The Cohort 14 joining program will start in September 2023 and will involve approximately 1800 Angus cows across several Australian co-operator Angus cow herds.
It is time to nominate Angus bulls for the next round of the Angus Sire Benchmarking program (ASBP) to produce the Cohort 14 progeny.
The ASBP is a major initiative of Angus Australia and has numerous benefits for bulls entering the program, including being involved in world-leading research in areas such as methane emissions phenotyping, development of genomic tools, new meat quality traits and understanding resilience traits and developing close genetic linkage to the Angus Australia genomics reference population ensuring research and genetic evaluation outcomes will be highly relevant to your herd.
Furthermore, producers involved receive high accuracy EBVs (Estimated Breeding Values), particularly for hard to measure traits such as abattoir carcase data, female reproduction, and feed intake, progeny average values and sire rankings from within the ASBP, including traits such as MSA (Meat Standards Australia) Index and are involved in one of Australia’s most comprehensive and long-running genomic reference population programs, including high-quality data and large contemporary groups.
Approximately 30 Angus bulls will be selected for the 2023 joining program with the aim to join each bull to at least 50 cows by fixed time AI. The bull selection criteria will be based on genetic diversity, breeding values, selection indexes, and their relationship to sires already used in the ASBP.
Angus Australia General Manager – Genetic Improvement Christian Duff encourages producers to nominate their super sires for the latest cohort of the program.
“The ASBP is at the forefront of leading industry research and development. Through being part of the ASBP producers have the opportunity not only to benchmark sires and their progeny within the reference population, providing invaluable data to you on farm, but it also provides them the opportunity to be involved in the development of programs that have a lasting impact on the beef industry going forward.”
The Cohort 14 joining program will start in September 2023 and will involve approximately 1800 Angus cows across several Australian co-operator Angus cow herds.
To be eligible, registered Angus Bulls must be nominated before Tuesday August 1, 2023.
For all questions in relation to the nomination process or the ASBP in general please contact Christian Duff, Angus Australia, General Manager – Genetic Improvement M: 0457 457 141 or email: christian@angusaustralia.com.au
-Angus Australia