The top 2 bulls have both improved their figures since the Jan 09 proof run and I have added both sets of figures to the tables included.

Click on the highlighted names to be taken to the CDI proof pages.

Sniders Option Aaron sets a new high for the UK with an increase of +67 GMI and is now +534 GMI.

This is based on 67 dtrs in 31 herds with 94% Reliability.

Aaron has 23 UK classified daughters that are 6 VG, 14 GP, 2 G and 1 below 75 points. There will be additional daughters on Guernsey Island that will have contributed to his proof, but those figures are not published by the Island authorities.

Tiresford Pedro has also added +57 GMI and is now +477 GMI.

This is based on 118 dtrs in 36 herds with a 95% Reliability.

Pedro has 44 classified daughters in the UK and they are 4VG, 29 GP, 8G and 3 below 75 points and as before there will be extra daughters on the Island.

What continues to surprise me are the small number of second crop daughters that are being registered with EGCS, only 19 daughters born in the last 12 months and in only 4 herds. This suggests that the semen has been undersold, and that cutting the price of the semen despite the proof having improved at each of the last 3 updates has damaged uptake.

Tredinney Sonics Helium is the other bull to improve his figures significantly by +48GMI to +406GMI.

With 74 daughters in 23 herds he has a Reliability of 92%

Helium has 36 classified daughters who are 1VG, 16GP, 12 G, 2 Fair and 5 below 70 points, his GMI is reduced by 35 points to reflect the minuses for Legs/Ft and Mammary scores but as a Production Improver he meets the bill in particular for Fat % but needs using with caution for Type.

Riverwood Tiller Khan has a steady second proof with a change of -6GMI to +349 GMI, this is still based on his US daughters, although his UK dtrs are now calving he has a 64% Reliability.

Khan has 9 daughters classified in the UK and they are 6 GP, 1 G and 2 below 70 points, I saw 7 calved heifers last week that have not been scored and they would have all scored better than 80 points. Given his balanced proof I am surprised that he hasn’t been given a second use in the UK.

Rozelyn Glaciers Holiday has also improved his GMI by+26 to a GMI of +348

He has 66 dtrs in 23 herds and a 92% Reliability

Holiday has 18 classified daughters in the UK and they are 3VG, 6GP and 9 G, unfortunately there is no semen available.

There are 5 bulls gaining their first proofs at the April 09 Proof run.

Meadow Court Triumph with 8 dtrs in 4 herds has a Reliabilty of 63% and a GMI of +312

Hopefully there is a supply of semen on Guernsey Island.

Beechgroves Cornelius has 6 dtrs in 4 herds with a Reliabilty of 58% and a GMI of +271

Flambeau Manor Tiller Loren has 12 dtrs in 9 herds with a Reliability of 62% has a GMI of +124

Loren is the third son of Tiller to be tested in the UK (Yogibear & Khan being the others) and was not tested in the USA as two older maternal brothers were already on test there.

Tiresford River has 12 dtrs in 6 herds with a Reliability of 69% and a GMI of +102

Treloweth Harebells Buzzard has 17 dtrs in 6 herds with a Reliability of 74% and a GMI of +76

These figures for these 5 bulls are based on very few daughters and would tend to be daughters that are calving at a younger age than average and so should be treated with caution.

There are now 32 GGBP bulls with Proofs and they average

Only 2 of the 32 are minus for GMI and only 2 of the 32 are minus for £PLI.

The post April 09 Guernsey Bull Proofs from Dairy Co appeared first on UK Guernsey Cattle.

There are 18 Young Guernsey Bulls with daughters born in the UK that are awaiting their first proofs, the number of daughters listed are registered with EGCS and most of these bulls will have additional daughters in herds on Guernsey Island.

The advisors to the GGBP scheme would maintain that a minimum of 40 daughters from any one bull provided that they are in more than 10 herds will provide a stable proof. However the costs of collection for each of these bulls has risen by 50% in the 7 years since GGBP was relaunched and so as a rule of thumb it has been necessary to market around 600 straws of semen from each bull and that has normally been the amount imported from the young American bulls that have been added to the GGBP scheme. Experience suggests that approximately each 7 straws of semen sold results in a pedigree heifer registered with EGCS and usually we would expect between 80 and 100 predigree daughters.

Click on the bulls name to find the full pedigree and cow family details from CDI.

* Chillers figures are for his US Calved daughters

** Loren’s dam has incomplete PTA information and this has affected his figures and that of Ivor

# Iceberg has no calculation as his US Parent information is missing from the EGCS database.

The 3 Genus bulls, River, Junes Oak and Hercules will have had probably 2000 straws used.

