Increasing Profitability for Commercial Cattlemen through Genetic Selection
Shaye Koester 00:02
Hey, hey, it’s Shaye Koester and I’m your host for the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast where we connect you to ranchers and beef industry enthusiasts who can help you build a more profitable operation and improve your lifestyle. Are you looking for a community of ranchers who support and challenge you to be more profitable and proactive? Then sign-up for our monthly RancherMind events. RancherMinds are mastermind events for ranchers to come together once a month and find solutions for their own and the industry's challenges. Stay connected by following @cattleconvos on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and never miss an episode or event update by signing up for our newsletter on casualcattleconversations.com/newsletter. If you get value out of this episode or any episode drop a comment or tip me by using the link in the show notes. With that let’s see who our guest is today and connect you to a new resource to improve your own operation and lifestyle. Howdy folks! Welcome if you are new to the show and thanks for returning if you are a loyal listener! I don’t know about you but I am sure excited about what 2022 has in store for CCC. Whether it’s podcasts, ranchermind events, live events or guest speaking, message me if you have any questions and I’ll be sure to get back to you! With that… Today we are talking genetics with Dr. Matt Spangler. This is to get you all prepared for bull buying season. So, if you are curious about some new tools and technology that are coming out to help you better understand EPDs, Indexes and which ones you need to look at to best serve the needs of your operation, this is the episode for you. On that note, I have a question for you… What hurts worse? Your eyes after looking through spreadsheets of bulls or your pocketbook after buying a bull that doesn't turn out like he was supposed to. The truth is...they both hurt! BullPEN wants to make it easier for you to find the right one. With the BullPEN app, cattlemen can now find bulls for sale, through auction or private treaty, by searching EPD ranges, location, or breeders. Swipe to save bulls to the BullPEN or bring up the bull profile. See sale details, get directions, connect with the breeder and link to the video catalog from the app. BullPen makes it easy to find the right bull for you! Developed from start to finish by a cow-calf producer in the Nebraska Sandhills, BullPEN is available free from Apple or Google Play. It requires no user account, has no in-app purchases, no ads, and respects privacy. Buying a bull surely isn't all about the data, but less time with your head down sorting through EPDs means more time looking at the bulls. Ideally, you're selecting from a solid offering of great-looking bulls where the EPDs will help you choose between them. The BullPEN app makes that easy. If you're a seedstock producer interested in saving your buyers time and frustration, go to getpenned.com. With that, let’s hear what Dr. Spangler has to say so you can better understand EPDs and what genetic selection means for your operation. Thank you for hopping on the show today. It's great to have you on here and would you just introduce yourself a little bit and talk about your background in the beef industry?
Matt Spangler 04:08
Yeah, I'm Matt Spangler. I'm a faculty member at the University of Nebraska in the animal science department and specifically, I work in the area of breeding and genetics. I've been here since January of 2008. My current role is split across our three mission areas where the mission areas are extension research and teaching. So formally, I have 60% appointment in extension, 30% in research, and 10% in teaching. I actually grew up in south-central Kansas on a farm and ranch there and attended Kansas State University for my undergraduate work. I went to Iowa State University for my masters and then did a PhD at the University of Georgia. I should note actually prior to going to Kansas State I spent two years at a junior college, Butler County Community College. So my interest in the beef industry really stemmed from my upbringing, growing up around cattle, and then developed a passion for reading in genetics, honestly, as an undergraduate student took a course in that. And that helped me take the decision to further my education in that in that space.
Shaye Koester 05:29
Well, awesome. So what is it about genetics that kind of makes you passionate about the topic and the research that you do?
Matt Spangler 05:37
It really started as a youngster, noticing that when you breed like to like, in other words, you take two animals that look very much similar for a given characteristic and you breed them together, the offspring don't always resemble the parents. And so that sparked an interest in genetics at a high level. And, and I always liked the idea of forming matings to try to make better calf crop or whatever. And so that's, that's really why I chose this general area. More specifically, though, genetics, or genetic selection represents a cumulative change that is permanent. And so the benefit becomes being able to advance towards a goal. And hopefully a goal is something that improves profitability and sustainability. But being able to make continuous improvement in that has always intrigued me. And if you look at other species, it's fairly well documented in poultry and in swine in dairy cattle, you think about just cattle, that the improvements they've made, and efficiency of feed utilization and rate of gain in milk production is predominantly due to genetics. And so it represents a long term strategy to make improvement.
