A UNIQUE CROSSBREEDING SELECTION PROGRAMME,

THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD

BULLS FROM THE CROSSBREEDING SELECTION PROGRAMME :

Since 2008, BBG has employed a selection on progeny programme for bulls intended for crossbreeding. In order to do this, BBG uses the Holstein dairy population In Belgium and the Netherlands.

Selecting the bulls

Selecting the bulls :
The bulls must be white: 90% of the bulls requested for use in crossbreeding are white in order to obtain blue Holstein calves, quickly identifiable by the buyer. This is not, however, a guarantee of the quality of the calf, but simply a criterion for the buyer in many countries.
2 sources for the purchase of bulls: the majority are selected on the farm based on pedigree (pure bred or crossbred if the parents have themselves been used in crossbreeding). If not selected on the farm, the bulls are bought at auction at the CSB (Cattle Selection Centre in Wallonia, Belgium), where as well as selection by pedigree, the individual performance of the bulls is available (average daily weight gain, feed efficiency).
The bulls bought by BBG are put into production at the AWE: Walloon Farmers’ Association. The laboratory is equipped with the latest technology and its quality assurance programme has been ISO 9001 certified since 2010. In order to ensure maximum fertility and therefore gestation on the farms, the AWE is very strict on the quality of the straws after thawing and produces high concentration straws, with an average of more than 20 million spermatozoa.
300 doses are then sent to dairy farms and at least 9 months later the following information is collected: AI dates, date of birth, sex, calving method, weight and conformation on birth, height.
In order to complete the following indices:

• Ease of calving
  • Birth weight
    • Length of gestation
      • Conformation at birth
        • Bone fineness

Thus some 35 bulls were tested in 2016, compared with only 5 in 2008.
Example of work on the characteristic: ease of calving

The genome