Creeping across the pasture land. Got dirt on
the boots and a working hand. From the milk house
home to the auction call. These are the folks
standing strong and tall. Yeah, this is... Welcome
back to the Bullvine Podcast. Today, we are diving
into a story that should genuinely stop every
single person listening right now, whether you're
feeding calves or charting your next mating,
because this isn't just history. No. This is
the origin story of why you trust the numbers
on your screen today. It's about a revolution
sparked by a young man who fought the entire
dairy industry's entrenched, you know, ingrained
beliefs using nothing but mathematical analysis.
And this is the kind of conversation that reminds
us all why we got into dairy in the first place.
I mean, that deep generational passion, yes,
but also the intellectual rigor required to make
meaningful, lasting progress. It's far too easy
to look at advanced genomic selection, gender
-sorted semen, and these massive global AI organizations
and just assume we always had this power. But
the foundations for this entire modern structure,
the faith in data oversight, were laid by dramatic
high -stakes decisions made over 50 years ago,
starting with one particular speckled bull that
literally nobody in the industry wanted. A story
of incredible patience and, as we'll see, some
pretty high -stakes drama. For sure. Absolutely.
We're here to unpack that journey today. And
if you want more stories like this, the history,
the people, the breakthroughs shaping our farms,
the true narrative behind the numbers, you know
where to go. www .thebullvine .com. Let's get
into the deep dive. Let's do it. Okay, let's
unpack this pivotal moment in dairy history.
We have to set the scene. It's the fall of 1967.
A young bull arrives at CIEQ. That's the Centre
d 'Insemination Artificielle du Québec. Yeah,
one of the major cooperative AI centers in Canada
founded to give Quebec farmers access to superior
genetics. And on paper, this bull was, well,
he was a geneticist's dream. Oh, a masterpiece.
The pedigree showed what they called an almost
unheard of alignment of excellence. He had three
generations of sires who were AI proven, meaning
their daughters had been officially tracked in
the field, and they were proven positive for
both production and confirmation indices. So
it's a whole package. It's a whole package. This
wasn't just a bull with a great family tree.
This was a bull that statistically should have
been a guaranteed success story for the young
sire testing program CIEQ is just building. But
then... The system and the human element just
slapped them in the face. Here's the problem.
And it had two parts that became these. Insurmountable
obstacles. First, the standard photo of his dam,
the cow who birthed him, was described as simply
disappointing. Disappointing. Which is a... A
very polite way of saying it was a bad picture.
She lacked that extreme, sharp dairy character
that breeders had prized for, I mean, generations.
Right. The visual proof of production, the thing
you could see with your own eyes, it just wasn't
there in the snapshot. So that was the first
hurdle, a subjective visual bias. But the second
issue was, frankly, a massive industry -wide
administrative nightmare. Yeah. She had a speckled
coat pattern. And you have to mentally transport
yourself back to that era, 1967, to really get
why this created so much resistance. Oh, it's
crucial. Before easy digital recording, before
you could just upload a photo, breeders had to
literally hand -draw every single spot on a calf
for it to be registered with the Breed Association.
Can you just imagine that? I mean, you're a busy
farmer, you've just worked a full day, and now
you have to sit down with a clipboard and a pencil.
In bad lighting, probably. Yeah, trying to reproduce
those mottled, irregular, messy markings accurately,
spot by agonizing spot, just to get your papers
filed. It sparked not just annoyance, but, like,
outright dread. Breeders saw that speckled coat
and immediately pictured hours hunched over paperwork.
Absolutely. A bureaucratic nightmare tied directly
to an aesthetic preference. Yeah. And the combination
was enough to make the entire Quebec breeding
community just turn their backs. A cleat indifference.
They wouldn't touch this genetically stellar
young bull, 73HO101 Senator. So CIAQ was left
with this phenomenal genetic tool that was, for
all intents and purposes, administratively toxic.
what do you do what can you do they relegated
him to the absolute last resort ciaq started
using his semen only when a farmer explicitly
requested a test bowl but and this is the key
without Naming a specific choice. So they were
basically sneaking him in the back door? Exactly.
