Objectives

Morganvale’s breeding objective is to breed cattle that are fully described and have genetics and physical ability to meet market specifications and clients’s breeding objectives.
A balance is required where the herd is self replacing with high fertility and efficiency of the female portion being critical.
Strategies to achieve this objective

• All cattle run under commercial conditions
• A moderate birth weight with optimum growth, carcase muscularity that meets market specifications
• Performance test to accurately describe genetic merit whilst maintaining structural soundness

$ INDEXES
These indexes are designed to allow balanced selection for various market end points
They rank animals for a simle goal – PROFIT
Indexes appportion the amount of selection pressure that needs to be applied to the four market goals
The $values depend on the economic impotance of traits and for antagonisms between traits for each market

COMPARING CATTLE
The logic of genetic improvement is that selection decisions are based on differences – it is not how different they appear , but how different their progeny will be that is important.
How the differences are measured dictates how much genetic gain is made

• Visual assessment – tells what we think is there
• Scans – tells what is there , but not how it got there
• EBV’s – tell how much of what’s there will be passed onto the progeny