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. It's good to be
back. You know, today we are sharing a story
that, and I'm being honest here, it really stopped
us in our tracks. It did. We look at a lot of
industry news, right? We see the press releases,
the announcements. But every once in a while,
you stumble across a narrative that just forces
you to, you know, pull the car over. Or in my
case, maybe stop the tractor. Right, exactly.
And just listen. Because it feels different.
It feels important. It really is. It's kind of
a story about looking at a menu, a really, really
big menu, and realizing you don't want to eat
a single thing on it. Huh. That's a great way
to put it. And then deciding that the only solution,
the only way forward is to, well, build your
own restaurant from the ground up. But it's not
just because you're a picky eater. That's the
key here. It's because you realize the food that's
being served is actually slowly. making everyone
a little bit sick. That is the scary part. That's
the twist. This is the kind of conversation that
reminds you why you got into dairy in the first
place. You know, the passion for the cows, for
breeding, but it also scares the hell out of
you when you look at where we're going as an
industry. Yeah, it's a story about taking control
back. That's the theme that kept coming up for
me. Taking control back. Yes. So today we are...
Digging deep. We're getting into the story of
a breeder who looked at the global catalog, which
is, you know, it's essentially the Bible of our
industry. He saw nothing he wanted and he decided
to build his own stud. But what's so fascinating
to me is that this one decision, this one sort
of moment of frustration. It exposes this massive
crack in the foundation of modern Holstein breeding.
It really does. And I want to be really clear
right off the top here. This is not just some
business story about a guy in a boardroom making
a deal. No. This is about the cows that are in
your barn right now. Today, it's about what I've
started calling the invisible invoices. Invisible
invoices. I love that phrase and I hate it at
the same time. Yeah, me too. Because it implies
we're losing money that we don't even know we're
losing. We are. We absolutely are. And we're
going to run the math on that later in this deep
dive. And I promise you, it's going to make you
sweat a little bit. It's a bit of a shock to
the system. Okay, well, let's not keep everyone
waiting. Let's jump right in. Start with the
hook. Introduce us to the man at the center of
this storm. Who are we talking about? We were
talking about Dan Brady. He's the general manager
and co -founder of a company called Blondin Sires.
Okay, Blondin. That's a name that a lot of our
listeners will recognize, especially if they're
into the show side of things. Absolutely. For
anyone in the show world or, you know, the deep
pedigree world, for me, Blondin is a legendary
name. They're based out of Quebec, and they are
known for just... Beautiful, functional cows.
Right. The kind of cows that win the big ribbons,
but they also look like they can go home and
work for a living. They're not just pretty faces.
Exactly. They have that balance. But Dan, he
had a very specific problem of professional frustration.
He was looking through the major AI catalog.
The big one. The biggest ones. The global giants
that supply, and this is probably a conservative
estimate, 90 % of the genetics to the entire
world. So basically everyone. Everyone. And he
was looking for something very, very specific.
He had a shopping list. And what was on that
list? What was he looking for that he couldn't
find? He wanted bulls that were backed by deep,
documented cow families. He wanted to see maternal
longevity right there in the pedigree. So not
just a good mom, but a good grandmom, a good
great -grandmom. Generations of them. He wanted
to see real milk records on the bottom side of
the pedigree. He basically wanted to know that
the bull's mother and his grandmother and his
great -grandmother didn't just exist on some
spreadsheet somewhere. Right. He wanted proof
that they actually lasted in a herd, paid the
bills, and stayed healthy. He wanted the art
of breeding. He wanted history. He wanted a story,
not just a number. He wanted proof of life is
really what it boils down to. But he hit a, well,
a shocking realization. Which was? He found nothing.
Nothing? Come on. In all the global catalogs,
that seems impossible. Nothing that fit his criteria.
I mean, sure, he found rank leaders. He found
bulls with these massive, massive index numbers.
TPI, LPI, whatever you want to look at. The superstars.
The cover boys. But they were all from the exact
same tight circle of bloodlines. It was like
walking into a massive library, you know, with
thousands of books on the shelves. Oh, okay.