Just trying to accumulate enough daughters under
official control to generate a proof, hoping
the numbers would eventually speak louder than
the speckles. And that right there, that's the
setup for the entire revolution Robert Chacoin
was attempting to orchestrate. This animal, Senator,
dismissed because his coat pattern was too much
work to draw, would ultimately prove that the
future of dairy breeding lay not in what the
eye could see, but in what the numbers revealed.
The speckles faded away, but the indices, the
scientifically generated data, that's what would
eventually write him into the history books.
So let's talk about the man who had the intellectual
fortitude and, my goodness, the deep patience
to wait for Senator's numbers. Robert Chacon,
born in 1943. He grew up on a modest, highly
diversified mixed farm in Saint -Pierre -de -Bégaud,
Quebec. And when we say diversified, we mean
it. This was a classic rural operation. They
had laying hens. They maintained a small orchard.
They produced maple syrup every spring. The full
Canadian experience. Right. And the core, the
non -seasonal income, came from a small herd
of about 15 to 20 dairy cows. And those cows
weren't just, you know, for local consumption.
They were the backbone of the farm's economy.
They produced this high quality milk that was
sent directly to a Montreal dairy, which was
a huge advantage at the time. A huge deal. The
family received nearly double the local rate
because they adhered to these strict hygiene
protocols and provided consistent year round
volume. It was rigorous work, but the reward
was there. But for Robert, the cattle weren't
just income. They were an absolute obsession.
A barn kid through and through. The source material
notes that when his family visited other farms,
a neighbor, a family friend, whoever, his one
and only request was always to see the herd.
Not the tractors. No, not the latest machinery,
not the fields. He was fixated on the animals,
evaluating them constantly in his head. I think
every farmer listening knows that feeling. That
moment you realize, this is my thing. And that
intensity in young Robert was noticed. His uncle,
who happened to be a member of the Holstein Association
of Canada, saw that spark. And that's when the
crucial gift arrived. His uncle started passing
along his copy of the Holstein -Friesian Journal.
And Chicoine described that periodical later
by saying, and I think this is so profound, for
me, this was the most beautiful gift I could
receive. Wow. Think about what that magazine
represented back then. It wasn't entertainment.
It was a printed database of genetic performance.
It was the industry's aspirational blueprint.
Exactly. And it wasn't enough just to read it.
He immersed himself completely. He spent hours
just poring over those pages, committing every
detail to memory. The cow's names, their individual
lactations, lifetime production figures, the
butterfat percentages. He was essentially training
himself to process high -volume, high -stakes
performance data years before he ever took a
university course in statistics. He was creating
his own mental genetic database. And his parents,
seeing this unwavering devotion, they made a
life -changing proposition. They weren't just
supportive. They were strategic. They made a
deal with him. If Robert would handle all the
paperwork, A big ask. A huge ask. Including the
immense and time -consuming job of hand -drawing
those animal portraits for registration. Remember
the speckled coat problem we just talked about?
Of course. If he did all that, they would transition
their great herd to a registered purebred Holstein
operation. That is a massive moment of trust
and responsibility for a teenager. It gave him
ownership over the herd's future and forced him
to become fluent in the bureaucracy of breeding.
But his intellectual curiosity didn't stop with
cows. They also kept a small flock of bantam
chickens, primarily for, you know, decoration
and color in the yard. Right. But Robert turned
them into his first rigorous, controlled scientific
experiment. This is where the scientific seed
truly took root, isn't it? His parents allowed
him to build a completely separate, controlled
flock. He would rigorously control the matings,
observing precisely how traits, like color patterns
and conformation, were passed on. It was a micro
-scale model of applied genetics. And he realized
that this small -scale precise control could
be applied so much wider through the burgeoning
technology of artificial insemination. He explained
that those bantam chicken experiments demonstrated
with certainty that a breeding male can influence
an entire herd and even a whole segment of a
population with the use of artificial insemination.
That's the key takeaway from his youth. He saw
the power of genetic leverage firsthand, not
just in abstract theory, but in the tangible
results of his own controlled breeding trials.
He was ready to scale up his experiment from
bantam chickens to the entire Quebec dairy population.
And this deep, data -driven passion led him straight
to Laval University in 1960. We have to set the
political and social context for a moment here.
