Dashboard
The Dashboard provides insight into across-breed genetic improvement across the Canadian beef sector.
Welcome to the CBIN Dashboard!
The CBIN Dashboard is a collaborative initiative to provide new tools for the genetic improvement of Canadian beef cattle. We are proud of our strong Canadian beef sector! Our vision is to increase the efficiency, profitability and sustainability of Canadian beef through increased collaboration across the seedstock and commercial sectors for the purpose of genetic improvement.
What Can the CBIN Dashboard Do For Me?
- Landing Page – See our progress selecting for important traits and the impact of your selection decisions with the interactive graphs.
- Selection Tool – Design a custom index to search for breeding stock animals that fit the goals of your operation.
- Resources – Learn more about the organizations involved in beef cattle genetic improvement in Canada.
- About – Learn more about the CBIN initiative.
Acknowledgements
The initial CBIN Dashboard Pilot Project was funded by the Beef Cattle Research Council through the project “Leveraging the Canadian Beef Improvement Network’s (CBIN’s) Collaboration and Resources to Advance Genetic Improvement Across the Canadian Beef Industry” (KTT.04.20). Organizations collaborating on the pilot included:
- AgSights
- Canadian Angus Association
- Canadian Beef Breeds Council
- Canadian Charolais Association
- Canadian Hereford Association
- Canadian Simmental Association
Learn more about these organizations on the Resources page!
Genetic Trends
Genetic Trends
as of 25 May 2022, 09:41 PM
The Canadian beef sector can achieve substantial genetic progress by working together! Genetic trend graphs visually show the industry's progress to improve a given trait through careful selection decisions.
Genetic trends compare the average EPD for a trait across all animals born in a given birth year. There may be some fluctuations in the average from year to year, especially for breeds with less animals with records, but the general trend shows our progress overtime.
Each breed has their own strengths that contribute towards a profitable beef sector. The EPDs used in this tool are calculated in an across-breed genetic evaluation, which means we can compare the genetic merit of different breeds fairly.
To use this tool, select a breed and trait of interest. The grey line represents the average genetic merit of the pilot population, while the red line (if a breed is selected) shows the genetic progress for a given breed.
Selection Indexes and Expected Response
Why Use an Economic Selection Index?
The goal of selection indexes is to simplify selection decisions by providing a single value that weights the importance of many different traits.
Economic selection indexes are designed with commercial profitability in mind! To design economic selection indexes, geneticists carefully calculate the value of traits in the breeding objective and also use information about the heritability of traits and correlations between them to maximize overall selection response.
Economic indexes use average values for the population and are designed to generally be suitable for most operations, however, in some cases it can be customized to better reflect an operation’s individual breeding goals.
Visit the selection tool to customize your own economic index and use it to search for new breeding stock designed to meet the specific needs of your operation!
Expected Response to Selection
Impact of Selecting Top Sires
Why Is Selecting a Top Sire Important?
When you receive new genetic evaluations, they will usually come with percentile rankings. The percentile ranking provides a quick tool to see how an animal compares to the population for a given trait.
The percentile ranking indicates the percentage of the population that scored below an animal for a trait. For example, if a bull has a percentile rank of 90%, then 90% of the animals in the population scored lower. Or in other words, the bull is in the top 10% of the population.
This graph uses real data to show you the impact of selecting higher ranking sires. The grey bars represent the genetic progress that can be achieved from use of an “average bull”, while the red bars show the genetic progress we can expect from picking a higher ranking bull. Use the slider to select the top x% of bulls you would consider.
Notice that as you become more selective (i.e., select a higher percentile) the expected genetic progress each year is higher.