Breaking free from the chains of the past Where
truth moves faster than a Holstein calf No law
waiting on some printed page We're charting new
ground in the digital age From genomic codes
to robot facts We cut through the noise, no hold
them back not your daddy's dairy news tonight
we're sparking You know, if you were driving
your truck and you suddenly realized your GPS
was intentionally routing you the long way around.
Like adding an extra 20 miles just for the fun
of it. Exactly. Burning up your gas, adding miles
to your tires, wasting your whole morning. And
you find out it's doing this also. Some delivery
company somewhere could avoid paying a toll on
their end. Oh, man. I'd be absolutely furious.
I mean, you'd probably pull over and throw that
GPS right out the window. Right. Because you're
the one footing the bill for someone else's efficiency.
You would never, ever trust that screen again.
No, of course not. You'd go back to relying on
your own map or, you know, just your own knowledge
of the local roads. You certainly wouldn't keep
blindly following the blue line while your fuel
gauge just drops to empty. Well, the crazy thing
is when it comes to breeding dairy cows right
now. Thousands of producers might be staring
at a genetic GPS that is doing exactly that.
Yeah, that's the scary part. Welcome back to
the Bullvine Podcast, where we cut through the
dairy industry noise to get you the straight
-talking, no -BS insights that actually matter
for your operation. And today we are doing a
deep dive into a major feature piece from the
Bullvine. It's called TPI 2026's $17 ,500 Protein
Trap. Breeding Holsteins for a protein market
that doesn't exist. And let me tell you, this
is one of those deep dives that will fundamentally
change how you look at the semen catalogs sitting
on your desk. It really is. And, you know, to
be clear, right out of the gate, this isn't just
some abstract genetic theory. We aren't just
talking about stuff that only matters to guys
in lab coats. Right. This is real world impact.
Exactly. We're talking about the brand new Holstein
USA April 2026 TPI formula. TPI, or the Total
Performance Index, is basically the gold standard
that Practically everyone uses to rank Holstein
genetics. And if you're following this new formula
blindly like, if you're loading those top ranking
bowls into your nitrogen tank just because they
look great on a semen reps glossy slide deck.
Which so many people do, by the way. Which they
do. But our mission today is to show you why
that exact strategy could be leaking thousands
of dollars right out of your milk check over
the next five years. Yeah, we're going to get
into the hard math today. But we're going to
do it in a way that translates directly to your
farm's bottom line. Because the new TPI formula
has shifted its production slice in a way that
gives protein a massive 70 % leverage over fat.
70 %? Which is wild, because they've done this
despite the fact that your real -world class
3 and 4 VMO checks... are paying you significantly
more for fat right now. Exactly. So we are going
to tease out what might be the biggest aha moment
of the year. This index might actually be steering
the Holstein breed to heavily benefit cheese
processors while quietly, almost invisibly, sacrificing
your farm's profitability. And looking at this
from the practical farmer perspective, you know,
the perspective of someone who actually has to
pay the feed bills and navigate all this margin
compression, my immediate reaction to reading
this piece was, Pretty skeptical. Skeptical how?
Like, what does this actually mean for my bulk
tank and my actual milk check? Because at the
end of the day, I don't get paid on a theoretical
ratio. Right. You don't take a pretty genetic
index score to the bank. Exactly. I get paid
on total physical pounds of fat and protein shipped.
Period. So we need to look at exactly what this
new index is doing to those physical pounds.
So let's break down exactly what happened with
this 2026 QPI shift. Because the headlines from
the Breed Association, well, they make it sound
like a minor housekeeping update. Oh yeah, just
a little tune -up. Nothing to see here. Right.
The core issue here is the headline change in
the formula's production slice. For years, they
weighted protein and fat equally. It was 19 %
protein and 19 % fat. What the industry calls
the 1919 split. Perfectly balanced scale. Exactly.
But the new formula shifts that weighting to
24 % protein and 14 % fat. So 24 -14. Now, on
the surface, if you're just skimming an industry
press release, that looks pretty innocent, right?
Oh, totally. It looks like a simple five -point
tweak. You subtract five points of emphasis from
fat. You add five points of emphasis to protein.
What's the big deal? Right. It sounds like they
are just fine -tuning the engine a little bit.
