Soderglen’s MAX Program
“MULTIPLE BREED EPDS ENHANCE STRATEGIES FOR
CROSSBREEDING”
The American Simmental and Canadian Simmental
Associations have founded a Multiple
Breed-International Cattle Evaluation system
(MB-ICE). They have been working with the Animal
Breeding Group at Cornell University to provide
accurate EPDs on multiple breeds of cattle. The
MB-ICE has the following: The breed of founder
effects are developed by tracing pedigrees and
determining the breed (s) represented in the most
distant animals (founder) in each pedigree. A time
trend is included in the breed of founder effects
to include the genetic trend that may be present
in each breed. The MB-ICE system uses two sources
of information to evaluate breed differences in
the ASA and CSA data: 1) estimates derived from
the published crossbreeding studies in the
scientific literature; and 2) the actual breed
information in the ASA and CSA databases. For
example, if the data contain numerous animals with
any fraction of Angus genes, the literature
estimates of the difference between Angus and
Simmental will have little impact on the final
estimate.
Heterosis Effects
Heterosis or hybrid vigor is produced when
crossing parents with different breed backgrounds.
Heterosis provides an increase in performance that
is not part of the animal’s breeding value. In the
MB-ICE system, heterosis affects a calf’s
performance in two ways: direct heterosis of the
calf and the maternal heterosis of the dam for
weaningweight. The MB-ICE system adjusts the
calf’s performance for the direct heterosis
expressed by the calf and in the case of weaning
weight, the maternal heterosis is expressed by the
dam.
Continuous Age of Dam Effects
The MB-ICE system provides age of dam adjustments
using the cow’s age in months and based on her
breed background and the sex of her calf. The age
of dam effects will be estimated directly by the
MB-ICE system so the age of dam factors will be
adjusted for the other effects in the evaluation.
For crossbred cows, the age of dam adjustments
will be weighted averages of the breeds
represented in the dam. With new EPDs it is
important that breeders know where an EPD will
rank in the new evaluation.
CLICK HERE FOR REFERENCE SIRES |
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AVERAGE EPDS FOR MULTIPLE
BREEDS
|
CE |
BW |
WW |
YW |
MILK |
TM |
| 2 |
3.4 |
30 |
50 |
8 |
20 |
COLOR AND
POLLING POWER:
The Red MAX, Red 2MAX as well as
the Black MAX and Black 2MAX
genetic selection are three
generation polled, solid
colored,
non-spotter and non-diluted.
Approximately 75% of the sale
bulls are homozygous in these
traits of color and polling
power. Without extensive
genotype testing, we can not
identify which ones are and
which ones are not homozygous.
We have designed this line of
cattle using Angus as the base,
homozygous in both traits and we
only use Simmental bulls that
have a high probability of being
homozygous. For these reasons,
these MAX cattle are more
predictable for these traits
than our purebred lines.
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