Shaye Koester 07:13
Well, awesome. So as before, as beef producers, why is it important for us to understand how to properly use genetic selection?
Matt Spangler 07:26
Well, the goal of beef cattle producers, cow-calf producers, if we focus on that, for a moment, should be to improve the next generation of calves. And that improvement, or what defines improvement in terms of traits will vary by operation, depending on what their goals and objectives are. But it should be to make improvement. And, and the importance of genetics is it offers an opportunity to make that improvement when implemented correctly. And of course, in conjunction with ideal management routines too. So, for a lot of the traits that we may be interested in, think of things like growth, fertility, carcass merit, things of that nature. The amount of phenotypic differences, the differences we see in phenotype that can be attributed to differences in genetics range from 10 to 50%. So that means by advancing genetics, we have the opportunity to advance the phenotypes that we see as well. And so it represents a very well documented tool for beef cattle producers to make systematic change.
Shaye Koester 08:48
Well, awesome. So on this episode, we're not really going to go into the basics of EPDs or anything like that. But for those producers, who maybe are still looking for a little bit of information on how to understand EPDs on a more basic level, do you have any resources that they can go to to find that information to get some help there?
Matt Spangler 09:09
Yeah, that's a good question. I'd encourage beef cattle producers to go to E beef.org. And on that website, there are a lot of either factsheet recorded webinars that discuss tools like EPDs, or economic selection indices or crossbreeding systems. And those tools were constructed with producers in mind. So they're relatively easy to digest, but I'd encourage people to visit that resource. https://ebeef.ucdavis.edu/.
Shaye Koester 09:41
Oh, awesome. Thank you. So looking at the bull selection side, I mean, this episode will go out in January. So people are getting ready. They're looking through those sale catalogs getting ready to go to sales. But a lot of times when you open up a catalog, there's a lot of information there. There's a lot to look through a lot of numbers. So what tools are there to help producers kind of sort through and understand maybe what information they need to look at and just be able to digest all those numbers and information better?
Matt Spangler 10:13
Yeah, no, that's a really good point there is whether you open up a bull sale catalog or an AI catalog. There's a lot of stuff in there. And you're right. A lot of people say there's a lot of information there, I might just say there's a lot of data, some of its useful information. Some of it isn't. And so it, it really starts at a high level, with the producer, having well-formed what I'd call breeding objectives in mind. So what are the things that directly impact their profitability, and that includes what's the point of sale of their calves? Do they retain replacement females? What's their labor availability? What's the availability and cost of harvested feedstuffs? Those kinds of things, because that points them to traits that they need to focus on. After that, it does come down to knowing the differences between the different sources of information, as you said, are different sources of data that are represented in those catalogs. So in my experience, a large fraction of bull buyers, commercial buyers, whether they admit it or not rely on how much a bull actually weighed at birth, as an indicator of how easily that bull's calves will be born, right reducing calving difficulty dystocia. So they rely on that. And they also rely on a visual appraisal of the bull. Right, looking at it. I would contend that those two pieces of information are near the bottom of the list that I would use. So right now, probably your listeners either turn off or they just can't access something to turn off. So they're listening to it anyway. The reason I say that, if we go to birth weight, is how much a calf weighs at birth, is due not only to their genetics, but also the environment. And the only thing that bull is going to pass on to his calves is his genetic potential. So I don't want to select a bull based on environmental sources of variation. So you're in North Dakota, in an average winter, the average calf in North Dakota is going to weigh more than a calf born in South Texas. And the reason is, is because it's colder in North Dakota than it is in South Texas. Right?
Shaye Koester 12:42
Yep.
Matt Spangler 12:43
And so as cows go through colder environments, they tend to increase the birth weight of their calves, right? Blood flow goes toward their core, South Texas blood flow goes out. And so that that impacts birth weight at the calves. And so I don't want people just to say well, all the calving ease bulls are born in South Texas, that's not true, right? It's just a different environment. If we go to the visual appraisal component, I cannot see which bulls are going to produce daughters that are more fertile, that have more profitable carcasses that are more feed efficient. I can't see that. And neither can anyone else. That's why we utilize genetic selection tools, like as you mentioned, EPDs. So that's a long-winded answer to your question. But I do think it boils down to knowing what you need. It's akin to having a shopping list before you go grocery shopping, right? What is it I need, and then utilize the correct bits of information in that catalog that are most likely to get me where I want to go. And that's the genetic selection tools that we know work. Other competing protein sources, we think about poultry, swine, don't have these types of discussions. It's just known that they select germplasm off of economic indexes, right? Tools that weight EPDs by the relative economic importance, and that's it. But nobody is going out into a hog barn at PIC saying that looks like a really good bore. They don't do that and they make much faster rates of genetic change.
