Many producers have indicated they would like to receive individual animal data from feedyards and packers in order to better manage their ranch operations. In order to accomplish this goal, it is necessary to define what the rancher must do before he/she can effectively apply the data received for other production segments. Many ranchers have received data and tried to draw conclusions about genetic programs based on this information. While some information is better than no information at all, little progress can be made if the rancher has not prepared his/her operation to use the data input. Ranchers should become familiar with factors, including carcass characteristics, that influence profits once the calf leaves the ranch, and be willing to apply that knowledge to bull and replacement heifer selection.

Individual animal data that is evaluated on a ranch where there is no individual identification of cows or bulls is really just benchmarking. The individual data can be averaged and compared to national or breed averages to determine which traits should be improved. Bulls can then be purchased that correspond to the needed genetic changes.

The question of how to make rapid and efficient changes can only be answered by matching individual calf data to individual cow and bull data. Therefore, one of the first jobs the rancher should accomplish is to individually tag and record cows and bulls. Then, if possible, the rancher should try to match calf identifications to at least the cow. This may be difficult to do in some ranch environments, such as calving in remote areas where there is little opportunity to match calf numbers to cow numbers. In many areas where cows are monitored each day, calves can be paired to cows and more rapid progress can be made. Genetic progress can be made with both scenarios.

Sire-Dam-Calf Pairing
When calves can be paired to cows and sires can be narrowed down to a group of sires, progress can take place fairly rapidly. The most rapid changes can be made where single sires are used on groups of cows. If multiple sires are used, grouping the sires that are most closely related to one another will produce more rapid results. In any group of calves that have individual profit and loss calculations computed, there is always at least a $400 spread in profitability between the best and the worst. Data from 13 years of the Texas A&M Ranch to Rail program confirms this, in addition to many other tests across the country. This much variation gives one the opportunity to make large advances through culling.

Removing mothers of calves on the lower end of the profitability ranking is a method of multiple trait selection. By using profitability, a rancher incorporates gain, feed efficiency, and carcass traits into a single selection. If only one sire was involved, cow culling may be slower while a new sire is used to determine if a new infusion of genetics on the same cow base will produce the desired performance. With two years of data, cows still on the bottom of the scale for producing low profitability calves need to be culled. As these cows are replaced and new females brought into the herd, selection of heifers from cows producing calves on the upper end of the profitability ranking increases the speed of change. If multiple sires are used on a large group of cows, the cows producing the lower profitability calves need to be culled early.

No Pairing
On those ranches where identifying cows and pairing them with their calves is not possible or feasible, other techniques can be employed. When bulls are tested for breeding soundness prior to being placed with cows, they can be blood-sampled for DNA analysis and the samples stored. The individually identified calves can then be followed through the system and ranked for profitability just as before. As the calves are processed into the feedyard, a blood sample can be taken and stored for DNA analysis. When all data are in and calves ranked from best to worst, the top ten percent and the bottom ten percent of calves are selected and their DNA samples are sent into a commercial DNA lab for analysis. The stored blood samples from bulls can also be analyzed and matched to the calves.

This exercise will produce tendencies that show certain bulls tend to sire calves in the upper ten percent of the group and others tend sire calves in the lower ten percent of the group. Those sires that have a high incidence in the lower ten percent can be culled and replaced with bulls more closely related to those in the upper ten percent. The logic of only running analysis on the top and bottom ten percent is first of all cost. It would be very expensive to analyze all of the calves. Second, analyzing calves in the middle of the group really doesn’t tell a rancher anything about herd sires. Performance of the calf is influenced by genetics of the mother, which is unknown in this situation. This system allows for progress in providing culling information never before possible on ranches that are operated on a vast number of acres and where individual management is difficult.

Conclusion
In the scenarios presented, all calves are tagged and identified either to sires or dams or both. The speed of progress is measured against the cost of the identification system. The faster change is desired, the greater the investment in capital, time, and labor. As ranchers decide to incorporate individual animal data into their management scheme, they must first decide what their goals are in terms of speed of change and which techniques can be employed in their environment. By planning ahead, ranchers will accomplish more with the data once they receive it. No one is minimizing how difficult it has been to capture data on cattle moving through the system in the past. Some difficulties will exist in the future, but the move to a national animal identification system will eventually work out most of the problems that have existed in the past. The day is fast approaching when the use of individual data on ranches will be as common as any other management practice.