But the math tells a wildly different, much more
aggressive story. We really need to bust the
myth right now that this is just a minor adjustment.
Yeah, let's talk about the leverage because that's
where the real story is. If you look at the leverage,
which is the actual mathematical weight of one
trade against another, the old protein to fat
leverage was 19 divided by 19. Which equals exactly
1 .0. Like I said, a balanced scale. One pound
of protein pull equaled one pound of fat pull.
But look at the new leverage. You divide 24 by
14 and you get 1 .71. And that number, that 1
.71, is the key to this entire trap. Break that
down for us. What does that actually mean inside
the formula? It means that inside the TPI formula,
one pound of PTA protein, the predicted transmitting
ability, which is basically the genetic baseline
a bull passes down to his daughters. Right, his
genetic potential. Yeah. So one pound of that
PTA protein is now pulling like 1 .7 pounds of
PTA fat. That is a 70 % increase in the leverage
protein has over fat. It's a massive structural
overhaul of how the breed is evaluated. And what's
incredibly frustrating is that Holstein USA's
own description of this change claims it is designed
to yield, quote, additional pounds of fat and
protein with slightly more emphasis on protein.
Yeah, slightly is doing a whole lot of heavy
lifting in that sentence. A 70 % increase in
leverage is not slight, not by any definition.
No, it's not slight at all. And let's translate
this into born reality, because I have to push
back hard on their claim that this creates additional
pounds. Wait, doesn't create more pounds? No.
This formula change isn't magically creating
more total components out of thin air. It is
redistributing the emphasis within a finite biological
system. OK, so it's a tradeoff. Exactly. It forces
you as a farmer to chase a protein to fat ratio
AP over F ratio rather than total combined output.
If you start selecting the bulls that this new
TPI suddenly loves, you are actively moving your
herd's component profile away from fat. Just
to make a ratio look prettier on a piece of paper.
Precisely. You are leaving fat pounds behind.
Which brings up something I really need you to
explain because the article mentions a... a biological
trap hidden in this math. Yeah, this is the really
fascinating part. Explain the biology to me.
Why can't I just breed a cow that pumps out pure
protein without the extra water? What is actually
happening in the udder when we chase this protein
ratio? That's a perfect question. Because we
often talk about these genetic traits like when
you're building a machine out of Lego bricks,
you know, like you can just snap on more protein
and take off some water. Right, like you're just
adjusting dials on a dashboard. Exactly. But
a cow is a biological organism. mammary gland
physiology doesn't work like that inside the
udder protein yield specifically the synthesis
of casein is incredibly closely tied to milk
volume through something called osmotic pressure
osmotic pressure okay give me the plain english
version of that basically when the cow's udder
synthesizes milk it produces lactose And lactose
acts as an osmotic draw. It physically pulls
water into the udder to maintain the right concentration
of fluids. Okay, so more lactose equals more
water. Right. And protein synthesis happens alongside
this process. The biological reality of the Holstein
cow is that you cannot drastically increase the
pounds of protein she produces without also dragging
a significant amount of water along with it.
Interesting. But fat is different. Yeah, fat
is totally different. Fat is synthesized and
secreted differently. You can actually breed
a cow to produce a much denser, higher fat milk
without dramatically increasing her total fluid
volume. So that's why we've been able to breed
these incredibly efficient component maker Holsteins
over the last 10 years that give like a 4 .5
or 5 .0 percent fat test. Exactly. We've made
massive strides there. But if I'm understanding
this new formula right, if I aggressively select
for protein over fat. Using this new 1 .71 leverage,
I'm not just tweaking the solids. Right. What
are you actually doing to the cow? I'm inadvertently
telling the cow's biology to pump more water.
When you chase a high protein to fat ratio, you
are subtly but surely nudging your entire herd
toward becoming higher volume fluid style cows.
