Angus BreedCHECK

Angus BreedCHECK is a genomic (DNA) based system that estimates breed composition (from 11 breeds), with a particular focus on Angus content.  

Steers that are 87.5% (or 7/8th) or greater Angus content receive the Angus BreedCHECK tick.  

Steers that are below 87.5% Angus content are flagged with an Angus BreedCHECK cross and provided with additional information to further understand their breed background.  

This includes the percentage (%) content value estimate for:

• Angus
• Non-Angus
• British (including Angus, Hereford, Shorthorn and Murray Grey)
• Indicus (including Brahman and Santa Gertrudis)
• European (including Charolais, Simmental and Limousin)
• Dairy (including Holstein)
• Wagyu

Angus SteerSELECT genetic predictions are provided on all animals that are greater than 50% Angus content. Caution should be applied when using the Genetic Predictions for animals less than 87.5% Angus as the associated reference population is based on straight bred Angus animals. 

 The software underpinning Angus BreedCHECK was developed in collaboration with the CSIRO (Australia’s National Science Agency). This is based on an allele frequency approach, with effects being applied to 61,105 SNPs in a standard imputed genomic profile for each of the 11 breeds, for each steer.

There are 2,743 animals in the reference population (animals with known breed and genotypes) that underpins Angus BreedCHECK as listed in table 5.