The Rural Voice, 1994-06, Page 31On the leading edge
United Breeders Inc. has been helping Ontario dairy farmers lead the world for decades
Artificial insemination has
been practiced in Ontario
for more than 50 years now,
but oh how things have changed.
Those first rudimentary efforts
by a group of Waterloo County
Jersey breeders in 1941 led to an
industry of world importance
today. United Breeders Inc., for
instance, made up 66 per cent of
its sales in 1990 from export
sales, not only spreading the
genetics of top Ontario sires to
countries like the United
Kingdom, West Germany,
Netherlands, Australia and
France, but also also helping
keep semen prices reasonable
here at home so breeders can
have the use of proven bulls.
Back in 1941 that first group of
breeders contributed $100 each
to buy the first bull for their co-
operative program. Today, United
Breeders has more than 300 bulls
at its facility north of Guelph.
Some world class bulls have
helped pay for the expansion of
those facilities. Roybrook Starlite
quite literally paid off the
mortgage on the original United
Breeders farm.
One person who has been on
top of the changes, not just at
United Breeders, but in the dairy
industry in general, has been
Lowell Lindsay, Director of Sire
Development. Lindsay, along with
the five member Sire Selection
Committee appointed by the co-
operative's board of directors,
must choose which bulls will be
added to the United Breeders
program. Lindsay travels North
America looking for the best
stock. Today there are many
more potential candidates tested
each year. Whereas in the 1970s
United was selecting just 10-12
bulls per year for testing, in the
1990s the number has risen to
more than 90 of all dairy breeds.
United carries top lines from
Holstein, Ayrshire, Brown Swiss,
Guernsey and Jersey dairy bulls
as well as Hereford, Angus.
Simmental, Limousin and
Charolais beef bulls.
A testing program mates bulls
with cows in members' herds that
are on Ontario Dairy Herd
Improvement testing, which
provide excellent performance
records. Only if the daughters of
the test bulls provide top results is
the bull added to the United
Breeders line.
The challenge for Lindsay and
his committee is to find sires that
meet the changing needs of the
industry today and in the future. In
the 1970s, for instance, Lindsay
says, pedigree and production
were important, but there was
also an emphasis placed on
having bulls' dams who were
"elite" show cows, the feeling
being the bulls would transmit
more style and general
appearance.
In the 1980s, the emphasis was
on increasing production.
United was fortunate to find cow
families that produced increasing
levels of milk, but also had above
average butterfat tests.
The 1990s are seeing United
Breeders more conscious of
protein level in the dams of young
sires they select. Lindsay looks
for bulls who are sired by high
production, sound breeding bulls
and from the highest production
cows that have the kind of strong
cow family background and
pedigree UBI likes.
One thing United Breeders has
stressed more in recent years is a
cow's production performance as
a young cow. In years past a
cow's records as a three or four-
year-old, at highest production,
were acceptable but experience
has shown that bulls from such
cows have daughters which also
have slow -maturing traits. "The
dams of bulls must be able to
produce at high levels from two
years on. The breed and the
industry can't afford to wait," says
Lindsay.
Technologically, United
Breeders has always been in the
forefront of the A.I. industry
around the world. Forty years ago
this year, one of United's founding
partners, Waterloo Cattle
Breeding Association, became
the first organization in the world
to utilize frozen semen
exclusively. In 1959, the
introduction of liquid nitrogen
enabled the company to store
semen indefinitely and to ship it
anywhere in Canada or the world,
a giant step forward in the
improvement of global production.
United has been a leader in
Canada in the use of .25 ml mini -
straws of semen storage. Each
year 10,000 ejaculates are
collected from resident sires.
Each is evaluated for volume,
sperm concentration, progressive
motility and presence of abnormal
sperm. Rigorous culling precedes
the dilution and freezing of
acceptable ejaculates.
The company also has an
Embryo Technology Division,
providing a full-service program
incorporating the latest embryo
transfer technology. To make
embryo transfer more
economical, United provides a
frozen embryo service. Herd
owners can select from frozen
embryo storage and at the same
time make full use of available
recipients.
But United Breeders knows
that just being a world
leader in leading edge
technology isn't enough.The co-
operative also provides
professional services such as a
veterinary service to check herds
for reproductive problems; farmer -
breeder A.I. courses; on-farm
nitrogen tank service for
owners/members who store on-
farm semen; newsletters and sire
catalogues and UniMating, a
computerized genetic mating
service which is available for
Holstein breeders.
It's all proof of how far Al has
come since 1941. 0
JUNE 1994 27