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Planning Matings to Manage Inbreeding: Using a COI Before the Calf Is Born
You have a bull picked out and a cow in mind. You pull both pedigrees and a name shows up on each side, a few generations back. Same good sire, once through the bull’s line…
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Reading Inbreeding Coefficients: What a COI Tells You, and What It Can’t
Pull up a pedigree and you may see an inbreeding coefficient printed next to an animal, a number like 3.1% or 6.25%. That number is the output of a calculation older than EPDs. And unlike…
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Genetic conditions and recessives: reading carrier status
Two of the best-looking cattle you own can throw a calf that never stands. The bull is sound. The cow is sound. Neither one ever showed you a thing wrong. Then their calf comes weak,…
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Understanding Angus Genetic Selection: How the Numbers Are Built and How to Read Them
Most people who buy a registered Angus bull look at a row of EPDs and a handful of dollar figures and make a decision. Fewer understand what those numbers actually are, how they are produced,…
