were healthier and weaned slightly heavier.    As big a deal as this has become for specialty milk marketing, it surprises me that no dairy research into effects on calves has been done.    (Maybe big Pharma can’t figure out how to patent it??)

 

Time for an outcross to regain heterozygous vigor

Genetic evaluation has been designed since the 1960s to keep us on a path others thought desirable—the faster maturity of dairy cattle.    A lot of gene variation was lost in the narrowed sire bloodlines resulting from this single-minded pursuit.

We gave up genes for natural fertility, for maternal instinct, for acclimation to the fluctuation of weather (especially sunlight heat), for natural insect resistance, and most importantly, for the stamina to produce into a fully matured longevity .

Hindsight now tells us that focusing genetic selection on data allowed us to forget many basic rules of biology, including the many tradeoffs there are in population behavior.    Faster maturity is now shown to have promoted rapid aging.   Genetics ignored observational evidence in the pursuit of the fantasy that “technology has a solution for all problems”.   One size fits all never really fits what is most needed which is the necessity to keep gene influences in balance when mating cows.

Mich Livestock Service, Inc   “For the Best in Bulls” and the high energy forages to feed cows

RECAP: MCA Michigan Beef Expo February 21-23 at MSU Livestock Pavilion

 

CONCEPTIONS   Beef Cow-Calf Route Newsletter         March-April 2025

Mark Curry       (989) 984- 7027     Route Service and Sales Assistance

Sue Palen          (989) 277- 0480     Sales Order Desk, Products program

Greg Palen        (989) 277- 6031     AI Refresher training, Certified Seed Advisor

Mich Livestock Service, Inc  ***   “For the Best in Bulls”:      High Energy Forages
110 N Main St (PO Box 661)  Ovid,  MI  48866          office phone  (989) 834- 2661
www.michiganlivestock.com                           email:   greg@michiganlivestock.com 

 

 

This was our third year as an exhibitor at Michigan Beef Expo, held at MSU in conjunction with the annual meeting of Michigan Cattleman’s Association.   Many of you stopped by our booth, and we appreciated the opportunity to visit with you.

Beef Expo is a unique event in that it brings the purebred breeding world into contact with the club-calf show world.   Under the aegis of M C A, which is our “watch dog” over government’s intrusion into beef production and marketing, this event helps to put all into perspective.

Promoting Breed Differences

Why do we have so many breeds?   At “Expo” we saw Angus, Shorthorn, Hereford, Charolais, Simmental, Limousin, Main-Anjou, Chianina, and Club-Calf crosses stabled breed by breed as an effective visual comparison.

The Hereford exhibit had this message:  “Herefords on tests show 7% higher pregnancy rates, a $20 advantage in feed efficiency and a $30 advantage in feedlot profitability, adding up to  $51 more profit per cow per year.”   (What was the “control” group?   Angus, of course, as the most populous breed across the continent.)

“Certified Angus Beef” is an example of effective breed branding recognition.

The message in this is simple:  effective breed marketing has two levels: (1)  produce a uniform quality product,  (2)  develop strong customer brand loyalty.     Add in the rules of “commodity economics”:  (1)  be a “least cost” producer,  (2)  produce to the volume the market requires.

There are reasons (advantages) for each breed, and there is room for all breeds.   To succeed the rest is up to you, in how you design your farm crop production and manage your cattle.

Once you enter into crossbreeding (as in the composites on which “club calf” breeding is based) there are some extra rules.   Heterosis effects  (hybrid vigor)  run out after three generations.

Genetic Selection has longer-term consequences

USDA’s Beltsville MD research farm did Dairy crossbreeding experiments in the 1940s- 1950s. Once that was concluded, the Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory decided to enter into  Genetic Evaluation for purebreds (originated by the individual purebred Breed Associations).

The Predicted Difference was born in the 1960s.   While purebred associations were publishing sire daughter averages and daughter vs dam (“intergenerational”) comparison proofs, the AIPL produced daughter vs herdmate (“intragenerational”) comparisons, then introduced the idea that we could “rank” sires on the size of those deviations, named “Predicted Differences”.

This evolved into the Modified Contemporary Comparison.    Purebred breeder criticism of the PD concept revolved around the lower national DHIA breed averages compared to the “official” (supervised testing) HIR lactation averages from which Breed Association “proofs” were based.   Could bulls proven in below-average environments be equally useful for the highly preselected breeding herd?    MCC factored in the rankings of herdmates’ sires and pedigree indexes on the sires evaluated to produce what they now called Predicted Transmitting Ability.   The first index “composite trait ranking” was introduced, named  Net Merit $,  a term that has carried forward to the present time (although its formula has been repeatedly changed).