Shaye Koester 14:31
Awesome, and thank you for going through and explaining that birthweight scenario, as well as other scenarios for producers and explaining how it's important to have that shopping list and know which traits are going to be the most beneficial for your operation depending on what your focus and goal is.
Matt Spangler 14:48
I just say in terms of the visual appraisal of bulls, people would argue well, you've got to make sure they're structurally Correct. I agree with that. Okay, genetic potential doesn't matter if the bull can't pass on his genetics, and so they've got to be sound enough to go out and breed. I would argue, though, that if I'm doing business with a seedstock vendor that I trust, the seedstock vendor should have already eliminated bulls that aren't structurally sound. And so if I'm concerned about that, then perhaps I'm doing business with the wrong person. So that it does require trust between the buyer and the seller.
Shaye Koester 15:29
Absolutely, structure is important to any breeding animal. So on the commercial side of things, there's a lot of crossbreeding that goes on I mean, heterosis is proven. And that's important to have. So how can commercial producers better compare EPDs across breeds? And understand that, because each breed is a little different?
Matt Spangler 15:53
Yeah, no, that's a really good question. So in a lot of cases, EPDs are not directly comparable across breeds. So an example I cannot directly compare the EPDs of our Hereford bull to the EPDs of an Angus bull. However, for several traits, growth and carcass traits, in particular, the US Meat Animal Research Center publishes on an annual basis, a set of adjustment factors that allow you to adjust if you will, the Hereford bull's EPDs to as if he were an Angus. And so that allows you to directly compare the EPDs across breeds. So for commercial buyers in that situation, in example, wanting to compare a Hereford bull to an Angus bull or an Angus bull to a Charolais bull, I'd encourage them to use those tools. They can find updated adjustment factors on the Beef Improvement Federation website. And for those that may not be aware of the US Meat Animal Research Center, that's a large ARS facility located in Clay Center, Nebraska. And so the largest animal research center that ARS has, and arguably one of if not the largest animal research centers globally, and so an extremely valuable resource to our industry. I might also pick on you just a little bit. I completely agree that heterosis is a very valuable tool. big impact on lowly heritable traits like fertility. But I don't think it's utilized as much as it should be. And more specifically, I don't think structured crossbreeding is utilized as much as it should be. I think as an industry, we've fallen into the trap of thinking that a single breed can do everything. That's a falsehood. And we need to utilize structured crossbreeding better than we do now. And I keep saying structured crossbreeding because there are people that crossbreed but not with a plan. Alright, it's just I have multiple breeds of cattle. Right? They intermate and I'm crossbreeding. That's not a crossbreeding plan, right? That's just chance or slaw. Structured crossbreeding is an extremely valuable tool. And I think that's something that the beef industry needs to capitalize on more than we have historically.
Shaye Koester 18:39
So with that, since you brought it up, would you talk about one scenario of what a structured crossbreeding program would look like for your commercial producer?
Matt Spangler 18:48
Yeah, so I think one example that's underutilized, that can be extremely helpful is the notion of meeting terminal bulls, to maternal dams. So the dams, the cows in this situation could be crossbred cows, either first-generation crosses like F-1, or a structured composite that contains more than two breeds. But the dams are bred for maternal traits, improved reproductive longevity, more moderate, mature cow weight, increased maternal calving ease, right? those kinds of maternal characteristics. And then they're bred to terminal bowls of a different breed. And the terminal bulls are selected for high growth, carcass merit, things that are terminal in nature. And so there you have multiple breeds represented. The sire side is meant to produce terminal calves, the dam side is meant to improve maternal characteristics and in that situation, all calves born then are terminal offspring. So that's well structured crossbreeding and the other thing that such a system does is it allows cattle producers to select bulls for a limited list of traits, they're only selecting bulls in that situation for terminal characteristics, instead of trying to find bulls that are good at everything. And it also allows them to have females that benefit from maternal heterosis and are more moderate in mature size. So decrease feed intake from the cowherd, instead of selecting for growth and retain my own replacement females and overtime getting larger and larger calves. So that's the kind of idea of a structured crossbreeding program and there are a lot of other examples because it's not a one-size-fits-all. Some people may utilize hybrid bulls. So you think of Sim-Angus or Lim-flex or Balancer or the list goes on. Where those bulls themselves are hybrids, right? They contain two breeds. So it allows beef cattle producers to kind of have a quasi rotational crossbreeding program. So there are a lot of ways to do it. But it does take sitting down and asking the question, what is it I'm trying to accomplish?
