Welcome to the new Superior Sires Elite programme!
Our long-established Superior Sires list of bulls, which includes Ai Sires that each contributing breeding company recommends for their dairy farmers to use in their beef x dairy breeding programmes, is now complemented by our new Superior Sires Elite programme. These are bulls that that have additional feed efficiency data, a vital component for the future profitable production of beef cattle.
Generating feed efficiency data for these Elite Sires has been a joint-venture arrangement between Meadow Quality and Genus breeding and started in 2018. Over this period, dozens of sires and thousands of calves have been tested to establish a ranking of those Sires that continue to meet all the usual criteria for breeding on dairy cows such as calving ease and short gestation periods but additionally includes feed efficiency data for both the Sires and their progeny. By creating this Elite Sire list, we are confident in producing calves that return both the best calf price premiums for dairy producers and feed-efficient calves for beef producers too.
Other differences between the Superior Sires list and the Elite list are that while Superior Sires lists are updated annually, Superior Sires Elite lists will be updated 3 time per year, as real time data is added to a bull’s index every 4 months. Additionally, to reward the dairy farmer for using Elite Sires the calf premium paid over base prices for calves will be £15/calf for Elite Sire calves compared to £5/calf for Superior Sires calves.
There will be a simple QR code that dairy farmers can click on with their phones, and this will show the up-to-date list of the current Elite bulls.
For further information, please ask your Meadow Quality Field Officer or your Genus Breeding Advisor.