Wow. So you're actively selecting for the kind
of big water pumping cow we had 15 or 20 years
ago. Yes. Instead of the dense, highly feed efficient
component maker we actually need today. And remember,
it takes a lot more feed energy to maintain that
larger fluid volume. So if enough commercial
dairymen do this over the next decade, just because
they're blindly following the TPI rankings? We're
literally re -steering the entire U .S. Holstein
breed backwards in a dairy market that is almost
entirely driven by component pricing. That is
a fascinating way to look at it. Trying to maximize
protein without fat is like, I don't know, trying
to tune a heavy diesel tractor to run like a
Ferrari. Huh. Yeah, exactly. You might get the
raw speed on the straightaway, but you completely
destroy your torque. And torque is what actually
pulls the plow. In dairy terms, total combined
fat and protein is your torque. That's a great
analogy. You're sacrificing the fundamental pulling
power of your herd's genetics for a flashy metric
that doesn't actually do the work you need it
to do. But theory and biology are one thing.
To see the real damage, we need to look at what
happens to a standard commercial herd over five
years of making these genetic decisions. Right.
We need to follow the money. Exactly. And the
bullvine piece laid out a fantastic, deeply detailed
composite case study of a producer named Mark
H. Let's walk through this because this isn't
just a math problem. This is reality playing
out at kitchen tables across the country. Yeah.
Mark's operation is a perfect baseline. He runs
a 500 -cow Holstein dairy in New York. He's got
a very solid, well -managed commercial herd.
They aren't doing anything crazy, just good,
consistent dairy farming. What are his current
numbers looking like? His herd average is 26
,700 pounds of milk. They are making 1 ,070 pounds
of fat and 840 pounds of protein per cow per
year. Okay, so if you break that down into percentages,
that's roughly a 4 .0 % fat test and a 3 .1 %
protein test. Very realistic. Highly relatable
numbers for a modern U .S. dairy. So picture
Mark sitting down at his kitchen table with his
genetics advisor. They've got the laptop open,
the new 2026 sire summaries are out, and they
game out two different futures for his herd over
the next five years. Right. Same herd of cows
today, but they're going to model two totally
different sire selection paths from 2026 to 2030.
Path one is what the article calls the TPI ratio
chase. What does that actually look like in practice
for Mark? This is the path where Mark listens
to the industry buzz. His rep tells him, hey,
TPI is heavily awaiting protein now. You really
need to get ahead of this trend. So he leans
right into the new 24 -14 signal. Exactly. He
filters his sire list and picks the bulls that
look fantastic on the new TPI rankings. Biologically,
these bulls have high PTA protein, but only moderate
PTA fat. And crucially, they're... predicted
transmitting ability for the protein to fat ratio
is 0 .60 or higher. Right. They are protein specialists.
And the article maps out the conservative genetic
gains of this strategy over five years. You have
to factor in the lag, right? Yeah. You buy the
straw today, but it takes nearly three years
before that daughter is in the milking string
actually producing your own components. So over
a five -year period of consistently picking bulls
this way, this strategy adds about 15 pounds
of fat and 20 pounds of protein to the average
cow's annual yield. So by year five, Mark's average
cow is producing 1 ,100 pounds of fat and 880
pounds of protein. And if we look at the total
components, what we call total CFP, or combined
fat and protein, that cow is now making 1 ,980
pounds of CFP. And hey, if you look at the ratio,
the index is absolutely thrilled. The herd's
protein to fat ratio has climbed to a very pretty
0 .80. Right, Mark's rep is giving him high fives.
The herd looks incredibly progressive on paper.
The index is happy. The paper cows look great.
But now let's look at path two. We'll call this
the total CFP anchor. This is the boring path.
Really boring path. In this timeline, Mark ignores
the new TPI noise entirely. He tells his rep
to put the glossy catalog away. Instead, he filters
bulls using an economic index that actually starts
with real world dollars and cents. And he sorts
them by pure combined fat plus protein pounds.
He doesn't care about the leverage shift at all.
He deliberately keeps the Sire ratio in a sane,
balanced band of 0 .5, 0 to 0 .60. And this is
exactly where the divergence happens. When you
run the genetic progress numbers on path two
over those same five years, it adds 22 .5 pounds
of fat and 17 .5 pounds of protein. Okay, so
by year five, this cow is making 1115 pounds
of fat and 875 pounds of protein. Her total combined
fat and protein is 1990 pounds. So let's pause
right there and look at that. The boring CFP
cow is making 10 more pounds of total components
than the high -flying TPI cow. Yes, 10 more pounds
of physical, measurable solids in the tank. But
her ratio is only 0 .79. So TPI doesn't like
this cow as much because she didn't hit that
aggressive protein leverage. Right. She ranks
lower on the official lists. She's not the cover
girl for the semen catalog. But I'm guessing
her bank account ranking is a bit different.