Shaye Koester 21:20
Well, awesome. Thank you for going through and explaining that and maybe giving some of my listeners a little bit more or a little bit better idea of how they can potentially change some of their crossbreeding programs or get involved with it. Yeah. So kind of shifting gears, we've touched on kind of the basics of looking at genetic selection and using that to select bulls and improve your herd. But on the technology side, what new technologies should producers be aware of that should be emerging within the next five years? Yeah, well,
Matt Spangler 21:54
I'll start with something that maybe is emerged over the past decade and steadily changed. And that's the use of genomic information. And so genomic information, I mean, 10s of 1000s, or hundreds of 1000s of DNA markers across the genome of cattle. And that information has been used to increase the accuracy of EPD. And as I said, that's been an evolution over the past really longer than a decade. And beef cattle producers should be excited by that, because it does, like I said, increase the accuracy of EPD, which means faster genetic change, which means commercial bull buyers can buy bulls with more certainty that they know what they're getting. And that will continue to advance and evolve. Other technologies that are either here slash on their horizon include things like gene editing, and some of your listeners maybe have heard things in the news, relative to editing the horned allele in Holstein calves, so to make them genetically polled. And that's been done in research settings. Some of your listeners may have also heard of animals that are homozygous red, right? So if you're a Red Angus producer, you probably recognize that red is recessive. But you may have heard of advertisements of people, at least planning to market semen from those that are homozygous red, and that comes from the product of gene editing. So gene editing holds a lot of promises for some of the traits that we've mentioned, but there are a few hangups. So one is we have to be able to identify what I'd call causative genes or really causative variants that the bits of DNA that are truly responsible for generating a change in phenotype, we have to identify those before we know what to edit, and for traits that underlie things like fertility or growth or carcass merit. There's a dearth of information about what DNA variants truly caused big changes for those things. Nonetheless, it's still a promising technology. One of the biggest hurdles right now though, is regulatory. And so if you have listeners that raised cattle and also raised corn or soybeans, they should know that there's a difference and how gene editing is viewed in plants and animals. So gene editing and plants is overseen slash regulated by USDA. Gene editing in animals is overseen slash regulated by FDA. Right so there's a difference in how things are regulated depending on whether it's plants or animals, which is nonsensical. Okay, and so given that gene editing is regulated by FDA in animals, that means that to bring a gene-edited product, animal to market, such that it can eventually enter the food chain and its descendants can enter the food chain means that you have to pass the same regulatory hurdles as if you were bringing a new drug to market. And I would say for most entities, most industries, financially, that's simply not tenable. Right. So that, I think really hamstrings us in terms of utilizing a potentially very useful technology, and gives us a competitive disadvantage, compared to some other countries who are not going to regulate it that way. And I would point out that there is no credible scientific information that suggests that animal products from gene-edited animals or descendants of gene-edited animals is in any way harmful to humans. So gene editing, I think, important technology for people to understand and, and something that's certainly on the horizon. Other things that person should be aware of, is obviously a growing interest and being able to select animals that have a reduced environmental footprint. So reduced methane emission, and example. Also increased tolerance to heat load, or insect load, etc. And a lot of that could be driven by advances. And let's just call it precision agriculture, really remote sensing technology, so that we can actually go and gather data on those kinds of things to be able to select animals for it in the future. There's no doubt that those kinds of things are on the horizon, too. And then, of course, the microbiome, and we often think of the rumen microbiome, the bugs in the gut, right, but there's an ocular microbiome, right? There are a lot of different components of the microbiome we might think of. But, but how we actually make use of that information, and exploited not only in terms of genetic selection, but also improved management of animals, I think is something that will continue to receive a lot of attention. So there are a lot of exciting things on the horizon. But I also often try to remind beef cattle producers that if we want to take advantage of the new shiny things that are coming, it means that we have to have mastered the things that are already at our fingertips, right? Because these technologies aren't leapfrogging technologies. They are incremental. And so as a consequence, to fully take advantage of them, we have to have already done the fundamental things like implementing crossbreeding program, utilize EPDs, selection indexes, etc.