There will be more daughters to come from Eros and Ivor whose semen was sold during 2008 but there does seem to be a trend towards fewer daughters from these young bulls. This concerns me as it suggests that these bulls are probably not earning enough to cover the costs of their collection.

The other marked difference is the change in balance between PLI and GMI.

PLI was remodelled by Dairy Co in 2007 to put more emphasis on “survival” traits and fertility and rewards depth of cow family information .

Five years ago Mike Cox made a proposal to the FOB Committee suggesting that more emphasis should be placed on the cow families, a man ahead of the times, and certainly a “lone” voice as the only dairy farmer on Alderney, but hardly in the wilderness as he is in the land of “milk and money”.

The post Guernsey Bulls awaiting proofs appeared first on UK Guernsey Cattle.

Click on the highlighted names to be taken direct to CDI pedigree details.

Dairy Co released the January Proofs last week and there has been a change at the TOP of the UK rankings with Sniders Option Aaron moving above Tiresford Pedro but both bulls have well balanced proofs for Production and Type Improvement.

Aaron has a remarkable proof based on 56 dtrs in 30 UK herd with a Reliability of 91%

Fortunately he has had a second use in the UK and has a son Les Jaonnets Caras Amir out of Les Jaonnets Keegans Cara the No 1 Ranked cow on PLI at +207 in the UK. Amir has had semen collected on Guernsey Island and it should have been available last autumn, but then patience is said to be a virtue. As yet no sons of AI standard have been registered on the mainland, which seems a missed opportunity.

Pedro has also consolidated his position and has fulfilled the Parent Average Prediction by which he was chosen, but then as a son of arguably the ”best” cow bred in the UK the Ex94 Tiresford Carmen 2nd, she was milking in her 8th lactation at 11 years old when I last saw her and is GDME  and has a VG daughter a full sister to Tiresford River.

Pedro has 101 daughters in 34 UK herds with a Reliability of 94%

Given that Pedro provides a big boost in Milk and Fat+Protein with a huge +0.17% increase in fat percentage and is amongst the best of the breed for udder improvement, I am surprised to see that only 18 daughters have been registered in the last 12 months. Fortunately he has had two sons used Trewey Surprise and Les Jaonnets Pedros Workman who are awaiting proofs.

Other bulls of note are;

Tredinney Sonics Helium with 66 dtrs in 21 herds and a Reliability of 91%

Helium is the best of the Sonic sons but is minus for both of the important Type Composites which is disappointing.

Riverwood Tiller Khan has a first proof based on his US daughters his UK daughters are calving now.

Rozelyn Glacier Holiday has improved his position with more daughters in milk he has 60 dtrs in 21 herds with a reliability of 91%

Holiday is the best of the Glacier sons and looks to be like his father his daughters will improve as they mature, he is a tremendous improver of Fat and Protein percentages and is reducing Cell Counts and Positive for the newly introduced fertility index.

Easby Rowan has gained a first proof albeit with a limited number of daughters 9 in 4 herds but has a reliability of 67%

Rowan was one of 2 sons of Brown Eden Tradition to be used in GGBP

Spring Walk Icy Chiller has gained a first proof based on his US daughters and it is:-

Chillers American daughters have been scored as deep uddered and that is probably why they have such a poor SCC score.

Treloweth Evas Tradition has also gained a first proof he was not used on Guernsey Island as he was a BVD vaccinate and has 17 dtrs in 8 herds with a reliability of 73%

Evas Tradition was the other son of BE Tradition and out of the EX93 Treloweth Eva 109.

Rutter Bros Option Lamar is the last of the bulls with a first proof, marketed by Semex he is an Option son out of the Ex 94 Rutter Bros Enhancer Lily, similar breeding to Aaron but not just as much oomph. His proof is based on Canadian and US daughters.

There are now 28 bulls proven since the launch of the GGBP in 2001 and they have the following averages.

Remembering that all of these bulls were chosen before the 2005 base change, which raised the bar by 11.6 kgs of F+P and 102 points of GMI, I feel this is a pretty good result for the breed. The target when the GGBP was launched was to use bulls predicted to be better than +25 kgs of F+P, at this point we have 28 bulls with an average of +32.7 (with the base change added back).

Full details of all the proven bulls with type bar charts and individual daughter scores can be found using the links on the left to the CDI and Dairy Co.

The post 2009 Proven Bull update appeared first on UK Guernsey Cattle.