But then you start pulling them off the shelf
and you find out... Every single book is just
a different translation of the exact same novel.
That is a terrifying thought for a breeder. Isn't
it? You think you have all this choice because
the book is thick, right? You flip the pages,
you see different photos, different bull names,
different codes. But you're saying that under
the hood, it's all the same engine. It's worse
than that. It's the illusion of choice. And look,
this isn't just Dan's feeling or, you know, some
nostalgic longing for the good old days. Right.
It's not just an opinion. No. There is a staggering
statistic in the research we pulled for this
deep dive that really, it defines this crisis.
It puts a hard number on it. I know the one you're
thinking of. This is the one that made me just
stop and reread it a few times. The Y chromosome
analysis. That's the one. Researchers at Penn
State, a geneticist named Chad Decho was involved,
and they did a Y chromosome analysis on North
American Holstein A .I. sires. So for people
listening, the Y chromosome is passed down from
father to son, right? So this is tracing the
male only line. Exactly. Father to son, to son,
to son, all the way back. They wanted to see
where the paternal lineage of today's bulls actually
came from. Okay, lay it on us. How bad is it?
It's pretty bad. More than 99 % of them trace
their paternal lineage to just two bulls. Two.
From the 1960s. Hold on, let me just process
that for a second. 99 % of the bulls available
to farmers today, right now, are essentially
direct descendants on the male line of two single
animals from 60 years ago. Pawnee Farm, our Linda
Chief, and Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation. Chief
and Elevation, the two kings. That's it. They
own the breed. I mean, bottleneck feels like
too polite a word for that. It really does. A
bottleneck implies something can still get through.
This is different. It's a funnel, a very, very
narrow funnel. Sheaf accounts for roughly 49
% of the modern lineage. Okay. And elevation
accounts for the other 51%. So what about everyone
else? What about all the other great bull families
that existed in the 1950s or the 60s? Commercially
extinct. Wow. Gone. Wiped off the map. If you're
buying a Holstein bull today, there is a 99 plus
percent chance his great, great, great, great
grandfather on the sire's side is one of those
two. That's incredible. It's essentially a genetic
monoculture, like planting only one variety of
corn across the entire Midwest. It is. And that
is exactly what Dan Brady was staring at. He
looked at the catalogs and he realized, I can't
buy what I need because it's not being sold anymore.
The art has been replaced by the algorithm. So,
okay. Most people in that situation, and I think
we've all been there in some way in our businesses,
you just shrug, right? Yeah, you give up. You'd
say, well, the market is the market. I guess
I'll just pick the best of a bad bunch. You compromise.
You do. You settle. But that's not what happened
here. No, not at all. Brady and his partners,
and we have to give a huge credit to Simon O
'London, the whole team at Fairmade London, they
got together and decided that if the market wouldn't
sell them the bulls they wanted, they'd make
their own. They would build the stud themselves.
And so they launched Blonde and Sires. Their
code is 799. That is the cliffhanger we are starting
with because you know the business side of this.
You know how this industry works. How does a
small independent operation in Quebec, I mean,
there's literally a startup in a very mature
industry. Right. How do they compete with these
massive multinational corporations and somehow
manage to grow 75 % in a single year? That's
the question. 75 % growth. It's a staggering
number. And maybe the bigger question is, what
does their success tell us about what's wrong
with the rest of the industry? Because logically,
if everything was fine, they shouldn't have succeeded.
Exactly. You hit the nail on the head. If the
market was serving the customer properly, Blondin
would have failed. It would have been a niche
vanity project. But it wasn't. The fact that
they skyrocketed tells you there's a massive
pent -up hunger out there for something different.
So let's rewind a bit. I want to understand the
why. We need to get into the origin story of
this bottleneck. Yeah. How did we get to a place
where two bulls from the 1960s own the entire
Holstein breed? Because it doesn't happen by
accident. No, it's not an accident. It's a mix
of corporate consolidation and scientific acceleration.
