NOTICE FOR ANGUS HEIFERSELECT USERS – OCTOBER 2025

As an Angus Australia member utilising Angus Australia’s Angus HeiferSELECT, we want to let you know that we have been listening to your feedback and have made some important updates to this product. We are releasing NEW Interim Genomic Predictions for your animals; these predictions are based on all genotypes and phenotypes currently recorded in the Angus Australia database. This will allow you to track genetic progress more effectively and align your selection decisions more closely with your sire selection strategy.

Key Updates: 

NEW Interim Genomic Predictions:  
To support planning for Spring 2025 joinings, NEW Interim Genomic Predictions have been produced for your animals. These NEW Interim Genomic Predictions will now replace the previous Angus HeiferSELECT genetic predictions. We are continuously working to improve the accuracy of the Genomic Predictions we provide and will keep you updated as progress is made.

New Traits Added: 
We are excited to announce that the following new traits are now included as part of your NEW Interim Genomic Prediction results:

• Mature Body Condition 
  Higher Mature Body Condition genomic predictions indicate an animal is expected to produce daughters with more body condition as mature females.
• Mature Cow Height 
  Higher Mature Cow Height genomic predictions indicate an animal is expected to produce daughters that are taller as mature females.
• Docility 
  Higher Docility genomic predictions indicate an animal is expected to produce a higher percentage of progeny with acceptable temperament.

Traits Reported:  
NEW Interim Genomic Predictions results will include both familiar and new traits. While not all previously available traits are included at this stage, additional traits will continue to be added.

For more information on the interpretation of these traits, please visit the Angus Education Centre.

• Cow-Calf Traits:
  Birth Weight (BW), Weaning Weight (WW), Yearling Weight (YW), Milk, Mature Cow Weight (MCW).
• Carcase Traits:
  Carcase Weight (CWT), Eye Muscle Area (EMA), Rib Fat (RIB), MSA Marble Score (MBL).
• New Traits:
  Mature Body Condition (MBC), Mature Cow Height (MCH) and Docility (DOC).
• Potential future traits:
  Calving Ease (CE), Heifer Conception (HC), Average Daily Gain (ADG), Daily Feed Intake (DFI), Ossification (OSS), and ImmuneDEX (IMM).

Reporting Format:  
The NEW Interim Genomic Predictions will be reported as quintiles, in an intuitive 0 – 100 scale (20, 40, 60, 80, 100). Higher values represent “more/favourable” for most traits, this may or may not be desirable depending on your breeding objective. E.g. Higher Weaning Weight (WW) genomic predictions indicate the animal is expected to produce progeny with heavier live weights at 200 days of age, due to superior growth potential.

However, for Birth Weight (BW), higher genomic predictions indicate the animal is expected to produce progeny with lower birth weights and have fewer calving difficulties (i.e. greater calving ease).

NEW interim Total Value:  
A NEW interim Total Value has been included to guide Spring 2025 joining.

Traits included and assigned emphasis: Birth Weight (2%), Weaning Weight (14%), Yearling Weight (12%), Mature Cow Weight (5%), Carcase Weight (30%), Milk (7%), MSA Marbling (30%).

For further information on the traits included in the calculation of the Total Value and the associated selection advantage, please see visit Angus Education Centre. If you would like to explore a customised calculation aligned to your specific breeding goals, please contact Jake Bourne (jake.bourne@angusaustralia.com.au).

BreedCHECK:      
Interim results confirm animals that are 87.5% or higher Angus content as Angus, below 87.5% but higher than 50% Angus content as AngusCross and 50% or less Angus as non-Angus.

More detailed BreedCHECK reporting will be reintroduced in the future, if you would like more in depth results in the meantime, please contact Jake Bourne (jake.bourne@angusaustralia.com.au).

Accessing results:  
Previous results from Angus HeiferSELECT will no longer be available via angus.tech.

All animals which have previously received Angus HeiferSELECT results, will now have NEW Interim Genomic Predictions available in the download files section of angus.tech under the tab DNA Services in a file labelled “XXX-interim-genomic-predictions.csv” (where XXX = your member ID).

For any animals yet to receive results, these will automatically be added to the csv file in your download files section of angus.tech as the genotypes become available and have completed a run through of our genetic analysis.

We want your input: 
Member consultation is a critical part of this process. If you have questions about the new reporting format or suggestions for additional traits you would like included for future, please contact Jake Bourne directly — your feedback will help shape the ongoing development of Angus Australia’s genomic prediction products.

Jake Bourne
jake.bourne@angusaustralia.com.au
0456 792 504