Yeah, it's important. Quebec was undergoing its
quiet revolution. a period of intense modernization,
secularization, and a strong championing of science
and rational education over the old ways. And
the mandate for agriculture, driven by this new
social philosophy, was clear. Productivity had
to improve. Dramatically. So Chacon arrives,
ready to learn, already obsessed with the legendary,
high -producing, honor roll cows he'd memorized
from the journal, but his university genetics
courses. They delivered the intellectual bomb
that shattered his old, visually driven worldview.
The profound difference between phenotype and
genotype. This distinction became the guiding
star for the rest of his career. Phenotype, what
you can see, the raw physical characteristics,
the gross production totals, that's merely the
expression of genetics. Right. It is, however,
heavily masked, distorted, and influenced by
environment and management. The cow's raw production
isn't purely genetic merit. It's genetics plus
everything else. Like feed quality, stall comfort,
milking frequency, the skill of the herdsmen.
All of it. And this realization that raw performance
is unreliable must have been jarring for someone
who spent his youth memorizing raw performance
data. It's the moment he realized the numbers
he loved could lie. They absolutely could. The
source material gives a simple but powerful example
of how this works. Take two bulls, A and B. Bull
A's daughters average 8 ,000 kilograms of milk.
Bull B's daughters average 7 ,500 kilograms.
Easy choice. You pick bull A. If you're operating
on intuition, you pick bull A every single time.
It's a no -brainer. But the math says, wait a
minute. If Bull A's daughters were being tested
in these high -feeding, state -of -the -art,
top -management, specialized purebred herds...
The ones with unlimited resources. Exactly. While
Bull B's daughters were only in average conditions,
maybe in less sophisticated tied stall operations,
then Bull B might actually carry the genetically
superior blueprint. The environment for bullies'
daughters just created a massive amount of noise
that inflated the performance numbers. The real
genetic difference, the enduring capability,
was hidden in the context. You're the farmer
translator here. What's the modern corollary?
We see this every day. It's the constant struggle
with comparison, right? Are you comparing a herd
using robotic milkers and precision feed management
in Wisconsin to a pasture -based operation in,
say, Arizona? The raw kilograms are meaningless
until you isolate the one variable that can truly
be passed on, the genetic code. And the solution
they embraced, the intellectual foundation that
she coined championed, was contemporary comparison,
or CC. Tell us exactly how this methodology worked
to eliminate that noise. Well, CC was ingenious
in its simplicity and its fairness. It ensured
that the daughter of a test bull was only compared
against her contemporaries, meaning daughters
of other bulls of the exact same age. In the
exact same herds. Who calved during the exact
same season. That is the key. You're isolating
them. By comparing them within the same environment,
all those variables, the feed, the herdsman's
talent, the weather, they just cancel each other
out. What's left? What's left is the genetic
contribution. The difference in production or
confirmation between daughter A from testable
X and daughter B from provable Y, both born within
a couple months of each other, in the same barn,
eating the same ration. that can really only
be attributed to the quality of their sires.
It created a level statistical playing field.
Exactly. I love how the source describes this
entire period for him as a conversion. It wasn't
just learning a new technique. It was an emotional
and philosophical shift. He was moving away from
the intuition, the eye, the subjective impressions
that had guided his grandfather's generation
and fully embracing evidence and rigorous scientific
analysis. It was a declaration that data would
now be the supreme impartial judge. It was revolutionary
and it took a phenomenal amount of internal conviction
to push it forward in the face of, you know,
decades of tradition. That conviction led him
directly back to CIAQ in 1966. After completing
his master's research, Robert Chacoin was tasked
with establishing the Young -Syre testing program.
He knew the mechanics, but he also brought a
crucial modification learned from his studies
under Dr. C .G. Charlie Hickman. Right. His research
had exposed a weakness in early testing programs.
When breeders focus purely on production numbers,
the physical type, the conformation, it often
regresses. You get cows that milk a ton but fall
apart. Exactly. Structural problems, shorter
longevity. Chacoin realized this wasn't sustainable.
