The ability to print search results, either in a tabular format or a compact one animal to a page format, is also available to registered users, something that has been identified as lacking in the past.
A timely addition to the Angus SaleSELECT™ tool has been announced by Angus Australia, with the release of its companion tool Angus SemenSELECT™.
This interface makes it even easier for breeders of Angus cattle to search for and find the semen most suitable to their breeding programs.
Almost 50% of registered Angus calves are the result of AI, making the selection of semen sires very important to the rate of genetic progress in individual herds and the breed.
‘Users of Angus SaleSELECT™ will quickly master Angus SemenSELECT™ as the interfaces share many features in common,’ said Liz Roan, Education Officer at Angus Australia.
‘It’s a two-step process. First, users choose the catalogue or catalogues of interest, or search across all catalogues, and then they refine their search by applying extra selection criteria to the sires.’
Sires can be selected on a range of criteria such as registration status, colour and number of progeny, along with pedigree, genetic test results and EBVs. Minimum and maximum values can be applied to any of the Angus Selection Indexes or EBVs, along with cutoffs for accuracy or percentile bands.
‘The best thing about this tool is that you can use it to search across ALL semen catalogues at once’ said Liz. ‘You don’t need to know who is storing or selling the semen, instead, you can search all of the semen lots currently available for sale, refining your search using criteria to find the best fit for the females in your herd and the breeding objectives of your business.’
The ability to search over all catalogues and lots at the same time means that Angus breeders have a greater chance of finding exactly the right match for their requirements. For example, producers who are looking for semen from bulls with high EMA and IMF EBVs, while maintaining low calving difficulty, don’t need to go looking for bulls based on their name or owner details – with Angus SemenSELECT™, they can identify them by searching through the EBVs of sires with semen available.
‘It really does provide great flexibility’ said Liz. ‘If you’re signed in, you can sort on any field and customize the display of your results so you only look at those traits of importance to your enterprise.’
The ability to print search results, either in a tabular format or a compact one animal to a page format, is also available to registered users, something that has been identified as lacking in the past.
‘The great benefit of Angus Australia moving to the new suite of Angus SELECT tools is our access to in-house software developers,’ said Liz.
‘By having our own programmers developing our own Angus-specific tools, we can quickly respond to feedback from producers to tweak or enhance the systems to make them even more effective. It increases our ability to be responsive to our members’ needs.’