Learn the Basics of
Angus GROUP BREEDPLAN

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Breedplan Basics
1 - What is Breedplan and who owns/runs it
2 - An overview of Breedplan
3 - What does Breedplan do that's so special
4 - Why use Breedplan to analyse performance records
5- What are the key features of the Breedplan analysis
6 - What traits are analysed in Breedplan
7 -What is the difference between Breedplan and Group Breedplan
8 - How can Group Breedplan EBVs be used to compare animals
9 – How do EBVs help in the selection of sires

If we accept the philosophy that selection decisions are based on differences between animals, then we must accept that the more we know about such differences the better our selection decision will be. Thus, to make effective selection we need to make a fair and meaningful comparison of animals. Breedplan allows us to compare animals on breeding value.

1 : What is Breedplan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Go to Top

Breedplan is a performance evaluation program that compares animals on the basis of their value as parents, that is, their breeding value.

The service is run by the Agricultural Business Research Institute (ABRI) at the University of New England, Armidale, NSW., operating through a Board of Management which has representation from industry and technical organisations, as well as producer members. Breedplan research and development is carried out by the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit (AGBU), also at the University of New England.

Breedplan is all about increasing accuracy of selection decisions, and when properly understood and used, can be a significant aid to a cattleman's decision making when selecting stock and can be used to estimate the relative performance of an animal or its progeny compared to the herd or breed benchmark.

Look through the jargon and long titles and you will see that Breedplan is an industry based service backed by some of the best expertise in the world.

Note : Breedplan is similar technology to that used by the pig, poultry and dairy industries to make such dramatic production changes over the last few decades. It has worked wonderfully well for those industries, & works just as well for the genetic evaluation of beef cattle.

2 : An overview of Breedplan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Go to Top

What you see in an animal is the effect of genes they inherit from their parents modified by the effect of non-genetic (environmental) factors such as feeding and parasite control, sex, age of dam etc.

To improve your herd by selection, you need to evaluate the genetic merit of cattle - that is the proportion of the animals performance which is controlled by its genes, and not its overall performance which has been influenced by environmental and other non-genetic effects.

Early approaches to performance recording used the ratio system. The animals performance was corrected for sex, age of calf and age of dam, and then compared as a percentage to other animals within the same management group. Comparison of animals across management groups, herds or years was not possible using this system.

Breedplan represents a major improvement over the more traditional methods of performance recording. It uses all the records available on the animal and its relatives to disentangle genetic and environmental factors, giving the best estimate of the animals breeding value that is possible from the available information.

To allow comparison of animals from between management groups or even different properties genetic links between contemporary groups are essential. A genetic link is achieved where animals in one group/herd have a parent in common with an animals in another group/herd. For sires, this cross linkage is usually achieved through AI but could also be through common dams.

Breedplan uses "multiple trait" evaluation which further increases the accuracy of the EBVs

Because there is usually a genetic association between different traits (which may be positive or negative and vary from weak to strong) this information can be used enhance measurements of recorded traits or estimate an animal’s breeding value for traits that have not been directly measured.

For example, 200 day weight has a positive association with 400 day weight - that is, as 200 day weight increases so does 400 day weight.

The multiple trait analysis also helps to reduce the "bias" which can be introduced by a previous selection decision, say selective joining or dis-proportional culling. For example, culling of lighter calves at weaning will give higher group average 400 day weight. The fact that the remaining animals have a higher group average as a result of previous culling is accounted for in Breedplan as long as the records of the previously culled animals are included in the evaluation.

EBVs are expressed in the same units as they were measured (eg, kg) and are estimated relative to the breed benchmark of zero, which was established at the time of the first analysis.

3 : What does Breedplan do. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Go to Top

Breedplan adjusts field measurements (raw data) submitted by the breeder to calculate an estimate of the animals breeding value (EBV). It uses information from the performance of the individual animal as well as its relatives, and allows for differences in environment and chance that animals have been exposed to and that would otherwise bias our selection decisions.

It provides the best estimate of an animal’s breeding value from the information available.

Breedplan is a useful aid to selection, not because you are a poor judge of cattle but because when it comes to long term memory recall or making simultaneous adjustments for known environmental effects over a number of traits, human brain power is no match for a computer.

4 : Why use Breedplan to analyse performance records. . . . Go to Top

What we see or measure in an animal is influenced by both environmental and genetic factors.

Environmental factors influence the way an animal may look or perform within a given environment but not the way his progeny will look or perform within a different environment. Environmental influences include nutrition (differences between paddocks or properties, supplementary feeding, or trace mineral capsules), management such as castration and drenching, grooming and clipping, gut-fill, ill-health, and parasites.