Let's do the math on the financial bleed here
and let's frame it around the listener's perspective.
Yeah, let's get into the dollars. Because if
you are looking at your milk check right now,
you know exactly what these components are worth.
The article crunches these year five production
numbers using very conservative, realistic. class
three prices. We're talking $3 a pound for fat
and $2 a pound for protein. Which is a very fair
baseline for recent federal order pricing. It's
actually pretty standard. So let's look at path
one, the ratio chase. That cow generates $3 ,300
in fat revenue and $1 ,760 in protein revenue.
That's $5 ,060 per cow per year in total component
value. Now look at path two, the CFP anger. That
cow makes $3 ,345 in fat and $1 ,750 in protein.
So that total is $5 ,095 per cow per year. Meaning
the boring CFP anchored herd wins by $35 per
cow per year. Exactly. $35 a cow. And for Mark's
500 cow dairy, that is $17 ,500 left on the table.
Gone. Evaporated. Just because he wanted to buy
bulls that had a pretty ratio on a piece of paper.
Bulls that ranked higher on an index that totally
doesn't line with his milk buyer. Now, $35 a
cow. I mean, it doesn't sound like a four alarm
fire on a random Tuesday morning when you're
out there fixing a broken skid steer. No, it
doesn't. It's a slow leak. You don't see it happening
day to day. Yeah. But structurally. Yeah. It
is bleeding the farm's efficiency dry over a
decade. Let's tie this back to the real world
economics we discussed in a previous deep dive.
2025's $21 milk reality. Oh yeah, we talked extensively
about margin compression in the dairy sector
there. Costs for feed, labor, equipment, they're
not going down. They never go down. Right. So
if you are shipping 267 hundredweight per cow
a year, like Mark is, that $35 loss equates to
roughly a 13 cent per hundredweight bleed on
your margin. And in a year where your margin
might only be 50 cents or a dollar per hundredweight
to begin with, giving up 13 cents to a genetic
mathematical quirk? That's devastating. It's
inexcusable. You are pointing the genetic engine
of your herd toward a fluid -style cow, but your
processing plant is still rigidly paying you
on total components sold. It's a complete mismatch
between the breed association's genetic goals
and the economic reality of the farm gate. Absolutely.
But wait. Let me play devil's advocate here for
a second, because I know there's a producer listening
to this on the tractor right now who is practically
yelling at the radio. Oh, for sure. I can hear
them now. They're saying, but what if the market
changes? Everyone says global protein demand
is rising. What if plant demand shifts next year
and protein suddenly becomes way more valuable
than fat? Right. Doesn't this new TPI formula
protect me and position me for that future? Yeah.
It's the exact sales pitch you will hear from
the genetics companies. Position yourself for
the future. So let's test that theory. Let's
do an industry reality check. Let's completely
stack the deck in favor of protein and see if
the math finally works out for the TPI ratio.
Okay, let's build that protein -friendly future
grid. Let's say the market completely flips.
We will drop the price of fat down to $2 .80
a pound, and we will spike the price of protein
all the way up to $3 .50 a pound. Wow. In this
hypothetical scenario, protein is worth 25 %
more than fat. Yes. This is an incredibly aggressive,
almost unprecedented premium for protein compared
to anything we've seen recently in the federal
orders. Okay, so we take our two -year five cows
and run them through this new, heavily protein
-slanted pricing grid. The ratio herd, the one
TPI loves, the one that sacrificed fat to get
more protein, makes $6 ,160 per cow. And the
CFP herd. The CFP herd. the boring one that just
focus on total pounds, makes $6 ,184 .50. Wait,
let me make sure I heard that correctly. The
boring herd still wins. Yes. Even in a market
that pays a massive 25 % premium for protein,
the CFP herd still beats the ratio herd by $24
.50 per cow per year. So for Mark's 500 cows,
he is still losing over $12 ,000 a year by following
the TPI index. Even when the market does exactly
what the TPI advocates hope it will do. How is
that biologically or mathematically possible?