Shaye Koester 28:15
Well, awesome, thank you very much for sharing that. I know. It's exciting, I get excited thinking about new selection methods. When you look at, you know, on the immune side of things, especially, I find that very interesting. So what would you say? Or what is the mindset producers need to have? When it comes to using these tools to better their herds? What is the best mindset that they need to develop?
Matt Spangler 28:43
I think one of the first things is producers have to have an honest conversation with themselves and ask, Are they profit-motivated? The reality is not all people that raise beef cattle are profit-motivated. Right? Some people would say, if I lost money every year, I'm still going to have my set of cows and that's fine. That's a decision they've made. If they are profit motivated, however, then they need to understand that utilizing these tools helps them improve net profit of their operation. So it's recognizing that this is a business and they need to approach it with a business mindset, which is something we don't always do as an industry. So I think once you come to that realization that these are business decisions, then utilizing some of these tools becomes a little bit easier. And if it is a business, then that need means that we need to account for sources of revenue and sources of cost. Which means that if the best bull in your sale brings $50,000 but there's a bull that brings $5,000 that, honestly will work for me, the better business decision was to bought the $5,000 bull, right? That's the better business decision, even though he wasn't my favorite, he'll still lead me to improve profit, particularly when I compare the price differential between those two. Right? So it's having a business mindset to these kinds of decisions that I help lead you to utilizing technology, including advanced genetic selection tools appropriately.
Shaye Koester 30:33
Well, thank you for sharing that. And I mean, that's a concept that's been talked about a lot on the show is improving how we look at our operations as businesses and really implementing some of those strategies better. But as we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to add or speak about?
Matt Spangler 30:54
The space of genetics, and specifically, genetic selection tools is continually evolving, and it's been evolving for the past 50 years, and that's not going to stop. So for seedstock producers, it's important, they stay abreast of what those changes are, what the new tools are, so that they can not only utilize them, but so that they can help educate their commercial clientele. For commercial producers, I think our charge has been to keep the currency of the realm the same, and otherwise, in other words, you utilize the same selection tools, you've always used, the EPDs, indexes, etc. We just utilize new technology behind the scenes to make them better. Right. So it's not a continual re-education process. The other thing I think, to keep in mind, is, as a beef industry, I think we pride ourselves in being able to build something that we can transfer to the next generation. With that in mind, I think it's critical that we build something that is sustainable. And by sustainable, of course, that includes profitable to transfer to the next generation. And I do not see as an industry, how we can remain profitable and sustain ourselves. If we tried to feed the world in 2050, using science from 1950. Like we need to continue to evolve in the way we utilize science to make decisions. And it happens all around us in raising corn, soybeans, wheat, raising pigs, chickens, dairy cattle, we need to make sure we keep a competitive advantage or remain competitive, perhaps I should say, by utilizing science that we know the work.
Shaye Koester 32:57
Absolutely. You have to stay in track and updated with every aspect of your business with the science side, the management side, whatever it may be.
Matt Spangler 33:07
It's right.
Shaye Koester 33:09
So with that, thank you again for coming on the show today. Those are all the questions I really wanted to discuss. But thank you.
Matt Spangler 33:16
Sounds good. My pleasure. I appreciate it. And if any of your listeners have questions I can help answer. I'd hope they'd reach out to me.
Shaye Koester 33:26
And that's a wrap on that one. Be sure to make use of the resources mentioned by Dr. Spangler and start making those changes today. Remember, one of the best ways to keep this podcast going is to rate and comment on episodes or tip me using the link in the show notes. Take care and have a great day folks. I have a question for you… What hurts worse? Your eyes after looking through spreadsheets of bulls or your pocketbook after buying a bull that doesn't turn out like he was supposed to. The truth is...they both hurt! BullPEN wants to make it easier for you to find the right one. With the BullPEN app, cattlemen can now find bulls for sale, through auction or private treaty, by searching EPD ranges, location, or breeders. Swipe to save bulls to the BullPEN or bring up the bull profile. See sale details, get directions, connect with the breeder and link to the video catalog from the app. BullPen makes it easy to find the right bull for you! Developed from start to finish by a cow-calf producer in the Nebraska Sandhills, BullPEN is available free from Apple or Google Play. It requires no user account, has no in-app purchases, no ads, and respects privacy. Buying a bull surely isn't all about the data, but less time with your head down sorting through EPDs means more time looking at the bulls. Ideally, you're selecting from a solid offering of great-looking bulls where the EPDs will help you choose between them. The BullPEN app makes that easy. If you're a seedstock producer interested in saving your buyers time and frustration, go to getpenned.com.
