Mike is right in a lot of what he says, but he comes from another breed that can offer a bewildering choice of proven sires, that is a luxury the Guernsey breed has never and will never have and there are two main reasons for that,firstly the costs of collectng semen from a young bull are quite expensive and the history of previous schemes suggested that semen collected before the bull was proven and stored against that proof was never”usuable” ie had been outclassed.
The second reason is the” insularity” of the Guernsey breed societies and breeders,I have been fortunate in that from 2000 until 2007 I was able to visit every mainland herd and most of the Island herds as well as herds in the USA and Australia,unfortunately that experience has not been shared by anyone else.
Mike mentions Aaron and Pedro and it true that they have proved outstanding and breeders have had and still have the chance to use them again but the sales of Pedro semen do not support Mike’s arguments.
What has changed in the last 10 years is the modernisation of the “herd book”, this is now available from CDI, at the touch of a button and every daughter of every Pedigree bull can now be viewed, at a glance one can see how they have scored and how they have produced.
We are trying through this site to make that easier with the auto links to the CDI website, something that I was never able to achieve on the EGCS site.
When I had access to the EGCS data files, I was happy to spend the time to average the PTA or Classification scores in order to measure the changes (mainly positive), an exercise repeated by Marco Winters of Dairy Co at the recent Breeding conference and again there has been improvement of every trait that was part of the GGBP breeding goals.
More importantly what am I now seeing on farms,generally much more “attractive” commercial cows,I wish that more breeders would make the time to get off their farms and see other herds, but it doesn’t happen.
Finally the “progeny test” has to happen before the second use can be justified and yes some of the young bulls on offer should be better, but they are the best that have been born, the frustration of the last 10 years is that the best cows have not produced enough sons or in some cases any sons.
My concern is that two other GGBP bulls that have succeeded have not had a second use (SP Royal Oak and MC Red Oak), no semen was stored (for economic reasons) and as yet no sons have been tested from their best daughters, but that is still possible.
Guernsey Bulls awaiting proofs
Mike is right in a lot of what he says, but he comes from another breed that can offer a bewildering choice of proven sires, that is a luxury the Guernsey breed has never and will never have and there are two main reasons for that,firstly the costs of collectng semen from a young bull are quite expensive and the history of previous schemes suggested that semen collected before the bull was proven and stored against that proof was never”usuable” ie had been outclassed.
The second reason is the” insularity” of the Guernsey breed societies and breeders,I have been fortunate in that from 2000 until 2007 I was able to visit every mainland herd and most of the Island herds as well as herds in the USA and Australia,unfortunately that experience has not been shared by anyone else.
Mike mentions Aaron and Pedro and it true that they have proved outstanding and breeders have had and still have the chance to use them again but the sales of Pedro semen do not support Mike’s arguments.
What has changed in the last 10 years is the modernisation of the “herd book”, this is now available from CDI, at the touch of a button and every daughter of every Pedigree bull can now be viewed, at a glance one can see how they have scored and how they have produced.
We are trying through this site to make that easier with the auto links to the CDI website, something that I was never able to achieve on the EGCS site.
When I had access to the EGCS data files, I was happy to spend the time to average the PTA or Classification scores in order to measure the changes (mainly positive), an exercise repeated by Marco Winters of Dairy Co at the recent Breeding conference and again there has been improvement of every trait that was part of the GGBP breeding goals.
More importantly what am I now seeing on farms,generally much more “attractive” commercial cows,I wish that more breeders would make the time to get off their farms and see other herds, but it doesn’t happen.
Finally the “progeny test” has to happen before the second use can be justified and yes some of the young bulls on offer should be better, but they are the best that have been born, the frustration of the last 10 years is that the best cows have not produced enough sons or in some cases any sons.
My concern is that two other GGBP bulls that have succeeded have not had a second use (SP Royal Oak and MC Red Oak), no semen was stored (for economic reasons) and as yet no sons have been tested from their best daughters, but that is still possible.
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