It's basically efficiency gone wild. Okay, let's
unpack that. Let's talk about the consolidation
first. Who are the major players here? Who's
running the show? We often talk about them as
the big three in North America. These are the
entities that control the vast majority of the
market. And they are. You have your U .S. which
is a massive holding company. It was formed from
the mergers of well -known names like Alta Genetics,
Genex, and Transova. So a huge powerhouse. You
have Select Sires, another giant, which is currently
in the process of merging its production arm
with ST Genetics, the sexed semen company. So
they're getting even bigger. And then you have
Genus PLC, which is a British company, but they're
the parent of ABS Global. And they sell genetics
into something like 80 countries around the world.
So these aren't just companies. We're talking
about empires, global empires. They are. And
when you have that level of consolidation, when
you have just a few players controlling the market,
efficiency becomes the number one driver. Yeah.
Everything is about scale. You need a product
that is scalable, predictable, and easy to sell.
And variety. Variety is the enemy of efficiency,
isn't it? It absolutely is. Think about it. If
you're a sales rep trying to ship... millions
of units of semen globally. It's much, much easier
to sell 10 bulls that all look very similar on
paper than it is to try and explain the nuance
of 50 different distinct bloodlines. It's just
easier to market. Here's our number one bull.
Here's our number two bull. They're almost the
same. Exactly. So they streamline the catalog.
Aggressively. How aggressively? The number of
Holstein bulls that are actively sampled through
AI programs dropped by roughly 61%, just between
2010 and 2020. 61 % in a decade. Yeah. They are
sampling far fewer bulls because in their minds,
they think they know exactly what works. based
on the numbers. They don't feel the need to explore
anymore. And that idea of knowing what works
brings us to the second part of your equation,
the science part. You said scientific acceleration.
You're talking about genomics. I am. Now, we
have to be fair here. We can't sit here and pretend
to be Luddites and say genomics is all bad. No,
of course not. Genomic selection has driven incredible
progress in certain areas. The research is pretty
clear that the gains we've seen for yield traits,
so... how much milk a cow gives, have increased
by 50 to 100 percent since genomics came in.
So the cows are milking more. That's a good thing,
right? I mean, if you're a farmer, you want more
milk in the tank. That's how you pay the bills.
In a vacuum. Yes, absolutely. If you're just
looking at next month's milk check, it's great.
The problem is genomics also massively compressed
what we call the generation interval. OK, can
you explain that for the listeners who might
not be deep in the genetics world? What exactly
is the generation interval? It's the average
age of the parents when their offspring are born.
Basically, the time it takes to go from one generation
to the next. It used to be that to prove a bull
was good, you had to wait. You know, you'd breed
a cow, she'd have a calf. You had to wait two
years for that heifer calf to grow up. Then she
had to have her own calf and start milking. Then
you had to wait and see if she was any good,
if she lasted, if she got sick. It took five,
sometimes seven years to prove a sire through
his daughters. So there was a natural speed limit
built into the system. You couldn't go any faster
than biology would allow. Precisely. Now, with
genomic testing, we can pull a DNA sample from
a calf that's only a week old. The computer runs
the numbers and spits out a prediction of how
good its future daughters will be. So you're
not waiting for daughters anymore. You're trusting
the prediction. You are. And we can take that
young bull calf or a young heifer and use IVF
to create embryos before they're even old enough
to breed naturally. So we're essentially breeding
babies to babies based entirely on a computer
prediction. That's a pretty good summary. Yeah,
we are. The generation interval has been slashed
down to about two years. We are moving at a blindingly
fast pace. And I'm guessing that has consequences.
Huge consequences. Because when you move that
fast and you select only for a few specific index
numbers like TPI or LPI, you narrow the gene
pool with terrifying speed. You leave behind
anything, any family, any trait that doesn't
fit the algorithm right now. It feels like the
difference between speed dating and a long courtship.
