The Angus Journal is a monthly magazine known for in-depth coverage of American Angus Association programs and services; the Angus business; herd management techniques; and advertising reflecting genetics herd philosophies.
Issue link: http://angusjournal.epubxp.com/i/435083
128 n ANGUSJournal n January 2015 W ith this month's focus on genetic selection, we wanted to quiz some young leaders in the Angus business about the selection protocol they use in choosing seedstock. We turned to alumni of the Beef Leaders Institute (BLI) to find three young Angus breeders: Brad Arntzen, Hilger, Mont.; Mercedes Danekas-Lohse, Wilton, Calif.; and Chris Throne, Lexington, Ga. Representing a variety of environments, customer bases and herd emphases, here's what our young leaders had to say about their genetic- selection regimen. Brad Arntzen Operation: Arntzen Angus Ranch Location: Hilger, Mont. Year attended BLI: 2008 Tell me about your operation. Our operation is family-owned and started 59 years ago with Angus cattle. My grandfather started with a few Angus heifers, and my dad and uncle were a big part of the operation since they were young. Now, it's my dad, uncle, cousin and my two brothers and me. We work together well, and it's nice to work with family. This year we are having our 39th annual production sale, where we sell about 200 bulls and a handful of heifers — about 20 registered heifers and 30 commercial heifers. Overall, we manage 650 registered cows, and 100 commercial cows as recips. We also grow dryland crops — 4,000 acres of spring and winter wheat, and alfalfa grass. What are your criteria for choosing breeding stock and what tools do you use? When selecting herd bulls, we look at a few characteristics. Ultimately, we use a mix of pedigree and maternal expected progeny differences (EPDs). Bulls need to have good daughters. We look at calving ease direct (CED) and birth weight (BW) EPDs to work as heifer bulls, but with enough growth to use on cows. We do look very hard at the weaning weight (WW) EPD. It's one of the most important EPDs for our selection. We also study hard to be educated on cow families both in our herd and in outside herds, so when we see a cow line show up in a pedigree, we have a feel for what type of offspring she will produce. Almost all of our replacement heifers are raised at home. We evaluate them a month after weaning and pick out the bottom- enders based on growth, and femininity is important to us. The ones we keep will be bred early. We've found that those who breed later never seem to catch up, and they get culled. Culling takes a lot of discipline. How much do you pamper them? There are a lot of factors that go into breeding, and not being bred might not be the cow's fault. We PHOTOS COURTESY OF BRAD ARNTZEN @ Brad Arntzen, Arntzen Angus Ranch, Hilger, Mont., speaks with customers before the Arnt- zens' annual production sale. CONTINUED ON PAGE 130 35 Keys to Success Seedstock & Genetic Selection Genetic Selection Q&A; Young Angus leaders share strategies on genetic selection. by Kasey Brown, associate editor