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Business View Australia - August 2015 67
“We also use the genetic profiles to
increase the accuracy of identifying
and selecting animals of high merit,
especially
those
performance
characteristics that are very difficult
or expensive to measure. Feed
conversion efficiency for example or
marbling performance, which normally
you can measure only in an animal
that has already been processed. Now
we can actually estimate what genes
young bulls might carry for those
characteristics based on their DNA.”
One of the main goals of Angus
Australia is to provide its members
who are breeding Angus cattle the
tools and the technology to continue
to develop their cattle and to become
more profitable. A key initiative of the
Society towards meeting this objective
is a genetic evaluation service called
Angus Breedplan.
This service is provided with the help
of scientists based at Armidale, where
the headquarters of Angus Australia
is also located. The Society does the
interfacewith itsmembers and records
data to enable it to benchmark the
performance of cattle.
Subsequently, feedback is provided to
members so that they can improve the
performance of cattle over time. This
program has been in place for the last