Feed conversion testing brings greater profits

More meat per herd per year is the golden thread that runs through a profitable cattle enterprise, and genetics play a crucial role in the herd’s advancement. While DNA testing is useful for genetic selection, it can’t determine feed conversion rates. This is where Phase D performance testing comes in. Lindi Botha reports.

- Lindi Botha

FAST FACTS

Phase D bull testing is an objective way to measure the animals’ performance.

Using the data from these tests, farmers can perform selection to improve herd performance.

Improving the feed conversion rate of your herd results in higher profits.

Performance testing of a beef cattle herd entails the weighing of animals at certain ages to determine their genetic value. Data obtained through such tests provide farmers with an objective selection aid to identify the best-performing animals in their herds to be used as parents for the next generation. This improves the genetic merit of their herds. In a broader sense, the objective of performance testing is to improve the biological and economic efficiency of beef production of a particular herd, breed, and eventually the national herd.

Since the continuous selection of better cattle by all breeders ultimately leads to an improvement in the national herd, the Animal Improvement Institute at the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) runs the South African National Beef Cattle Improvement Scheme to formulate such tests, which are then conducted by the ARC and private test centres around the country.

Tests are available for five phases of the animal’s life, each adding an additional selection criterion to give the breeder a complete picture.

Phase A evaluates the cowherd, taking weaning weights of their calves into account to determine mothering abilities. Ease of calving (birth weight), fertility (age at first calving and inter-calving period) and cow efficiency are also evaluated.

Phase B looks at post-weaning weight gain to measure the adaptability and post-weaning growth of calves.