Times have changed. It once took incentives to get farmers to use young sires. Those days have faded into distant memory.
These days, dairy producers have been voting with their respective wallets by buying a greater share of "genomic proven bulls" versus their older counterparts who also have evaluations based on actual daughter performance. As a result, 64 percent of the bulls declared "active for sale" are young bulls. Those "genomic-only bulls" represent 2,045 bulls of the 3,193 that appeared in the National Association of Animal Breeders (NAAB) database after the August 2015 genetic evaluations. As most people know, NAAB is the trade association for A.I. studs.
While the Hoard's Dairyman Bull List will be available in the August 25 issue, we are making it available to readers here as well. It can be downloaded by clicking the link.
