Dairy Quality University

Use quarterly sire summaries to full advantage

John Metzger's sire selection policy is pretty darn simple.

After each quarterly USDA sire run, the Morris, Minn., reproductive specialist at Riverview Dairy simply pulls down the Net Merit ranking of bulls off of USDA's Web site.

Next, he eliminates bulls with less than 40 daughters, bulls with average daughter days in milk of less than 150 days and bulls that are extremely negative for udder composites and feet and legs.

Then, he'll ask AI bull studs for their best prices for 300 units of each of the top four or five bulls. "I plug those into a pretty simple formula developed by John Thompson (a genetics specialist with Genex/CRI). I simply take the bull's Net Merit times two lactations minus the semen cost times six units (to get a live heifer calf)," Metzger explains.

"If two bulls are close after this calculation, I'll go with the higher genetic merit bull even if he's a few dollars higher in price," he says.

The 300 units are a one- to two-month supply for Riverview Dairy. "Since we don't have pedigree information on our cows yet, we simply use this semen across the board until it's used up. Then we move on to the next bull," he says.

For cleanup, Metzger buys a "low-demand," $3/unit bull who still ranks above the 90th percentile on Net Merit.

Bob LaSalle, Caruthers, Calif., uses 90% young-sire semen in his half-registered–half-grade herd of 350 cows. But he uses USDA's quarterly sire summaries to update the parent averages (½ sire + ½ dam) of the sires he purchases.

LaSalle calculates his own total performance index based on 30% milk, 20% protein, 10% fat, 20% type, 10% udder composites and 10% feet and legs.

"We do have the cooperation of the bull studs, and we get a listing of the young bulls they'll be sampling in the next three months," he says.

So he'll rank 200 of these bulls on his database, and then order 10 units from each of the top 20 to 25 bulls. "We do use highly proven bulls for our better cows and heifers," he says. "And we'll fill in with proven bulls for the rest of the herd if we run out of young- sire semen before our next order comes in," he says.

Lloyd Holterman, Watertown, Wis., likes the quarterly sire summaries because they take the emotion out of semen buying. "The quarterly summaries allow you to make better business decisions because they provide the most current information available. I also think the quarterly summaries give a lot more stability to proofs—bulls don't change as much," he says.

Holterman selects bulls by setting minimums for cheese yield dollars, Net Merit, productive life and feet and leg composites. Then he calls the bull studs to see if they have genetic markers for kappa casein on the bulls he wants. "If you produce milk in Wisconsin, you had better be breeding for cheese," he says.

He'll buy 200 to 300 units each quarter, splitting those purchases between two bulls. "I don't worry too much about % Reliability as long as the bulls are stud sampled," he says. "But I do ask the bull studs to put their money where their mouth is—the bulls I buy have to be sires of sons."

He also buys young sires for cleanup—all with the right casein markers.