Cohort 14 of the ASBP is here
Twenty-nine (29) new bulls have been selected as the Cohort 14 sires of the Angus Sire Benchmarking Program (ASBP). These bulls were selected from over 60 nominations representing 3 different countries – Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America.
The Cohort 14 sires average in the top 10% of the Angus breed for $A and $A-L indexes, and consist of 23 Australian bred sires, 4 New Zealand bred sires, and 2 American bred sires.
Dr Liam Mowbray, Angus Australia’s Research & Development Specialist explained, “We’ve just finished artificially inseminating 1650 Angus females across our 6 cooperator herds in the eastern states in a range of different environments. Each sire was inseminated to approximately 55 females, with the aim to achieve around 25-30 progeny to represent each sire in Cohort 14.”
“The objective of the ASBP is to grow the comprehensive Australian Angus reference population using contemporary Angus cattle that represent a diverse range of pedigrees and genetics,” Liam said.
The ASBP progeny are comprehensively phenotyped and genotyped from birth to slaughter in the steers and birth to first calf in the heifers. Across the 14 ASBP Cohorts, there have now been 466 modern Angus bulls enter this industry leading research and development project. Most importantly it provides extensive genotypes and phenotypes for the Australian Angus Reference Population, with particular emphasis on hard-to-measure traits such as feed intake, methane emissions, immune competency, carcase and eating quality traits.
The Angus Sire Benchmarking Program (ASBP) is a major R&D initiative of Angus Australia with support from industry partners such as Meat & Livestock Australia, University of New England, CSIRO, Rangers Valley, Stockyard, John Dee Abattoir, Vetoquinol, Neogen and Zoetis.
To view the cohort 14 sires
CLICK HERE