That's a perfect analogy. You're making these
snap judgments based on a very short checklist,
and you completely miss the character, the depth,
the stuff that really matters for a long -term
relationship. Exactly. And this is where the
emotional toll comes in. You mentioned it earlier,
the loss of that cow family connection. Yeah.
Reading through the source material, this part
really stood out to me. Breeders used to talk
about the Grandam. They knew her. They'd say,
Oh yeah, she lived to be 12 years old, had fantastic
feet, never had a case of mastitis in her life.
That maternal line, it meant something. It was
your insurance policy. You knew the family had
longevity baked in. It was trust. It was a known
commodity. You weren't just buying a bull and
his numbers. You were buying a lineage that you
knew worked in the real world. And now, what's
it like now? Now, for the most part, mainstream
AI marketing has erased that. It's all about
the raw index number of the bull himself, the
functional depth of his mother's line, his grandmother's
line. It's secondary if it gets marketed at all.
So you're buying a number, not a family. You
are. And it leads to that quote that I think
sums it all up. We think we have choices because
the catalog is thick, but we're really just buying
the same bull with a different name. That's the
reality breeders are facing. Okay, so Dan Brady
looks at this reality, at this illusion of choice,
and he says, no, not for me. Let's talk about
that turning point. They decide to launch Blonde
and Sires. But, I mean, you can't just open up
a shop and expect people to show up, especially
when you're competing against giants. What was
their strategy? How did they plan to be different?
They decided to do essentially the exact opposite
of what the big guys were doing. Their strategy
was built on two pillars, speed and access. Okay,
let's start with speed. They started releasing
their young sires as early as 11 months of age.
11 months. And the industry standard is what?
The industry standard is more like 15 to 18 months.
So they're getting their genetics out there four
to six months faster. Is that really a big deal?
A few months. In the genomic era, yes, it's a
huge deal. It means you get the very newest genetics
into the tanks of farmers that much faster. It
keeps the lineup incredibly fresh. Yeah. But
the bigger differentiator, the real rebel move,
was the second pillar, access. Access. What do
you mean by that? The major studs. Well, they
often hold back their very best young bulls,
the ones with the absolute highest genomic numbers.
Why would they do that? They call them mating
sires, or sires of sons. They use them exclusively
for their own internal nucleus herds to breed
the next generation of top -tier bulls. Or they
restrict the semen to maintain a competitive
advantage in the market. That seems... I mean,
that would be incredibly frustrating as a customer.
Hey, I see that bull. He's number one. I want
to buy him. And they say, sorry, he's only for
us. It is. It's arrogant, frankly. So Blondin
came out with a promise. They said, no restrictions.
Every single bull we have is available to every
single customer from day one. That's a bold promise.
It's very democratic. It is. It's a statement.
It's saying we aren't hiding the good stuff in
the back room. If you want it, you can buy it.
And they weren't the only ones who were starting
to rebel in this way. Right. We have to talk
about the Stanton brothers in Ontario. This is
like a parallel rebellion happening at the same
time. It is. It's fascinating. So at the same
time, Blondin is focusing on Deed Cow families.
The Stanton brothers were running a similar play,
but with a different niche focus. They went all
in on polled bulls. Okay, so for anyone listening
who might not be a farmer, polled just means
the animal is naturally born without horns, right?
Correct. Most dairy cattle naturally grow horns.
Yeah. And for safety reasons, we have to dehorn
them as calves. It's a labor -intensive job,
and it's not particularly pleasant for the calves
or for the farmer. A polled bull solves that
problem genetically. So it seems like a no -brainer.
Why wasn't everyone already doing this? Why was
this a niche? Because historically... There was
something called the pulled drag. The bulls that
carried the pulled gene, the ones without horns,
they usually lagged behind in performance. So
you were trading milk production for the convenience
of no horns. Ah, okay. It was a trade -off. It
was. But the Stantons, they produced a bull,
a homozygous pulled bull named Stanton's Remover
PP. And he just, he changed the game. What did
he do? He reclaimed the number one spot on Canada's
official LPI list in August of 2025. Wait, a
homozygous pulled bull, meaning 100 % of his
calves will be born without horns, was the number
one performance bull in the entire country? Yes,
a plus 3897 LPI. And this wasn't just a genomic
prediction. This was based on the actual performance
of 234 of his daughters, milking in 32 different
herds. This was real -world proof. So they proved
you didn't have to sacrifice milk to get those
other valuable traits. The tradeoff was gone.