So he laid down a principle for the new program
immediately. To be acceptable to dairy producers,
one must offer young bulls that have the best
possible indices in production, but they must
also have attractive indices in conformation.
The essential difficult balance in breeding,
but the sheer historical inertia he faced was
staggering. Oh, the enormous decades long problem
was that the entire industry had spent 20 years
preaching one single unwavering gospel. Use herd
proven bulls. Right. Never risk your income on
unproven genetics. It was an absolute commandment.
Now, Chickawain, this young guy fresh out of
university. had to convince those same -season
farmers to consciously contradict that core teaching
and reserve 40 % of their herds for unproven
test bulls. Let's stop and really imagine that.
Picture those packed, skeptical halls of weathered
farmers in the late 60s. What was the mood in
the room? What was the single most potent argument
those farmers would have thrown back at him?
It would have been all about risk and economics.
The argument would be, my quota is based on proven
production. If I use your unproven bull and his
daughters turn out to be average or worse, I've
wasted two years of feed, two years of management
time, and I've potentially damaged my profitability
for the next five years, all in your statistical
promise. I'm not a research lab. I'm a business.
Exactly. The skepticism must have been overwhelming.
Chacoin himself called it a great challenge,
and it clearly required more than just presenting
a graph. He launched this campaign of patient,
relentless persuasion. And it was fundamentally
about... Education and trust. He wrote article
after article explaining the contemporary comparison
methodology in simple, accessible terms for industry
magazines. He didn't just tell them what to do.
He showed them the math behind why the numbers
were superior to their eyes. And he traveled
constantly. speaking at annual meetings, breed
associations, across the incredibly vast Quebec
territory. I mean, the source notes that sometimes
the locations were so remote that he needed small
aircraft to get there. He was literally flying
into remote communities to meet farmers face
-to -face, to listen to their concerns, and to
build that trust required for that 40 % commitment.
He also strategically partnered with established
figures like Raymond Corvo from Holstein, Canada,
whose information days were already popular.
Chacoin would explain the technical principles,
which often sparked vigorous debate. I bet. One
of his most controversial assertions was that
a cow should only be a bull mother if she was
positive compared to her contemporaries, regardless
of her raw production totals. That must have
gone over well. Oh yeah, it went against decades
of tradition that just prized raw milk volume
above all else. He also made sure he wasn't just
arguing his own internal theory. He promoted
the external University of Gulf research from
Murray Hunt, which endorsed that specific 40
% test bowl, 60 % proven sire split. He was using
external validation to combat that internal skepticism.
But the most ingenious long -term move the one
that truly cemented the success and built loyalty,
was the famed mailbox campaign. This is brilliant.
From the very beginning, CIAQ made a deliberate
strategic habit of mailing the pedigrees and
photographs of each new young bull to every single
breeder whose herd qualified for genetic evaluations.
Wait, sending out pictures of every single bull,
many of which would fail? That sounds like incredibly
expensive marketing. How did that cost compare
to the risk they were asking farmers to take?
The cost was a fraction of the value they created.
It wasn't just marketing. It was empowerment.
The host reflects the breeders waited impatiently
for the arrival by mail of the pedigrees. It
was like a subscription to the future. They felt
like shareholders in the discovery process. That
is the critical psychological hook. It built
a personal bond of loyalty to the program from
one generation to the next. They weren't just
passively receiving semen, they were actively
studying the raw material. They felt invested.
And that built a resilient program that could
withstand the inevitable failures that come with
testing unproven sires. And the reward for this
patience and courage started to arrive. Of the
first seven test bulls put through the program,
three achieved the highly coveted X -ray status
from Holstein Canada. And for anyone unfamiliar,
what exactly does X -ray statuses signify in
Canada? It's not just a high evaluation. It is
an official designation awarded by Holstein Canada
to sires who are truly breed leaders. It means
the bull ranks in the elite top percentage for
both genetic merit and reliability. So for a
brand new program, having three out of seven
reach that pinnacle immediately validated the
entire methodology. It did. The momentum built
quickly as the test bull's offspring started
performing on the farm, and crucially for the
purebred guys, winning at cattle shows. Which
brings us full circle back to our speckled friend,
Senator 73H0101, the ultimate proof that the
data model worked. CIAQ acquired him in 1967
at the Harris -Wilcox dispersal sale in New York.
