Reference Library

Designing Breeding Programs
for Different Ranch Objectives

Dr. Bob Kropp
TLBAA Breed Advisory Committee Chairman
Professor, Animal Science Department, Oklahoma State University

This is the third in a series of original articles by Dr. Kropp that will appear in Brush Notes in 1995

Designing a breeding program for a purebred cattle program involves five basic steps:

A. Establishing a ranch direction or ranch objectives

B. Choosing the traits that should be emphasized to accomplish the ranch objectives

C. Determining how animals will be evaluated

D. Selecting parents for the next generation

E. Culling undesirable parents and potential parents

A brief discussion of each of these important steps follows:

A. Establishing Direction

For any breeding program to be successful, a sense of direction or purpose must be established and adhered to. Objectives should be based on a breeders' particular interests and/or the interests of potential customers. In addition, considerable thought should be directed toward a realistic assessment of present and future markets, prices associated with those markets, production costs of each market, the advertising and promotional style of the breeder as well as the ability to become a major player in the market place.

B. Choosing Traits

Clearly, the traits of economic importance and traits that should be used as selection criteria depend on the breeders' perspective, which in turn must be consistent with ranch goals and direction. How then does one determine the essential traits of emphasis? First, take a close look at the animals perceived as "best" within the breed for the particular ranch direction or objective. If the goal is to provide the most useful cattle for a particular market and thus, customers within that market, then the information required for selecting and evaluating the traits is precise knowledge of that market and customer's needs. After all, we must satisfy our customer before we can reap financial benefit. By paying close attention to the customer's needs and desires, the traits that should be emphasized in any breeding program can be easily determined. what do the customers within the market pay the most money for? Determining customer desires is the first step that must be accomplished after a definite ranch direction is established.

C. Evaluation

Within a breeding program, there must be an evaluation system that differentiates between superior and inferior animals. If genetic progress is to be made, genetically superior animals must be retained for the next generation and inferior animals removed. The more carefully measurements are taken and records are kept, the more useful will be the resulting information. We must be able to measure differences among animals in a herd or population m order to improve the traits of interest. The differences measured give us a means of making sound logical decisions necessary in the selection of superior animals for herd replacements. It is extremely importance that information is collected so that mating decisions can be made as a result of objective data rather than subjective data. While our ability to measure, evaluate and select allows us to make genetic change, only wise use of the measurements, evaluation and selection will allow us to make genetic progress or improvement.

D. Selecting Parents

The only real way a breeder can improve the breeding value of his/her herd is by selecting the animals to become parents. Other than establishing a ranch direction, selecting bulls to sire the next generation of offspring is the most important step in breeding program design. Because bulls can produce more offspring per herd than cows, a bull will contribute more genes or genetic material to a cow herd over time than cows. For this reason, selection of bulls is much more important than selection of replacement females in terms of genetic progress. The important thing to remember when buying a bull or selecting one from within the herd is what is really being sought is breeding value - the value of the bull as a parent. It is mandatory that the sires selected for future use within a program excel in the traits that are most important to the particular ranch objective or marketing strategy. We know that genetic selection works because the traits of interest have a genetic component and are thus, inherited. Because these traits are inherited from parents. superiority as well as inferiority can be and is transmitted to the offspring of the next generation.

E. Culling

The removal of genetically inferior seedstock from the population is just as critical to herd and breed improvement as the selection of superior animals. A progressive breeding program must be "cold blooded", culling animals that do not perform to the level desired for future parents. This is not to say that animals from a particular herd are inferior to the population average. The inferior cattle in one program may be superior in an-other. But without recorded data, these decisions are no more than arbitrary and very subjective.

Cattle breeding is simple - "breed the best to the best" based upon the criteria established for determining superiority within a specific ranch program. A breeding program is really no different than a road map. We all want to arrive at a specific location, but are leaving from different places via different modes of transportation. What matters is not how we get there, but that we arrive in sound financial condition.