I mean, if protein is suddenly worth so much
more money, shouldn't the high protein cows absolutely
dominate the spreadsheet? Here's where it gets
really interesting. And this is the concept every
producer needs to write down. It all comes down
to the biological trade you are making when you
select these sires. The biological trade. Yeah.
Look at the difference in genetic progress between
the two herds in year 5. The ratio herd lost
15 pounds of fat compared to the CFP herd, but
it only gained 5 pounds of protein. Ah. You were
trading 15 pounds of fat to get 5 pounds of protein?
Precisely. Because of the negative genetic correlations
and the way the leverage works, you are giving
up three pounds of fat just to coax one extra
pound of protein out of the cow. Wow. Three for
one. Yes. So for that trade to make any financial
sense whatsoever on your milk check, the new
money you make on that one pound of protein has
to completely cover the money you lost on those
three pounds of fat. So one times the protein
price must be greater than three times the fat
price. If we simplify that equation, we arrive
at the absolute core insight of this entire deep
dive, the break -even formula. The protein price
divided by the fat price must be greater than
3 .0. This is the aha moment. I want everyone
listening to let this sink in. Your protein price
has to be three times higher. than your fat price
for this 2026 TPI shift to actually pay off in
your bulk tank. Three times. Three times. So
let's look at the real market data. You pull
the USDA Federal Order Class III and YV component
pricing data through 2024 and early 2025. Does
protein ever hit three times the price of fat?
Not even close. Not in the same universe. Never.
Protein pricing is volatile, sure. Sometimes
it rallies and then gets somewhat close to the
price of fat. Yeah. But for many recent months
and years, it's been significantly cheaper than
fat. So what's the actual ratio right now? If
you look at the actual ratio of protein price
to fat price recently, it sits somewhere between
0 .6 and 1 .2. Let me repeat that for clarity.
You need a 3 .0 ratio to break even on this genetic
strategy, and the actual U .S. dairy market is
hovering around 1 .0. Yes. The market for this
index does not exist in the United States. Period.
Unless, what, you're shipping to some incredibly
specific micronutrient specialty cheese plant.
Exactly. A plant that has a custom contract effectively
valuing protein at three times fat, which practically
no commercial class three producer in the country
has. You are being paid to maximize total component
output. You're not being paid to reshuffle the
ratio. Okay, so what does this all mean? If the
math is this obviously broken for the farmer,
I have to ask, who is actually benefiting from
this? That's the million -dollar question. I
mean, Holstein USA isn't a fly -by -night operation.
They have teams of highly educated geneticists
or economists. You're telling me they just mathematically
blundered this. Whose economics are they actually
looking at when they build this formula? To answer
that, we don't even need to look at conspiracy
theories. We actually just need to look inside
Holstein USA's own published formula. Oh, this
is the part that blew my mind. Right. This is
where you find the most glaring, undeniable internal
contradiction in the entire system. And frankly,
it's the part that should make every commercial
dairyman demand answers. You're talking about
the feed efficiency dollar, or F -E dollar. Yes.
For those who might not dig into the deep weeds
of the index, the FE dollar is the economic engine
that sits inside the TPI formula. It's supposed
to calculate the actual profit a cow generates
based on her feed intake and component output,
right? Exactly. And according to Holstein USA's
own published materials, the FE dollar formula
currently values fat at $1 .86 per pound. Okay.
And it values protein at $1 .75 per pound. Let
me stop you right there so you and the listener
can really process that. Holstein USA's own internal
economics, the very numbers they use to calculate
feed efficiency, clearly state that fat is more
valuable than protein. Yes. $1 .86 for fat is
more than $1 .75 for protein. The ratio between
the two is 0 .94. Fat wins the economic argument
inside their own house. Yet, the production slice
of the TPI, which is the arbitrary weighting
layered on top of those economics to rank the
bulls, applies a 1 .71 multiplier favoring protein.
Yep. It weights protein at 24 % and fat at 14%.