Exactly. And here's the kicker. No major stud
had bothered to build a whole, dedicated program
around that niche. They treated pole genetics
like a side hobby, an afterthought. The Stantons
made it the main event. So both the Stantons
and Blondin, they basically proved that there
were these massive gaps in the market, these
huge areas of customer demand that the big three
were just completely flying over. 100%. They
were initially dismissed, you know, as vanity
projects. The industry insiders were saying,
well, that's cute. You want to sell your own
bowls. Good luck with that. Yeah. But when you
see a 75 % growth rate, that's not vanity. That
is a market correction. That's the market screaming
that it's been underserved. But there is a darker
side to this story, and I want to shift gears
a little bit. It's not just about market share
or a clever business strategy. It's about biology
hitting a wall. We talked about the invisible
invoice at the top of the show. Let's get into
the silent enemy. Inbreeding. It is the dirty
word. It's the one that nobody really wants to
talk about at the coffee shop. But the numbers.
Yeah. The numbers are screaming at us. Okay,
so give us the data. Because I think a lot of
people hear the word inbreeding and they think,
oh, well, surely the scientists and the big companies,
they have this under control. They don't. The
official data from Lactenit from August 2025
shows that the average pedigree inbreeding for
Holstein calves born in 2024 is 9 .99%. Is that
high? Give me some context for that number. It's...
Essentially 10%. And to answer your question,
yes, it is very high. It's nearly double what
it was just 15 years ago. Doubled in 15 years.
Doubled. And that's just the pedigree inbreeding,
which is based on the paper records. If you look
at the genomic inbreeding, which is the actual
DNA homozygosity, where the genes on the chromosomes
are literally identical, some Italian data puts
that number as high as 16%. Okay, so the cows
are more and more related to each other. But
why should a farmer on the ground really care?
If the calves are still milking, does it really
matter? This is where we have to put on the farmer
translator hat. Because nobody ever sends you
a bill that says invoice for inbreeding. Right.
It shows up in your herd as bad luck. Break that
down for me. What does bad luck look like in
a real barn day to day? It looks like a cow that
just will not get pregnant. You breed her three
times, four times, she keeps coming back open.
It looks like those extra nagging cases of mastitis
you can't seem to get rid of. It looks like heifers
that die for no good reason, or they get sick
and have to be culled before they even finish
their first lactation. It's the cow that just
doesn't thrive, the one that's always on the
vet checklist. Exactly. It's the failure to launch.
It's the constant drag on your herd's health
and your bottom line. And there is a real dollar
figure that we can attach to this. I know we
found some really compelling research from Virginia
Tech on this. Yes. They did the math. They found
that every 1 % increase in inbreeding costs a
farmer about $40 to $43 per cow in lifetime profit
when adjusted for inflation. $40 per percent.
$40 per percent. So let's do the math right now
for someone listening. Let's say you have a 200
cow herd and you have 10 % inbreeding, which
we just said is the current average for new calves.
Okay. That is a $400 to $430 drag on the lifetime
profit of every single cow. So in a 200 -cow
herd, let me do the math, that's over $80 ,000.
$80 ,000 to $86 ,000 in lifetime profit. It's
just lost, vanished into thin air. That is a
staggering number. I mean, that's the price of
a brand new tractor. That's the salary for a
full -time hired hand. Yeah. And it's just silently
leaking out of the herd every single day. Exactly.