Chacoin's interest wasn't in the bull itself,
but in the eloquent pedigree. And eloquent is
the right word. Look at the names stacked behind
him. Sevens, Burke Skylark, Osberndale Ivanhoe,
Burke Govington DeCole. His maternal grandmother,
mother, and sire were all connected to proven
positive indices. Chiquin admitted he had never
seen such a strong collection of proven indices
on the male side of a pedigree before. But the
dam's photograph was still the sticking point.
It was terrible. So CIAQ did the sensible thing.
They didn't trust the picture. They sent a team
to the auction site to evaluate the mother in
person. And their assessment was a resounding
win for the numbers. They found shoes far superior
to her photograph, especially a mammary system,
which was excellent. The team was convinced,
and CIAQ bought the young bull. But when Senator
was offered to breeders, they still ignored him.
Why? The three concerns just coalesced. The dam's
mediocre photograph, her modest raw production
records, and that dreaded speckled coat. It was
too much effort, too much perceived risk, and
too much administrative dread. So he sat in reserve,
used only by those who didn't pick a specific
bull. But the mathematical clock kept ticking.
And in February 1973, six years later, the patient,
persistent data started pouring in. Senator's
first 22 daughters posted positive production
and crucially positive confirmation results.
I can only imagine the relief and quiet triumph
in Chicoine's office that day. The vindication
must have been incredible. They had risked capital
and credibility on a statistical promise that
the rest of the industry mocked. It was a monumental
victory. CIAQ immediately pulled him out of the
reserve pool and put him fully back into service.
And by 1978, the vindication was absolute. Senator
was officially awarded extra bowl status. But
the story takes a tragically sharp turn here.
Just as elite breeders across the world were
finally noticing him, his use was strengthening,
and then Senator was removed from the stud due
to doubtful results on a health test. Oh no.
His semen reserves were quickly exhausted. The
timing just couldn't have been worse. That is
heartbreaking. Years of work validated market
triumphal cut short by a health hiccup. But as
we know, genetics has a longer memory than markets
or short -term health tests. Let's trace that
legacy because it's extraordinary. He sired pro
-laid Ruth Senator, who captured grand champion
honors at the Quebec Provincial Exhibition in
1981. This wasn't just a win, it was an inspiration.
Legendary breeder Pierre Boulet even credits
his lifelong passion for Holsteins to his adolescence
spent helping care for that very cow. And she
quite often reflected that even if Senator had
only sired that one female who inspired the career
of the now legendary Pierre Boulet, he would
have done useful work. But it went much, much
further. His genetics became foundational. Crucially,
his genes traced directly through Comastar Laurie
Sheik. A huge name. A huge name. A cow whose
third dam was sired by Senator. Chacoin himself
called her the best -kept secret of Quebec Holstein
breeding of the last 50 years because her descendants
formed the bedrock of so many modern elite pedigrees.
And his influence traces right up to the modern
show ring. Eastside Louisville Gold Missy, Grand
Champion in 2011, traces back to Senator twice.
Rosiers Blexie Goldwyn, Grand Champion in 2017,
has a maternal ancestor sired by a Senator's
son. And Chicoine estimated that more than 50
% of contemporary Canadian subjects whose ancestry
goes back to that era feature Senators' presence
in their pedigree. Half the Canadian Holstein
population carries the DNA of the speckled bull
nobody wanted because he was too much trouble
to draw on paper. That is the ultimate triumph
of data over subjective impression. But Senator's
success only solved one problem. Chacoin still
faced another, even more stubborn tradition,
the sacred star -brewed cow rule. Tell us about
that rule because it was untouchable for decades.
It was absolute institutional dogma. For decades,
the industry standard was that a potential test
bull's mother, Had to be classified, at least.
Very good. Often around 10 years old. Why so
old? Because without modern superovulation techniques,
you needed time and age to prove her breeding
value through her natural offspring. The logic
was, don't gamble on an unproven young cow. But
the result was that... the industry was constantly
breeding from the oldest generation, meaning
genetic progress was inherently slow. When Chicoine
once asked a prominent breeder for an exception,
the reaction was immediate and absolute refusal.