Observed differences of performance between animals resulting from differences in environment can be large, but are not inherited by their progeny, and as such can lead our selection decision astray.

Genetic factors are the result of genes inherited from the parents and are the blueprint for future performance, both of the individual and its progeny.

You buy a bull not for what he looks like but how his progeny will perform . It is only when environment factors are either standardised or adjusted for that real genetic differences become apparent.

Breedplan uses sophisticated computing technology to adjust for known environmental effects over a number of selection traits.

5 : What are the key features of the Breedplan analysis. . . . . . Go to Top

Key features of BREEDPLAN include:

• Calculating breeding values for all animals and all traits simultaneously, hence its description as a "Multiple Trait Animal Model".
• Using performance information from relatives and progeny, as well as the individual animal.
• Using the known correlation between traits to increase the accuracy of measured traits and to calculate EBVs for non-measured traits such as birth weight or weight at later ages.
• the use of “country of origin” performance information of imported (introduced) animals.
• Adjusting for the effects of differences of nutrition, age of dam, age of calf and management group treatments. These are non-genetic differences that will affect the observed performance of the individual but are not passed onto its progeny.
• Adjusting for the effects of preferential mating of a sire to selected cows, unequal and selective culling, and competition between comparison groups.

Removing these biases and taking into account the performance of other animals makes BREEDPLAN predictions more accurate than predictions on visual assessment.

As well as giving you EBVs for your animals, Breedplan also plots the genetic trend for your herd. This trend shows you the genetic direction of your herd for individual traits from year to year, and also lets you see the effect of environmental changes such as pasture improvement on your overall herd production.

6 : What traits are analysed in Breedplan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . Go to Top

The basic measurements analysed by Breedplan are weight at 200, 400 and 600 days of age, and milk. Optional traits include birth weight, fertility (scrotal circumference, gestation length & days to calving), and carcase (eye muscle area, carcase weight, fat depth, % intramuscular fat and retail meat yield %).

These traits have a direct influence on important aspects of herd performance such as weaning percent, maternal ability, carcase yield, growth and fertility

Additional traits will be added as we learn to accurately measure and analyse them, and if the industry says they are important. More detail on this topic is given in section 14 of this bulletin.

7 : What is the difference between Breedplan and Group Breedplan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Go to Top

Basic Breedplan is the analysis conducted only within an individual herd, usually for herds not eligible to participate in the breed based Group Breedplan program. These EBVs are not comparable with EBVs from any other herd. They are compared to a herd baseline (0) estimated from the average of the first 200 records analysed for each trait within that herd. Basic Breedplan EBVs should not be used in multi-vendor sale catalogues.

Basic Breedplan is not recommended for herds who have the option of being analysed within a breed based Group Breedplan analysis.

Group Breedplan is the program of choice for seedstock breeders as performance records from herds who are genetically linked, usually through the use of common AI sires, are combined, analysed and compared against a breed baseline (0) estimated from the average of 10 representative sires at the time of the first analysis. The average EBV of these 10 sires is held constant and used as the breed average).

Group Breedplan EBVs are directly comparable between herds and are the preferred EBVs for marketing seedstock, using the distinctive Group Breedplan logo. Almost all herds now use Group Breedplan.

8 : How can Group Breedplan EBVs be used to compare animals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Go to Top

Group Breedplan EBVs for an animal can be compared to…

• a breed benchmark (Base) for each trait. This benchmark is set at Zero (0) at the time of the first analysis and is “fixed” at that point in time.
• to the current breed average EBV for each trait. This average is published by all breed societies and allows you to compare the EBV of any animal against the average EBV for the breed at the last analysis.
• “head to head” with other animals for a particular trait. For example, a bull with a 400 day wt. EBV of +60 has a breeding value of 20 kg higher for that trait if compared to a bull with an EBV of +40.The progeny advantage of a bull compared to another is half the difference of their EBVs.
• Its position within the breed on a percentile basis. Each breed Group Breedplan publishes a percentile table that allows you to identify in what percentage of the breed an animal fits for a particular trait, eg., in the top 10% of the breed for 400 day weight.

9 : How do EBVs help in the selection of bulls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Go to Top

• they take into account the performance of the bull’s relatives as well as its own performance.

• it uses an industry standard language that means the same where ever you are and values comparable to all animals in that breed

• they allow you to compare bulls on the basis of how they will breed (breeding value) rather than how well they have been fed (environmental influence)

• they can be used to accurately estimate progeny performance for specific traits and to predict the outcome of breeding programs

• they identify genetic differences for “hard to see” traits such as milk and marbling.

• they report differences in units of commercial value, eg., kg of weight, % of yield.