And it's not just profit. Other studies show
that every 1 % increase in inbreeding cuts the
305 -day milk yield by somewhere between 44 and
61 kilograms. This is a slow bleed. And for years,
farmers have just been told to accept it as the
cost of doing business. You know, well, fertility
is just tougher these days. But what you're saying
is it might not be. It might be a direct result
of our breeding decisions. That's what the science
is telling us. But guys like Brady and the Stantons,
they're showing there is another way. But practically,
how did they even do it? You can't just keep
a bunch of bulls in your backyard and expect
to ship semen globally. The logistics of that
must be a complete nightmare. Yeah, how do you
go from a farm to a global distribution business?
You know, and this is the really fascinating
logistical shift that's enabling this rebellion.
It's the rise of independent custom service centers
like DMV Geneticu Services. What is that? What
do they do? Think of it as a five -star hotel
and a global distribution center for bulls. But
the breeder, the owner of the bull, Keeps the
keys to the room. Okay. I like that analogy.
In the old model, right, a breeder would find
a great young bull. They'd sell him to a major
AI stud for, let's say, $150 ,000. Right. They
get a nice check to say goodbye to the bull.
And then the stud goes on to make millions if
that bull turns out to be a hit. You sell the
golden goose for a one -time payment. Exactly.
In the DMV model, the breeder pays. DMV for boarding
the bull, for collecting the semen, for freezing
it, for storing it. But the breeder keeps 100
% of the semen and 100 % of the decision -making
power. So they own the asset. They don't sell
it. They own the upside. If that bull is a massive
hit, they are the ones who make the profit. It
completely shifts the power dynamic from the
corporation back to the breeder. And a place
like DMV. They're in Drummondville, Quebec. They
house over 130 bulls. They can store half a million
doses of semen. They have vets on staff. It allows
an independent breeder to operate with the logistical
firepower of a major corporation. That is a complete
game changer. It lowers the barrier to entry
so, so much. Completely. And the success of these
independents, it validates that farmers want
this product. I mean, look at Blondin's market
share in Canada. It jumped from 2 .8 % in 2022
to 4 .9 % in 2023. That's a 75 % increase. In
one year. In one year. That proves that farmers
are hungry, they're starving for deep pedigrees
and the art of breeding. But here's the thing
that really struck me when we were digging into
the research for this. We are sitting here in
North America acting like this is a brand new
problem or that the solution had to be invented
from scratch in a barn in Quebec. But the Europeans.
They figured this out decades ago, didn't they?
They did. And it's almost embarrassing when you
look at it. While North America was chasing peak
milk yield at any cost, the Europeans, specifically
the big co -ops like Viking Genetics and CRV,
were playing a completely different game. Okay,
tell us about the European model. What makes
it so different? Why didn't they fall into the
same trap? It's the contrast that really proves
the point. Let's take Viking genetics, which
covers the Nordic countries, Denmark, Sweden,
Finland. They introduced something called the
Nordic Total Merit Index, or NTM. Okay. They
started including specific health traits in that
index all the way back in the 1980s. The 80s?
In the 80s, you were barely thinking about that.
We were just focused on more milk, more protein,
bigger cows. Right. And today... In their index,
traits for health, reproduction, and longevity
make up 45 % of the total weight. 45%, almost
half. Almost half the score is based on simple
questions. Will this cow live a long time? Will
she breed back easily? Will she stay healthy?
It's not just how much milk is in the bucket
on her peak test day. That's a profound difference
in philosophy. And what about CRV in the Netherlands?
They took it a step further. They actually engineered
diversity into their program. They have a rule
that they deliberately select 40 different black
and white sires to be the fathers of the next
generation of bulls. 40. They don't just take
the top five genomic young sires and flush the
hell out of them. They force the genetic funnel
to stay wide. They mandate diversity. Why? Why
would they do that if it means they might be
slightly lowering the peak index number they
can advertise? Because they are cooperatives.
Ah. The shareholders of the company are the farmers
who are mulking the daughters. They realized...
decades ago that a super high index bull is completely
worthless if all his daughters are dead after
one lactation. So they prioritized long -term
cow health and herd profitability over a short
-term spike in the index rankings. That is such
a fundamental shift. It's the difference between
managing for a short -term stock price and managing
for long -term asset value. Precisely. Yeah.