It was out of the question. No discussion. And
this belief was so deeply ingrained that even
CIAQ an organization now steeped in data confidence,
felt restricted. It took them 20 years, two decades
of successful program history, to finally build
the institutional confidence to challenge this
rule. Think about the opportunity cost, all the
elite genetics they might have missed in that
20 -year window. It's staggering. The audacious
test finally came when CIAQ dared to test Sons
from a promising young, primiparous cow, a first
-calf heifer, who was classified only good plus
at 84 points. Nowhere near the traditional Very
good threshold. That decision must have caused
serious political anxiety. You can just hear
the arguments. We're going to use a good plus
damn. If this fails, we destroy the credibility
we spent 20 years building. It was a huge organizational
risk. And the payoff for that audacity. Two bulls
emerged. Commissar Lee and Commissar Top Gun.
Both achieved extra bull status. But Comstar
Lee, that bull became one of the most used bulls
in the entire history of the Holstein breed.
We're talking 1 .5 million doses of his semen
distributed globally. A global legend. Produced
by a dam, the old industry rules would have dismissed
out of hand. Simply because she hadn't achieved
an arbitrary age and classification target. That
proved definitively that true genetic value can
be identified in youth if you trust the rigorous
data analysis. It was the final nail in the coffin
of the wait -and -see approach. Now, the success
of the Young Sire program, combined with superstars
like Hanover Hill Starbuck, created a rare commodity
in cooperative agriculture, a massive revenue
surplus for CIAQ. And Chicoine, ever the visionary,
immediately saw the next frontier. If they had
mastered the male side through data, the female
side reproduction fertility, embryo quality,
deserved the same intense scientific focus. This
led directly to the birth of Bovatek in 1986.
Their initial mandate wasn't commercial. It was
clear research. Improve frozen embryo fertility
rates, which were a huge, frustrating challenge
at the time, a focus that still resonates today.
But every innovation creates waves of resistance.
Bovatec faced immediate pushback. The vet faculty
at the University of Montreal wanted to control
the research funds. Local vets feared a new competitor,
and breeders worried Bovatec would eventually
compete with them in the emerging embryo market.
It was a political minefield. The solution wasn't
brute force. It was masterful diplomacy and structure.
Chacoin structured Bovatec as a subsidiary with
its own independent board, insulated from CIAQ's
day -to -day operations. And they appointed a
diplomatic general manager, Anne Louise Carson,
whose specific task was to smooth those tensions.
When we look at the state of genomics and embryo
transfer today, that original investment in female
-side research was absolutely prophetic. If Bovitek
was born from prosperity, the other great structural
legacy, the CEMEX alliance, was truly forged
in existential crisis. The groundwork started
earlier, in 1988, when Chicoine met Doug Blair
of Western Breeder Service. They recognized a
vulnerability. Small, regional AI centers are
financially exposed during lean years. Right.
If one center hit a dry spell, they could face
collapse while their partners were thriving.
The solution they developed was brilliant. An
income -sharing arrangement based on each center's
share of the national numbers. It pooled resources
to smooth fluctuations. This concept was realized
as GenXL in 1990, and it worked immediately.
CIAQ, which had been flying high with Starbuck,
found itself briefly without StarSuns while its
partners found them. The alliance supported them,
proving the concept. But then, the landscape
shifted dramatically. Western breeders acquired
landmark genetics, forming AltaGenetics, and
suddenly had its own international distribution
network. They announced their intent to leave
the Cemex Canada export structure. This instantly
plunged the remaining Canadian partners into
crisis. The Canadians demanded a majority stake
in any merged entity to maintain control. Alta
refused. The negotiations collapsed. And this
is where the drama peaked. The Alta board chairman
announced their positions were irreconcilable.
And hours later, the general manager of Cemex
Canada, who had supported Alta's proposal, tendered
his resignation and, in a moment of sheer political
drama, just walked out. The same day. You're
kidding. The same day negotiations collapsed.
He just walked out. Wow. So the whole thing just
collapses into chaos. The source says it was
quite a dramatic situation. We did not have a
clearly defined plan for the future. That is
a crisis. It was a moment of true necessity.