It is a complete mathematical absurdity. The
core economics inside the formula say fat is
more valuable, but the subjective weighting applied
on top of it values protein 71 % more. Those
two things cannot both be mathematically right
at the same time. You are looking at a formula
at war with itself. And if you dig into the history,
it gets even worse. Since April 2021, the FEDollar
value of fat has jumped 20%. The value of protein
has barely moved. So the formula's own internal
economic data is drifting steadily toward fat,
even as the new 2026 production weighting lurches
wildly toward protein. So if the actual market
data doesn't support the move and their own internal
feed efficiency data doesn't support the move.
What does? Why do this? We have to look at the
processor demand argument. Holstein USA has stated
publicly that part of the rationale for this
shift is alignment with processor demand for
casein. And look, if you step into the shoes
of a cheese plant manager, this makes total sense.
Oh, absolutely. Cheese plants absolutely want
more casein in the vat because casein is the
specific protein that drives cheese yield. More
casein means more cheese per hundredweight of
milk processed. Which means lower overhead costs
and higher margins for the plant. Right. If you
run a cheese plant, your dream cow produces high
-protein milk that is perfectly tailored to your
vat's efficiency. Exactly. But here is this straight
-talking, no -BS reality check for every farmer
listening today. You do not get paid on the processor's
cheese yield. per vat. No, you do not. You get
paid on the total pounds of fat and protein you
sell to them at whatever the federal order grid
says those pounds are worth that month. The Bullvine
actually did a massive deep dive analysis on
the component revelation recently, and the data
showed that processors are already capturing
a massive 12 .5 % cheese yield windfall from
the higher components farmers have been breeding
for over the last decade. They're already winning
big. And this raises an incredibly important
question for your farm's future. Are you getting
your fair share of that value creation? Because
if the new TPI steers the breed toward protein
at the direct biological expense of fat, the
processors get more of the exact component they
want to maximize their cheese yield. While you,
the farmer, end up with fewer total component
dollars per cow. Under your actual class three
grid. It's the GPS metaphor all over again. Yeah.
TPI 2026 is optimizing the genetic map for a
processor's ideal breed. It is quietly sacrificing
the farmer's total component dollars to get there.
It's a processor's index masquerading as a farmer's
index. And I want to be clear, that isn't a conspiracy
theory. We aren't guessing motives here. It's
just reading the plain math of the index against
the plain math of your milk check. TPI is serving
the cheese vat, not your bank account. Which
brings up an incredible contrast, and honestly,
a bit of a lifeline for the industry, because
TTI isn't the only index in town. Other major,
highly respected genetic indexes are looking
at the exact same market data, the exact same
USDA pricing reports, and coming to wildly different
conclusions. We need to look at what I call the
tale of three indexes, and what this means for
the future of the breed. This is where you realize
how much of a solitary island TPI is on right
now. Let's look at the USDA's Net Merit 2025,
or NMDollar. Okay, break down Net Merit for us.
Net Merit is built by the Council on Dairy Cattle
Breeding, the CDCB, using current data from AGIO,
the Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory.
Right. These are the government scientists whose
entire job is to analyze the U .S. dairy economy
and build an index that maximizes lifetime profit
for the farmer. Same industry, same market as
Holstein USA. What did Net Merit do in their
latest update? It went the exact opposite direction
of TPI. Net Merit 2025 actually dropped protein
share in the index from 19 .6 % down to 13%.
And it bumped fat share up significantly from
28 .6 % to 31 .8%. Think about the magnitude
of that divergence. USDA economists looking at
real -world farm data said, the market is telling
us to drop protein emphasis and boost fat emphasis.
While Holstein USA, looking at the exact same
market, said, boost protein massively and drop
fat. And net merit went even further to protect
the farmer's bottom line. It added a massive
negative body weight composite. Yeah, that's
huge. It acts like a $57 weight tax per point.
NetMerit is actively trying to build a smaller,
high -component, incredibly feed -efficient cow
that maximizes total fat and protein yield per
pound of dry matter consumed. It is heavily penalizing
those big, fluid -style, high -maintenance cows.
Which biologically and economically is perfectly
internally consistent with current USDA component
pricing and sky -high feed markets. NetMerit
is trying to build the dense component maker.
TPI is drifting back toward the water park. Yeah,
let's look north. What is happening in Canada?
