New heifers and DNA tools

Yesterday was another birthday, the greatest gifts being health, happiness and heifers—11 of our first AI calves were heifers out of heifers, including three yesterday. They always get me thinking about genetic potential in the herd of course. It takes me back to a few weeks earlier. Bringing the cows home from winter pasture in mid-January can be an opportunity.

Last year it was freeze branding. This year, we took the opportunity to draw blood samples on 74 cows for DNA testing as part of a field study for GeneMax™. We let the heifers get by with just their two visual ID tags for now and did not draw samples from them as they have no progeny in the feedlot or in our carcass database—but all of them are related to the cows, so we expect to gain some insight on them as well.

We got the cows home by 10 on that Saturday and started bringing them into the chute. Well, I escorted each one in as all-around cowhand Lane assisted the “automatic” headgate.

Then I moved around to the front end, pulled on a new right-hand latex glove, got out another 16-gauge needle and reached for an ear.

Lane handled the squeeze, sometimes with help from son Tom, and they helped wife Anne keep numbers and cards straight.

Mosey the ranch dog tried to “help” at first but was overcome by excitement and had to watch from a safe distance.

Anyway, I rediscovered that blood vessels do not follow the same pattern or, more likely, my attempted stick was off by large fractions of an inch from one ear to the next. Some gals tossed their heads a lot, too.

This resulted in a less than uniform set of DNA sample cards, but I feel certain we got enough and maintained enough biosecurity in our sequence of drying them in two cooler bases before placing in photo sleeves to ship in to St. Joe for processing. The whole event took us a little more than three hours, but we were not set up for speed by any means.

All in all, it was an easy thing to do, and would be simple to add on to any routine trip through the chute if you add another cowhand to manage the DNA sampling. That observation comes from a guy who once tried to combine freeze branding with preg checking, which was NOT a workable idea with respect to the vet’s time.

Anyway, now we’re working on organizing all existing data as it relates to each cow, and will be most interested to see how our past results jibe with the GeneMax Scores. As alluded to with the new heifers that are presenting us with the 2014 calvers now, I am also interested in comparing scores within cow families and sire groups, why some work better than others, why some sires deplete grade, maybe why some daughters get much bigger than their half sisters… getting that data will be kind of like opening a present!

Until next time… let’s aim for profit, target the brand and build tomorrow together.

~Steve

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