Chacoin and his remaining partners realized that
fragmentation meant the end of Canadian genetics
global competitiveness. They had to act faster
than the market could react. So what was the
tactical move? Chacoin and Gordon Sauter championed
a radical solution. They decided to pool the
ownership of all bulls into a single new entity,
not just the income stream, but the actual genetic
assets. So it wasn't just a partnership you could
leave. No. The Cimex Alliance, founded January
1, 1997, was structured precisely to make departure
extremely difficult, anticipating future consolidation
pressures. They unified their genetic future
in a moment of existential crisis. It's the ultimate
example of necessity creating a structure designed
for the long game. That single decision, born
from desperation, is why CEMEX is still a dominant
global force today. And speaking of the long
game, we have to talk about Sunny Lodge Janus.
This shows how Chacoin's vision operated on timescales
that dwarf any single human career. In late spring
of 1972, Chacoin stopped at Sunny Lodge Farm.
He noticed a cow. Sunny Lodge Janice, with a
good udder, concentrated on the strong rag apple
line. He recognized an opportunity for a carefully
targeted line breeding mating. He proposed a
contract mating to Nona Mifon Matt, whose pedigree
was also rich in that same rag apple line. That
first mating produced Sunny Lodge Jester. He
was a modest success, positive in production
and confirmation. But he was critically negative
for size when breeders wanted big animals. His
popularity suffered. Decent bull, not a game
changer. But they repeated the mating the following
year, which produced a heifer, Sunny Lodge Fond
Vicky. Now, hold on to that name. Sunny Lodge
Fond Vicky, born in 1974. Fast forward decades.
On January 3, 2000, Sunny Lodge fawn Vicki became
the seventh dam of Braydale -Goldwyn. Wait, seven
generations? A single calculated breeding decision
in 1972 rippled through 28 years and seven female
generations to help produce Braydale -Goldwyn,
a bull who became a true global genetic legend.
It's the ultimate testament to the longevity
of genetic planning. Jacoyne's small notebook
entry about Sunny Lodge Janus in 1972 was influencing
millions of dollars of market value, thousands
of pedigrees almost three decades later. That
is a timescale almost no other industry has to
operate on. The lesson there is clear. Your most
important breeding decision today may not reveal
its significance for decades. It truly is a generational
commitment. All right, Jake, someone's listening
to this deep dive right now, maybe stuck in a
snowdrift or making a high -stakes decision on
their next mating strategy. What's the one thing
from Robert Chacoin's incredible journey they
should sit with? It comes down to his guiding
philosophy in every crisis, whether it's technical,
political, or financial. Necessity is the law.
This means that when you are in a genuinely difficult
situation, finding the best possible evidence
-based solution is the only rule you must adhere
to, without hesitation, regardless of tradition.
It's pragmatism driven by data, not by sentiment.
Exactly. If the data tells you the speckled bull
is superior, you use him. If the crisis demands
you pool all your assets, you do it. And I think
the underlying lesson reinforced by Senator and
the star -brewed cow challenge is that the principle
that vindicated him trusting a statistical index
over a subjective impression or photograph is
the exact foundation that powers every single
genomic decision you make today. That faith in
the numbers is a direct legacy of this period.
Absolutely. And building on that, don't throw
in the towel too quickly if a sound data -backed
plan doesn't yield immediate results. CIAQ's
big push to recruit milk recording herds initially
produced no star bulls for several years. It
felt like a failure. But that patience was vindicated
later when that effort yielded global legends
like Startmore Rudolph and Mauflin Storm. Your
strategy might be sound, but the timeline for
the reward in genetics is often longer than any
human anticipates. Stick with the data. It's
a reminder that we are always playing the longest
of games in dairy. It is. That's another story
from the Bullvine podcast. These are the pioneers,
the pragmatists, and the people building the
future of dairy by learning the deepest lessons
from the past. If you are looking for the next
piece of insight or another great story about
the people and science shaping our farms, find
more at www .thebullvine .com. Next time, we're
talking to a producer applying these complex
genetic lessons on a commercial scale, showing
how Chacoin's vision is shaping everyday profitability.
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