Angus Genetics Incorporated (AGI) has had a flurry of recent activity. This has included the naming of Joel Cowley as the new AGI president, releasing a Combined Value Index ($C), releasing a production run pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP) EPD, and updating economic assumption for their indexes.
Joel Cowley hired
Perhaps the biggest news has been former president of AGI Dr. Dan Moser’s decision to return to academia, and the naming of his replacement in Joel Cowley. Moser leaves behind an impressive list of accomplishments during his six-year tenure including the move to a single-step genetic analysis and the release of groundbreaking PAP and foot score EPDs. Moser also headed an aggressive research program, which ranged from hair shedding to sustained fertility.
With Cowley taking over as president of AGI, his appointment represents a different approach to filling the position. Based on his experience, rather than having an in-depth knowledge of the latest genetic prediction models and genomics, Cowley’s considerable strengths lie in communication, administration, leadership, and business expertise.
For the past 15 years, Cowley has been on the staff of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, first as executive director of Agriculture Exhibits and Competitions, and then as its president and CEO. In this latter capacity, he oversaw 120 fulltime employees and 35,000 volunteers.
During the 23-day annual event, the attendance is more than 2.5 million people each year. While serving as CEO, he was involved in numerous civic and industry leadership activities, and he was named 2017 Executive Communicator of the Year by the Houston Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.
Before joining the Houston Stock Show, Cowley served on the staff of Certified Angus Beef LLC, first as international executive account manager and then assistant foodservice director.
His other prior experience includes serving as an extension specialist at Michigan State University, where he also earned an MBA. Prior to that he served for over seven years on the faculty of Texas A&M’s Department of Animal Science as a lecturer with the primary responsibility of coaching the livestock judging team.
While at A&M, he earned a degree in animal breeding. He also became an in-demand judge for officiating cattle shows nationwide, which continued after his departure from A&M. Additionally, he earned an undergraduate degree in animal science from Colorado State University, and an agricultural education degree from Northeastern Junior College.
Cowley will be starting in his new role at AGI in mid-June. Regarding his hire, AGI’s Kelli Retallick explained, “It is an exciting time at AGI. Joel comes into the position as a tenured leader with a fresh perspective. He also has a business acuity that will be unique for a person in such position.”
Combined Value Index ($C)
A major step forward for AGI and the Angus breed is the release of the new index $C, which is meant to predict profitability across the entire production cycle. It combines current $Values of Maternal Weaned Calf Value ($M) and the terminal Beef Value ($B) indexes.
According to AGI, the assumptions for the new index are: “Commercial producers will replace 20 percent of their breeding females per year with replacement heifers retained within their own herd. The remaining cull heifer and steer progeny are then assumed to be sent to the feedlot where the producers retain ownership of those cattle and sell them on a quality-based carcass merit grid.”
In terms of inputs, “The new $C takes into account EPDs for: calving ease direct (CED); calving ease maternal (CEM); weaning weight (WW); postweaning gain (PG); maternal milk (Milk); heifer pregnancy (HP); docility (DOC); mature cow weight (MW); foot angle (Angle); claw set (Claw); dry matter intake (DMI); marbling (Marb); carcass weight (CW); ribeye area (RE); and fat thickness (Fat).”
Regarding the new index, Retallick elaborated, “$C gives a producer nearly all the horsepower of $B, but with guard rails on a producer’s cow herd’s mature weight, fertility, and docility. When calculating it, $M and $B are adjusted, so they will be on the same scale, which allows them to be combined. Also, items that appear in both indexes like gain are weighted correctly, so they are not double counted.”
Last year when a $C was proposed there was considerable unrest by the Angus membership. However, each member was given access to their herd’s proposed $C values in June 2019, and AGI made a concerted effort to educate the Angus membership about the new index. This strategy helped usher in the smooth implementation of the new index.
Although a $C is a big step in the right direction for moving the Angus population in a positive way, its calculation is still missing certain important economically-relevant traits. Chief among these is a Stayability EPD. Stayability is the probability that once a heifer enters the herd by calving at 2 years of age that she remains in the herd producing calves until she is 6 years of age.
In other indexes with a maternal component for breeds that produce a Stayability EPD, Stayability is consistently the most economically important trait in their indexes. AGI is doing research on a Stayability EPD because of its economic importance, and if successfully added to AGI’s $M and $C in the future, it could have a significant impact on animals’ rankings for these indexes.
Pulmonary arterial pressure EPD
The new production PAP EPD was released by AGI on May 29. This was after it was prototyped and released as a research run 16 months ago. PAP is used as an indicator trait for the pulmonary hypertension that can occur when susceptible cattle are managed at high altitude, which AGI considers to be 5,500 feet or higher.
Pulmonary hypertension observed in cattle at altitude is referred to as high altitude disease or more commonly known as brisket disease because of the fluid buildup that is observed in affected animals’ brisket and chest cavity. This results in decreased performance and possible death loss.
Cattle with high PAP scores raised at altitude will cause the animal to have excessive contractions of the heart muscle in an effort to keep the body oxygenated. This will eventually lead to stretching of the heart, and when the heart chambers exceed capacity, the heart wall thickens, which can result in heart failure and death.
When evaluating PAP EPDs, the lower value represents the more desirable EPD, while the progeny from sires with high PAP EPDs would not be expected to adapt well to being raised at altitude and will express a higher incidence of brisket disease.
$Value economic assumptions updated
The American Angus Association has a host of $Value indexes, which includes the already discussed $C, $B, and $M. Other $Values calculated by AGI include $Feedlot, $Grid, and Cow $Energy. The latter is an index that ranks cattle for their mature cow maintenance requirements.
All of these are calculated using a “bio-economic model,” which takes into account the component EPDs of each $Value, as well as the economic assumptions relative to each index. This will include ration costs and grid assumptions.
Using data from CattleFax, these economic assumptions are updated annually based on a seven-year rolling average. The biggest difference in the assumptions this year was average ration cost dropped from $213 per ton down to $194 per ton. This was because the high-cost feed year of 2012, where ration cost averaged $310 per ton, fell off the rolling average.
Overall, animals within each $Value rank very similarly as their previous indexes did with rank correlations ranging from .97 for $F to .99 for the other indexes. Although select animals $Values still may have changed significantly, in general, producers will not notice much change in rankings on the $Values of most animals.
AGI has taken a number of important steps to assure Angus genetics continue to have a positive influence on the beef industry. Overall, the decisions Angus breeders make on genetics impact the industry in a disproportional way.
This was exhibited in the latest analysis by Kansas State University of the Superior Video Auction results, which demonstrated that among the lots that were breed-sire identified, 70 percent of them were Angus.
This means Angus genetics have a profound impact on every segment of the beef industry, and AGI’s addition of the Combined Value Index, release of a PAP EPD, and update to the $Value assumptions will all help the breed to continually improve.
Taking up the mantle of leading Angus genetics into the future will be the new AGI President Joel Cowley. Following Dr. Dan Moser, he will have big shoes to fill. However, Cowley enters the job with a unique set of strengths that could bring great value to AGI. — Dr. Bob Hough, WLJ correspondent