Through this entire period, into the beginnings of Genomic (DNA-based) ranking indexes, one thing remained the same:  Mature Equivalent factoring of young cows’ lactation records.   ME  was used by the purebred associations to allow “intergenerational” comparison of first lactation cows to their matured and maturing dams with multiple age lactations.    We used MEs because     in every tested dairy breed in the USA cows were observed to milk 30% to 40% more milk in their mature-age lactations than they did in first lactation.   MEs created “parity” over a range of age.

ME factors got carried over by AIPL into USDA “intragenerational” comparison of cows to same age contemporaries.    Anyone who understood high school mathematics could have seen that the only effect of using MEs instead of actual records was to inflate the deviations.    Yet the AI industry continued using ME data, perhaps thinking it would prove “the new bulls are better”.   

The primary goal of dairy genetics has been to “accelerate” the age of maximum cow yields.   The initial premise of the “PD” was that those heifers with the highest deviations were faster at maturing their production than the average of their contemporaries.   In fact as you broke down lactations (as the “Test Day Model” did later do) the key aspect of high PTA Milk sires was their daughters set the highest peak test yields in their first lactations.   The linear type trait appraisal system (used by all breeds today) was later based on the appearance of high-peaking cows.

Geneticists have succeeded in transforming cows to be faster maturing (and faster aging).   
Being mathematicians (rather than biologists) they never anticipated that making cows mature quicker would just accelerate the physical aging process, until three calvings wears them out.

Where are we today with all of this genetic evaluation ranking emphasis ?

The Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding (CDCB), successor to AIPL in index formulation and DNA application to Genomic ranking, has declared that ME factors are no longer used for calculating PTA values.    It seems that Genetic Selection for faster maturity has succeeded;  we no longer have any mature cows!     Why add 30% to every heifer lactation if only 20% of them will still be alive at the species age of maturity (five years)?    Just compare actual production.

Basically, today’s average cow will  die  before the end of her third lactation.    Cows no longer improve by 30% to 40% over their first lactation, because 80+% of all cows only complete two lactations.    It now takes as many days to raise a heifer calf to milking as we expect to milk her after her first calving!     Financial experts will tell you  the average dairy cow wears out before you have recovered her cost of raising.    There is currently a shortage of replacement cows so we are seeing prices APPROACHING $4000 to buy a replacement fresh heifer—and this in spite of technologies that were supposed to solve this, starting with PTA “Productive Life” indexes, and leading to the gender sexing of semen to favor 90% heifer calves.

In short, dairy industry application of 1960s genetic theories, as applied through AIPL’s index calculations and various ranking indexes, has changed the dairy cow’s lifetime epigenetically.    All the genes in modern Genomic cows’ DNA were existent in the cows from the 1960s , but in today’s environment they no longer help cows to live a full productive life.  Breed averages for realized PL today (after ten generations of measuring it) are essentially unchanged since 1990.
Getting entire populations to focus on one “selection path” (the ideal Genomic genotype) will, over time, virtually eliminate all heterosis for functional length of life.

Linear trait evaluation has taught us to admire cows with “frail” physiques.    Following show type selection paths frequently builds cows who are out of functional proportions, but may still possess more desired “femininity” as it relates to natural fertility and will to milk.   Genomics on the other hand, has confused “beefiness” with health support traits and in spite of all the “talk” about how the latest trait emphasis is on feed efficiency and reducing methane emission, none of this will come to fruition; the basic, underlying physical construction of high Genomic cows is grain and oilseed dependent and lacks the capacity to use low-cost perennial forages effectively.   

Finding a genetic solution to this historical inbred genetic selection path

Start paying attention to sires from cow lines recognized for “longevity” that show multiple lactations of consistent maturing performance over many generations.  In today’s sire populations, these are the only true “outcross” sires.    They will offer the ability for more “even” body conditioning and flatter, more persistent lactation curves reducing total feed costs.  They will give you cows with better natural fertility characteristics.  These will include the highest combined butterfat% and protein% bulls, especially if you are seeking A2A2 Beta Casein alongside BB Kappa Casein to qualify for future premium milk marketing options.