The EGCS Council considered the inclusion of Fertility Indexes into the GMI and after looking at the proofs of those bulls that were positive for the Fertility by more than +7 as opposed to those that were negative by more than -7 ( there were only 14 bulls in each group), with the vast majority (more than 800 bulls) falling between these two extremes.
Each point of Fertility Index represents half a day loss in calving interval. Having looked at the overall proofs of the positive group of bulls as compared to the overall proofs of the negative group of bulls, EGCS Council concluded that to include the Fertility Index with the weighting as suggested by Dr Bichard and his advisers would distort the GMI to too great a degree and thus agreed that as at present the Fertility Index should continue to be published but not included in the GMI.
Chris Watson and Dr Bichard are now seeking to subvert that decision and have circulated a questionnaire that is typically simplistic and only tells half the story asking for the memberships view, they quote figures for Calving Interval of 427 days for Guernseys and often cite the Jersey ( 412 days) as a comparison and yet figures published by CDI recently show Guernseys in Wales as having a CI of 405 days compared with Welsh Jerseys at 423 days and Scottish Jerseys of 427 days, should I conclude from that that Jerseys don’t like the wet and the cold!
What really annoys me about the Fertility Indexes is that they are only published for Proven bulls (based on their daughter records) but ignore the contribution completely of the female family, if we are concerned about “loss” of fertility then let us select our young bulls from long lived regular breeding cows such as the Elinors at Beechgrove ( Ezekiel & Ezra) or the Rosebuds at Skeel (Norman)