He is a Glacier son of Wardour RO Fawn 2 Ex 94,who has also regained top spot on GMI in the August proof run (+499), Fawn calved whilst still at Wardour in Dorset in 2001 during the FMD outbreak and was sold with a bunch of calved/in calf heifers to the newly established Chiltern Vale herd of Steven Medlicott’s who replaced his Black and Whites with a Guernsey herd and converted to an Organic system.

The herd manager at Chiltern Vale was Roy Cogman, who had been at Honingham until the herd was dispersed.  When Chiltern Vale was sold Roy was given a choice of the herd and picked Fawn as one a select group which travelled with him when he moved to Andover to milk a black and white herd. Fawn produced over 10,000 kgs and classified VG 89 as a second calver and gave birth to Artic.

The wedding of Roy and Wendy’s daughter meant that the Guernsey’s were offered for sale and were bought by Ian Crouch for his Cracker herd at Blandford in Dorset.

Ian showed Fawn at the 2004 Conference show where she stood second to the eventual Champion Trewey Juno 38 and caught the eye of Andrew Hall , then managing the Thornton herd in Cheshire.

He left 14 daughters at Thornton before damaging a foot and was sold, the then Evaluation system could not calculate a PTA for Fawn because of the fact that she kept moving from herd to herd and so Artic although put forward for the GGBP scheme was rejected for “too little information”.

The change to the new system of the Test day model in 2004 , meant that Fawn could now get an evaluation and appeared near the top of the new listings. Unfortunately by this time Artic was not able to enter AI because of his damaged foot.

His proof is as follows :-

 + 431 kgs M + 24.4 kgs F +0.08% F +22.4 kgs P +0.12%P PLI £164 GMI +500

Fawn was seen at Chettle in 2004 by two of the top US breeders who independently recommended a mating to My Day Bliss Banger a Lorry son of the Ex 94 Laeschland Perfect Bliss and produced another son Cracker Banger Boy, who was selected for GGBP in April 07, but then set aside at the October meeting because the “number crunchers” felt there were more bulls selected than would be required.

Banger Boy’s first crop of calves have now been born and share their Grandam’s aggressive appetite which has led to her reaching the GDM ( +5000 kgs of F+P) landmark in her 6th lactation, making the youngest cow ever to have done this.

Fortunately Banger Boy is still available and will probably have semen collected this autumn his GMI has risen to +364, whilst at the same stage Artic was predicted to be +320.

The post The One That Got Away! appeared first on UK Guernsey Cattle.

With the domination of Team GB in Beijing still filling the airwaves, it is a joy to find that UK Guernsey bulls are also proving to be World Class.

DairyCo have released the August Proofs and of the top 10 bulls ranked by GMI in the International League table, 4 are UK bred whilst 3 more although US bred were selected as young bulls for use in the UK before they were proven.

The 3 exceptions were the full brothers Luck and Luxury and the Luxury son Spider all of whom at the time were predicted to be minus % fat sires and so were not used in the UK.

When this International list was first published 8-10 years ago there were just 2 UK bulls in the top 200 and they were at the bottom of the list.

The four UK bred bulls are Tiresford Pedro with a GMI of +454 and he ranks second, Meadow Court Lorry’s Zulu with a GMI of +439 who is ranked No 4, Meadow Court Red Oak with a GMI of +403 ,he is No 7 and finally Shalford Luxury who has a GMI of +393 and was used as Natural Service sire in the Blacknor herd who is number 9.

The 3 US bred bulls proven in the UK are Sniders Option Aaron ( ranked 5)GMI +419 who has risen by 60 points of GMI with more daughters in his proof who has had a limited second use in the UK (600 straws), Jensgolden Victory Hunter (ranked 6) GMI + 416,who has sat at the top of the GMI lists since there creation in 2001 and Jensgolden Proking Royal Oak (ranked 8) GMI + 395 who is now being challenged by his proven sons ( 5 sons in the top 30).

Unfortunately the only bull with semen available is Tiresford Pedro the price of which has been reduced despite the GMI having risen in April and again in August his proof is based on 75 daughters milking in 25 herds with a reliability of 92%, in other words it is “rock solid”.

He is reducing SCC by -15 and is +1.5 for Type Merit, and +1.8 for Mammary.

Full details can be found by using either link on the left of the page to either DairyCo or the CDI.

My advice would be to order the semen now before the sellers wake up to the true value of the bull.

The post World Class Performance appeared first on UK Guernsey Cattle.