Genetic Evaluation Programmes

BREEDPLAN is the world's most advanced and widely used genetic evaluation system for beef cattle.  It offers bull breeders the potential to accelerate genetic progress in their herds, and to provide objective information on stock they sell to seedstock and commercial breeders.

The use of BREEDPLAN has resulted in substantial genetic improvement for genetic traits of commercial importance for many industry producers across the globe.  The performance evaluations using a full multitrait model can be run for a wide range of traits.  Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) are generated for up to 19 traits for each animal, including growth, fertility, carcase characteristics, feed efficiency and temperament.  Included in the calculation of EBVs are the animal's own performance, the performance of known relatives, the heritability of each trait and the relationship between the different traits.  BREEDPLAN provides a world class genetic evaluation model that combines all traits in one analysis.

The equivalent packages for the sheep and pig industries are OVIS and NPIP-PIGBLUP, respectively.  They use Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP) to estimate breeding values for all the animals in an analysis and are also available through ILRIC. 

BREEDPLAN is currently used by 42 beef breeds around the world.  It has been adopted as the national beef recording scheme in Australia, New Zealand, Hungary, Thailand and the Philippines.  Other countries to use BREEDPLAN are the USA (for 12 years) Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Namibia.  No other genetic evaluation system for beef cattle enjoys this spread of usage.

  • WEIGHT - Birth weight - 200-day weight - Milk - 400-day weight - 600-day weight - Mature cow weight
  • FERTILITY - Scrotal size - Days to calving - Gestation length - Calving ease - direct - Calving ease - daughters
  • CARCASE - Eye muscle area - Fat thickness (rib) - Fat thickness (rump) - Carcase weight - Meat yield % - Intramuscular fat 
  • (Plus Docility and Net Feed Intake)

BREEDPLAN is being used by the Thailand Department of Livestock Development (DLD) to monitor, in particular, valuable genetic resources of the indigenous cattle and buffalo.  The DLD develops, monitors and supports the breeding structure of the cattle and buffalo herds to improve village income and reduce the flow of young people seeking employment in the city.  Ongoing support of the DLD and its project comes through the provision of advice and genetic evaluation services.

Yodchai Tongthainan, Director of Tak Livestock Research and Breeding Center Thailand, commented that 'the recording system under BREEDPLAN can help government farms to improve their ability to step forward into modern beef cattle breeding and development practices.'

Dr Sawat Thummabood, a previous Director of the Animal Husbandry Division, Department of Livestock Development commented 'Using the Australian developed BREEDPLAN, farmers across Thailand have the opportunity not only to increase livestock production levels, but also to improve the genetic value of the country's breeding stock.'

Breedplan Homepage

 

BreedObject

BreedObject is an online genetic selection aid for breeders, buyers, and sellers of beef seedstock that interfaces with BREEDPLAN.  It assists the targeting of beef breeding programs by calculating the optimum mix of EBVs for any given situation.  The program is designed for stud and commercial breeders and anyone else making selection decisions to improve the quality and accuracy of those decisions.  It provides a simple and effective way for breeders to represent their seedstock to the commercial industry through the creation of indexes that are tailored to specific markets.

In the BreedObject program, the available BREEDPLAN EBVs on a line of animals are given economic weightings.  These are generally customised for each user and situation, e.g. for a breed society or an individual bull buyer.  The weighted EBVs are combined into a single EBV, the $INDEX, which is the best estimate of the animal's contribution towards a particular breeding objective e.g. producing feeder steers.  In this way, a group of animals (sale bulls for example) can be ranked for a variety of uses.

BreedObject can deliver:

  • Ranking of bulls for selection in seedstock herds
  • Ranking of sale bulls of seedstock herds, for different purposes, as a service to clients
  • Bull buyers ranking available sale bulls
  • Selection among potential AI sires
  • Assessing trait importance for different production environments and markets
  • Managing genetic trade-offs (e.g. growth vs. calving ease, meat yield percentage vs. marbling, growth vs. mature cow size, fertility vs. carcase)
  • Breeds and/or breeders identifying potentially elite young sires for further testing
  • Gaining an indication of the differences in price justified between bulls

BREEDOBJECT Homepage

 

PIGBLUP


a PC based genetic evaluation system for pigs, which analyses large data sets within minutes.

PIGBLUP has a Windows-based interface enabling easy and efficient operation by PIGBLUP users. Breeders do not need to understand the statistical and genetic theory in order to use PIGBLUP. Oxford Sandy Pigs

PIGBLUP uses pedigree and performance data available from your herd recording system to derive Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) for a number of performance and reproductive traits.

The program displays genetic and environmental trends to monitor genetic progress and management decisions. It allows optimisation of selection for different markets and products through the $Index which combines EBVs into a single index using economic, production and marketing data.

Further PIGBLUP tools are the PBMARKER, PBSAMA and the GENETIC AUDIT which enables breeders to monitor the progress of their breeding program.

PBMARKER includes information on molecular genetic markers in genetic evaluation results. Using molecular genetic information aids selection in economically important traits. A side effect of selecting genetically superior animals is the increase in relationships among animals in the population.

PBSAMA, the PIGBLUP selection and mate allocation module, allows breeders to optimise selection and mating decisions taking rate of genetic improvement and relationships among animals into account.

A new program, FileMerger V1.0 has been distributed with the latest PIGBLUP software package. Breeders will find this tool useful to convert data from one format into other data formats required for further analyses.

PIGBLUP is supported by a team of highly experienced and motivated geneticists who work closely with PIGBLUP users to accelerate the rate of genetic progress in herds thereby increasing their profitability and helping breeders make the best selection decisions for their breeding programs.

Since 2001, PIGBLUP has been the engine behind the National Pig Improvement Program (NPIP) which provides across-herd EBVs for participating herds.

In 2005, PIGBLUP went online with PBSELECT, an automated e-mail service that provides EBVs, an economic index ($Index) as well as genetic and environmental trends to pork producers. PBSELECT is of interest to producers who select replacement stock on farm and use an electronic herd recording system to record data.

Pigblup Homepage