A Challenge for the Membership

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by IBBA Board President Mike Vorel

I hope everyone is enjoying fall. Hopefully you have plenty of standing grass to start the winter season, prolonging the need to feed hay. I also hope everyone has attended or plans to attend one or several Brangus events this fall. Whether it be a production sale, state sale, or cattle meetings, it’s great to get out and see what others are producing, visit with cattle friends, and share thoughts and ideas. Get involved in some sector of promoting beef: the end product is what keeps us all in business. Quite a few people think the cattle business is tough right now. See what happens if people stop preferring beef as a protein source; that’s when the need for seedstock producers diminishes. So make a point to promote beef this fall and throughout the year.

The theme for the November edition of the 2016 Brangus Journal is technology. Technology is continually changing at an amazing pace. Computers have changed dramatically from taking up the size of a large building to tablet-size devices that hold more information. I can sit in the pasture checking cows with my iPhone in hand. I can pull up information on each of my animals, check the weather in a city in Brazil, and FaceTime my son and his family in another country. All while not being directly connected to wires or electricity. We have become people who want all kinds of information at our fingertips, and we have that capability no matter where we live or travel.

We have a great International Brangus Breeders Association (IBBA) staff who continually search for new ways to keep our association working with the most up-to-date technology in our modern world. I remember not too many years ago, I was riding around with the manager of a large Angus ranch. He had a small, hand-held device he used to pull up information on any animal in their herd. But all that information had to first be loaded in their office computer. I was amazed and intrigued with this device. Today our staff has developed Chute Side, a mobile app. Using this app, we can pull up information on any animal in our database, visit our individual accounts to pull up past customers, account information, expected progeny differences (EPDs), and more – all from our smart phones. Technology is evolving at a rapid pace.

We, as Brangus breeders, have new DNA technology at our fingertips. By taking a DNA sample and combining the SNPs with traditional performance data, we have the ability to produce Genomic Enhanced EPDs on any animal in our registry. We can raise the accuracies on these animals at an early age to the equivalency of six to 10 progeny produced or 10 daughters in production.

I would like to challenge the membership with implementing consistent parent verification into their operations. I know everyone hates to admit to making a mistake, but some expect six to 10 percent of all registered cattle are not the genetic makeup as represented on their registration papers. I think that top number could be a little high, but that would also mean the EPDs on those animals are not correct either. Suppose you use a bull whose genetic makeup is recorded incorrectly, then his progeny makeups are incorrect, and you see how the 10 percent number could come into play. Parent verification is the only tool that solidifies EPDs, because EPDs tied to an animal of the wrong parentage are useless. If the information you have submitted is compared to six to 10 percent of inaccurate information from incorrect parentage, then how can your EPDs on your other animals be correct? I would truly hope that as seedstock producers we would always do everything possible to supply our customers with accurate EPDs. I know parent verification on a large percentage of our population could make a significant difference in the true value of our EPDs.

Your first questions might be: Why would I start this battle? What happens when an animal doesn’t parent verify? First off, IBBA Executive Vice President Tommy Perkins, PhD., PAS and our staff will do everything possible to help you work through this and hopefully verify the correct parentage. My question to you is: What is your reputation worth? Do you really want to sell a product you can’t completely guarantee? Parent verification could prove to be the best and most valuable tool you use, next to artificial insemination (AI). I just had to slip AI in there. It’s probably next on my list.

Last, but not least. By the time this reaches everyone, our staff should be moved in and doing business in our new IBBA headquarters. I know our staff, your IBBA Board of Directors, and IBBA Building Committee are very proud of our new building. Renovations are complete. Our contractor, Hunt Construction, has been great to work with, timely, and very accommodating.

The plan is for a grand opening and our first meetings at our new IBBA headquarters during our convention in San Antonio, Feb 9-12, 2017. I hope everyone can plan to be there, and make this convention the start of a bigger and better convention every year. Also, if you are in the area I’m sure our staff would enjoy showing you around.

I hope everyone has a great November and special time with family during Thanksgiving.

Until Next Time,

Mike Vorel