And we have the hard data to prove that this
philosophy works. We have to talk about the ProCross
study. This was the big one from the University
of Minnesota, right? Yes. And this wasn't some
weekend project. This was a 10 -year study, a
decade of data. They looked at three breed rotational
crosses. They used Holsteins, but crossed them
with Viking Red and Montpelier. And what did
they find after 10 years? The results are just
stunning. The crossbred cows had, on average,
147 days longer herd life. 147 days? That's almost
five months. It's five more months of milk checks.
It's five more months of not having to raise
or buy an expensive replacement heifer to take
her spot in the barn. What about profit? Their
daily profits were 9 to 13 % higher than the
purebred Holsteins in the same study. So I have
to ask the obvious blunt question then. If the
profit is higher and the cows live longer and
they are healthier, why are we so afraid to step
outside the main Holstein lineage? Why is everyone
still buying descendants of chief and elevation?
That is the million dollar question, isn't it?
And I think the answer is... It's complicated.
It's partly fear of the unknown. It's the comfort
of the big names on the pedigree. And it's the
power of the marketing machine that has been
telling you for 20 years, if you aren't using
the number one TPI bull, you're losing ground
to your neighbor. But the data says the opposite.
The data says if you are using that number one
bull and he's closely related to everyone else
in your herd, you're the one who's losing $80
,000 over the lifetime of your herd. Exactly.
Fear is expensive. And that brings us to the
ripple effect of all this. What does this all
mean for the future of breeding? Well, first,
it means the power is shifting. Yeah. The incredible
success of independent studs like Blondin and
Stanton proves that bigger isn't always better.
It proves that the most efficient corporate supply
chains aren't always the most effective for the
end user, for the farmer. It also requires a
bit of a reality check for farmers, though. You
can't just order European semen and assume you're
safe, can you? No, and that is a critical point.
We have to have the outcross reality check. Just
because a bull has a Dutch or Danish postal code
doesn't automatically mean he is an outcross
to your herd. The genetic world is small. Those
genetics have been moving back and forth for
years. You have to read the pedigree. So if you
look at the three -generation stack on a European
bull and you recognize every single name in there,
then it's not diversity. It's just a cousin from
overseas. You have to actively look for names
you don't know. I love that piece of advice.
Look for names you don't know. It feels so counterintuitive
to how we're usually taught to buy things. Normally,
we want to buy the brand names we know and trust.
But in modern dairy genetics, familiarity can
be the enemy. Familiarity is inbreeding. That
is a powerful statement. Familiarity is inbreeding.
And think about the storytelling moment here.
I want you to just picture the farmer listening
to this. They're looking at their herd management
software at their bad luck list. The cows with
chronic mastitis. The repeat breeder heifers.
The ones that just don't seem to thrive. It's
heartbreaking. As a farmer, you blame yourself.
You think, what am I doing wrong? You blame your
feed guy. You blame the weather. You blame your
employees. Right. But what if you realize it's
not your management? What if you realize it's
the genetics you've been sold? That's actually...
It's a liberating thought. It is because it's
something you can fix. You can't fix the weather,
but you can fix this. You can fix it with one
decision in the breeding tank. And that's the
real hope in this story. The traits that are
most damaged by inbreeding, fertility, health,
survival, they are the exact same traits that
show the fastest recovery when you reintroduce
diversity. This is a problem with a readily available
solution. Okay, so let's get really practical
here. I want to pivot now to the listener takeaway.
Let's do it. This is the most important part.
I'm picturing the guy or the gal on the tractor
right now. They've been listening to this. They're
nodding along. Maybe they're getting a little
bit sweaty thinking about that $80 ,000 invisible
invoice in their own herd. What does that person
do tomorrow morning? What's the first step? Action
plan. Step one is what I call the 30 -day audit.
The 30 -day audit. What is that? Sometime in
the next 30 days. Go to your herd recording service,
whether it's Lactonet or CDCB or whatever you
use. Pull your herd's official inbreeding report.
