Beef sire selection decisions have a major impact on future calf crops and ultimately on profitability. Using available selection tools can help make better bull buying choices. A critical place to start when beginning the herd sire selection decision process is to evaluate the cow herd(s) that the sires will service. From these herd assessments, profiles of desirable herd sires can be develope...

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to evaluate a new commercial kit, Kit SIRE Nitratase-PlastLabor, for testing the drug susceptibility of clinical Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates. METHODS: The accuracy of the Kit SIRE Nitratase was evaluated by examining the susceptibility (streptomycin, isoniazid, rifampicin, and ethambutol) of 40 M. tuberculosis isolates, using the proportion method with L...

The National Genetic Evaluation Program (NGEP), a project coordinated by the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) with geneticists and commercial producers in America, provided good evidence for significant differences between terminal sire lines in progeny performance for production, carcase, meat and eating quality traits. The project identified “differences among sire lines for many muscle...

We have used the results of an experiment mapping quantitative trait loci (QTL) affecting milk yield and composition to estimate the total number of QTL affecting these traits. We did this by estimating the number of segregating QTL within a half-sib daughter design using logic similar to that used to estimate the "false discovery rate" (FDR). In a half-sib daughter design with six sire familie...

A multivariate linear model was used to estimate sire variance and covariance components and residual variance components for first lactation milk yield and logarithms of yield at three herd production levels using Restricted Maximum Likelihood with the Expectation-Maximization algorithm. Data for four separate analyses were 305-d, mature equivalent first lactation milk records from cows sired ...

Generalized mixed linear, threshold, and logistic sire models and Markov chain, Monte Carlo simulation procedures were used to estimate genetic parameters for calving rate and calf survival in a multibreed beef cattle population. Data were obtained from a 5-generation rotational crossbreeding study involving Angus, Brahman, Charolais, and Hereford (1969 to 1995). Gelbvieh and Simmental bulls si...