Beef Improvement Federation
Fertility Traits Gain
Momentum
By Lindsay King
Fertility traits have quickly gained momentum
as valuable considerations for making
breeding decisions about cattle. Bob Weaber,
Kansas State University (K-State) professor
and cow-calf extension specialist, explained
the current state and future advancement
opportunities of the complex traits at the 2019
Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) research
symposium in Brookings, S.D., June 18-21.
“We need more fertility records and more
estimates for both fertility and longevity traits,”
Weaber said. “I don’t disagree with that or
genomics being a tool we use to get there.”
Getting from point A to point B is complex
for a number of reasons, but mostly
because fertility is hard to define.
“If I had given a talk over this topic 10 years
ago, the list of breeds and traits for fertility
records would have been much smaller,”
Weaber said. “That is the encouraging part.”
While discussing the ideal traits of a beef cow,
Weaber reminded the audience that cattle
harvest grass first and foremost. Some of the
other characteristics of the ideal cow include
minimal maintenance, plenty of milk for a
healthy calf, conceives on the first try every
time and excellent maternal instincts.
14 | AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2019
“As we think about the idealness of a beef cow,
reproduction is central to that,” Weaber said. “It
is influenced by a lot of things — environment,
management, the bulls we turn out — but
that shouldn’t dissuade us from pursuing it.”
There is quite a bit of data available on fertility
traits. However, Weaber said progress for this
topic starts with capturing new information and
precisely deciding what is meant by “fertility traits.”
One example Weaber presented pertained
to the reasons producers might cull a cow.
A cow might leave the herd because of
disposition, reproductive ability, health and
nutrition, or any number of other reasons.
“We need to be careful how we record longevity,
because it might pertain to several different
traits,” Weaber said. “We need to come to a
consensus about what traits to incorporate
and how to use that in a selection index.”
Consequently, the seedstock system presents
mostly inaccurate longevity estimates
simply because many females are culled
at a young age. There isn’t a great way to
capture cow longevity currently. It’s one of the
challenges for fertility trait selection tools.
“We have made a lot of headway in the last 20
years as we moved either full or partial breed