Agricultural News
Dollar-Value Indices Help Cattle Producers Increase Profits, OSU Professor Says
Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:41:20 CDT
To make more money, try selecting for profit. That's what dollar-value indices help cattle producers do, says Megan Rolf, Oklahoma State University Extension Beef Cattle Management Specialist.
"Selection indexes are really a great tool that we have to practice multiple-trait selections directly for profit because these indexes are in dollar values. So, dollars saved are dollars earned."
Ranchers who want to produce stand outs in the feedlot and on the rail often turn to the American Angus Association's Dollar Beef Index. A recent summary shows dramatic differences in progeny over the last 15 years in those bulls sired by the top ten percent compared to the bottom tenth for dollar beef. Those in the top group had five times the number of prime carcasses and a 67-pound weight advantage.
Indexes help simplify selection, but Rolf offers this tip: "Generally speaking with selection indexes, we want to use one index at a time and minimize our use of additional EPDs or indexes because we want to make sure we don't overemphasize selection on a trait. So, any trait that is within the index, we generally don't want to practice additional selection on that trait because it will be overemphasized. The exceptions to those kinds of rules are for those traits that are limiting in the environment whether it's milk production or mature size or mature weight. Where we might want to place limits on those traits and then finish our selection with collecting the bulls with the highest index values."
To keep replacement heifers, a producer should include maternal traits such as those represented in the dollar-weaning index.
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