December Sire Summary Change

The Darling Hotel

CDCB releases new Feed Saved trait

Feed is the single highest expense on your farm, and therefore breeding for feed efficiency improvement can benefit your bottom line. In addition to lower feed costs, a more feed efficient herd is more sustainable with less manure and greenhouse gas impacts on the environment.

Overall, you want your cows of the future to have high milk yield, low maintenance costs and a high proportion of energy per unit of feed consumed. The release of CDCB’s highly anticipated Feed Saved (FSAV) is progress in creating that more efficient cow. FSAV includes collaborative data and is based on multiple years of research. In simple terms, FSAV represents the expected pounds of feed saved per lactation based on Body Weight Composite and Residual Feed Intake evaluations. Larger, positive values are more favorable.

Given the same production and body size, daughters of Bull A will eat 500 less pounds of feed per lactation than daughters of Bull B.

How do I read the FSAV trait values?

Trait Bull A Bull B
Feed Saved
+200
-300

What are the ranges and reliabilities for FSAV?

Mean (Average) Minimum Maximum
FS PTA
-116
-822
633
FS Rel
37
89

How should I select for feed efficiency?

We recommend genetic selection based on an index to ensure collective progress over time for a balance of traits. FSAV will be incorporated into ICC™ in the April 2021 proofs. It is anticipated FSAV will be added into Lifetime Net Merit at that time as well.

For a more in-depth look at FSAV, view the CDCB trait reference sheet.

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