Select Sires

SELECTIONS - Spring 2007

Innovative Tools for Professional Dairy Producers

By David Thorbahn, general manager, Select Sires Inc.

Growing up on the family dairy, my dad used to say, "Any job is easy if you have the right tools!" My experience says that it may be a bit relative but his sentiments are generally right. At Select Sires, we continue to focus on providing you industry-leading tools that make your jobs easier and more effective.

Our business is to provide you pregnancies, heifer calves and genetically superior healthy cows. Select provides you three innovative tools in Select RePRO Analysis™, gender SELECTed™ semen and IGENITY® comprehensive profiles to help you achieve these goals. This issue of Selections has discussions on these three valuable tools.

Pregnancy

Select RePRO Analysis is an exclusive reproductive analysis program that was developed by a Virginia dairyman who has a master's degree in reproductive physiology and Dr. Ray Nebel, senior reproductive specialist – field services for Select Sires. This program is very detailed and flexible to investigate and identify the key strengths and weakness of your reproductive program. It also allows you to monitor the reproductive progress in your herd. The ability of the program to eliminate faulty data prior to the analysis makes for improved accuracy of your on-farm records. More information, including examples of dairies that are successfully using this program, can be found on pages 8-9.

Heifer Calves

The demand for gender SELECTed sires has grown beyond our wildest dreams. I would like to apologize to those customers to whom we have not been able to provide the adequate amounts or selection of product. Select Sires has doubled our production capacity and we still struggle to meet the entire demand. I am pleased that I continue to hear reports that our semen quality on sexed semen is the best in the industry. I am also pleased with the positive response from customers who appreciate the research Select performed and the data that was provided to you upfront. No surprises! See page 7 to read more about our latest sexed-semen research.

Genetics

Dairy producers want healthier animals that have higher reproductive performance. The challenge is that the accuracy and heritability of Productive Life and Daughter Pregnancy Rates are low on most first crop sires. Molecular genetic tools are the future of the breeding business and will improve the accuracy of sire proofs for these traits. Select Sires is on the cutting edge using these tools to identify industry-leading sires in a category called HealthMark™. Improving the speed and accuracy of tools to make faster progress in making healthier, more long-lived cattle is our commitment to you.

Discussed in an article on page 5, the IGENITY comprehensive profile is now expanded to include fertility and BVD-PI.

Select Sires continues to pioneer the use of these innovative tools to make it easier for you to develop a highly profitable herd. These tools are easy-to-use, proven effective and our trained staff is ready to help you implement them into your genetics program.

To our customer-owners, thank you for your business. My staff and I enjoy working for you. As a customer, you not only get the greatest selection of industry-leading genetics, but you become an owner of one of agriculture’s most successful cooperatives where the profits are paid back to you.

™Select RePRO Analysis, gender SELECTed and HealthMark are trademarks of Select Sires Inc.
®IGENITY is a registered trademark of Merial

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Select Sires Inc., 11740 U.S. 42 North, Plain City, Ohio 43064 / Phone: (614) 873-4683 Fax: (614) 873-5751