Don't guess. Don't assume. Look at the actual
numbers. And don't just look at the average for
the whole herd. Look for the trend line. Specifically,
look at the average inbreeding of your heifers,
the calves being born this year. If that number
is over 10%, you have a flashing red light on
your dashboard. 10 % is the cutoff. That's the
danger zone. If you are over 10%, and that trend
line is still going up, you are actively losing
money. Period. End of story. Okay, so that's
step one. You know you have a problem. What's
step two? The strategy. You call it the 65 -15
-20 rule. Right. You don't have to panic and
fire your current AI rep. That's too radical
for most people, and it's probably not necessary.
Keep the peace. Don't burn bridges. Exactly.
Keep 65 % to 70 % of your business with your
main supplier. You still need their high -end
sexed semen availability. You need their support
staff. You need the volume they provide. But
you stop accepting the default list they give
you. You become an active manager. Okay. That
leaves about 30 % to 35 % of your breeding decisions
to work with. Correct. You then allocate 15 to
20 percent of your breedings to the European
cooperatives. Go look at Viking Genetics or CRV
and use these bulls specifically for their health
traits. Use them on your problem cows, the ones
that are struggling with fertility or health.
And that last little chunk. You allocate 10 to
15 percent to the independent North American
studs. Go look at Blondin or the Stantons or
others like them. Look for the pedigree depth.
Look for showing appeal, if that's your thing.
Look for the art of breeding. So it's a portfolio
approach. You're diversifying your genetic assets,
just like a financial advisor would tell you
to do with your retirement fund. Exactly. You
would never put 100 % of your retirement money
into one single stock, right? So why are we putting
100 % of our herd's future into one single bloodline?
It's crazy. Okay, and step three. The hard questions.
If you are going to start buying from some of
these smaller independent guys, you need to do
your homework. You need to vet them. What do
we ask? You need to ask four critical questions.
Number one, who owns the semen and who owns the
data? You want to be sure the breeder is in control.
Number two, is the health testing CSS equivalent?
CSS is the gold standard for disease control
in the AI industry. If it's not, that's a red
flag. Very important. Okay. Three. Are the proofs
official? Do they have published reliabilities
from a recognized source like Lactanet or CDCB?
Don't just take a pretty marketing flyer as gospel.
And number four. Can you ship sexed semen? reliably
and efficiently. In today's market, that's a
must -have. If they can't give you good, clear
answer to those four questions, you should probably
walk away. And finally, your last point, the
diversity check. This is a question for your
main AI rep. Ask them to show you their sire
of sons diversity. Don't just ask about the individual
bull you were thinking of buying. Ask about his
father and his grandfather and the fathers of
all the other bulls on the front page of the
catalog. If the answer is always the same two
or three names, you tell them, okay, that's great.
Now show me the back of the book. The back of
the book. I like that. That's where the gems
are hiding. That's where the outcrosses are.
You have to ask for them specifically. This has
been... Honestly, it's a little overwhelming,
but in a really good way. It feels like we are
pulling back a curtain on something that has
been sitting right there in front of us the whole
time. It is a wake up call. Yeah. And it changes
how you look at problems. You know, we spend
so much time and money fixing problems in the
barn. We treat the sick cow. We give another
shot of hormones to the open cow. We pay the
hoof trimmer to fix the bad feet. But sometimes
the fix isn't in the barn at all. Where is it
then? The fix is making sure the problem is never
born in the first place. That is a powerful thought
to end on. Dan Brady didn't write an angry letter
to the industry asking for better bulls. He didn't
just complain on a Facebook forum. He went out
and built the stud himself. He took the wheel.
And that right there is the true spirit of this
industry. If it's broken, you fix it. If it's
not there, you build it yourself. That's another
story from the Bullvine podcast. We're committed
to covering the people who are building the future
of dairy. And remember, Knowledge is only power
if you actually use it. Go check that inbreeding
report. Exactly. You can find more stories like
this at www .thebullvine .com. Subscribe on your
favorite platform so you don't miss the next
one. We'll see you then. Take care.