BLONDE - Harrison & Hetherington

11Profit from EBVSA great new tool is now available to beef producers and breeders to helpthem select productive breeding animals with confidence. Thisdevelopment comes as part of MLC’s “Beef breeder” Service.Records on breeding animals are now presented as ESTIMATED BREEDINGVALUES (EBVs) and these describe the animal and how it will breed. EBVsare the recognised method for describing beef cattle performance and arenow widely used in many leading cattle countries.EBVs are quoted in the measuring units e.g. kg.These are various key features:l All Comparisons are against a base figure for the breed. The averageof the breed in 1980 was chosen, where the average is described aszero.l Any animal with a plus value is above the breed base (heavier, fatter,more muscled, etc.) and any animal with a minus value is below thebreed base (lighter, less fat or less muscular, etc.)l The EBVs are built up from records on the animal concerned, itsparents, offspring (if any) and other relatives. So, they are veryrobust. Using EBVs takes out the confusing effects of differentmanagements, herds, seasons and years, so that animals can becompared across a breed with confidence.Measures with very low (less than 20 per cent)levels of accuracy are not published.