Because this is an argument you will hear from
semen reps defending the TPR. Oh, you will hear
this all the time. Lactonet, which manages Canada's
genetics, just shifted the LPI, their primary
index, to an aggressive 60 % protein and 40 %
fat. Right, so people say, uh -huh, TPI isn't
crazy, Canada is doing it too, the whole world
is moving to protein. Exactly, so why shouldn't
we? Hold on, this is a crucial distinction, and
if you don't understand this, you will get fleeced.
Canada operates on a strict national quota -based
pricing system. They do not operate on an open
market federal order system like the U .S. That's
a massive difference. Lacton, its own bulletin,
explicitly states the genetic shift is intended
to better reflect anticipated changes in their
specific regulated milk pricing and processor
demand within that quota system. The Canadian
system is internally consistent with its own
unique quota pricing math. Right. In a quota
system, your incentives on fluid volume versus
solids are tightly controlled by the government
board. You cannot just copy Canada's protein
pivot if you don't have Canada's pricing logic
protecting your downside. It's like trying to
play American football with a baseball bat because
you saw a guy in another stadium hit a home run.
The rules of your field are fundamentally different.
That's a perfect way to put it. Copying the genetic
pivot without the underlying pricing structure
is exactly how you end up selecting for the wrong
cow in the wrong market. And this leads us to
the 10 to 15 year breed direction trap. This
is the danger of social pressure in the dairy
industry. Social pressure. Yeah. When a bull
starts climbing the TPI lists because of this
new formula, he's going to be all over social
media. The semen reps are going to be pushing
him hard. He'll be on the cover of the glossy
magazine. It feels like you are making a mistake
or falling behind if you don't use him. Oh, he's
a top 10 TPI bull. I have to have him in the
tank. My neighbor is using him. Right. But if
he is only climbing that list because a formula
arbitrarily changed its leverage to favor a ratio
that your specific market doesn't pay for, that
isn't a valid genetic signal. That is mathematical
noise. And if you keep buying these bulls, you
are accidentally steering your herd back toward
those fluid -style cows. Think about history.
We spent 50 years doubling Holstein milk production
by applying intense concentrated sire pressure
based on indexes. If we apply that same immense
pressure blindly to this new flawed TPI, we will
reshape the entire national breed in a way that
permanently bleeds our margins. OK, I can feel
the tension building here. A farmer just finished
the morning milking. They've heard all this math.
They're driving to the feed store right now and
they're thinking, my nitrogen tank is full of
high TPI bulls. What do I do? How do I fix this
without throwing my whole breeding program into
chaos? Weed actionable insights. Exactly. We
have put together a 30, 90 and 365 day playbook
to get your farm out of the TPI protein ratio
trap. Let's start with the immediate action.
The next 30 days, the rule here is simple. Stop
digging. Stop digging. Okay, what's step one?
The first thing you do when you get back to the
farm office, grab a coffee and pull a genetic
audit on your top 5 to 10 heavy use bulls from
the last year. You need to calculate their specific
protein to fat ratio. And how exactly do they
do that? Keep the math simple for me. You literally
just take the bull's PTA protein number and divide
it by his PTA fat number. That's it. Just simple
division. Yeah. If you look at your list and
you see a lot of your heavily used bulls sitting
at a ratio of 0 .65 or higher, and they aren't
in the absolute elite top tier for total combined
fat and protein pounds, meaning they're just
ratio specialists, you need to freeze those semen
orders immediately. Because you are leaning right
into the trap. Exactly. So filter first. When
your rep drives up the lane next week, what exactly
do you say to them? You tell them that Net merit
or cheese merit or just total combined fat and
protein is the new boss on this farm. TPI is
just a secondary filter now if you use it at
all. Tell them you want to keep your bulls in
a sane, profitable P over F band of 0 .50 to
0 .60. And while you're sitting at that desk
doing the audit, do the break -even math we talked
about earlier. Check the check. Pull your last
three milk checks. Take your protein price, divide
it by your fat price. Prove to yourself, with
your own farm's actual revenue data, that the
number is nowhere near 3 .0. Once you see that
0 .8 or 1 .1 sitting there in black and white
on your own settlement sheet, it becomes much,
much easier to confidently ignore the glossy
sire catalogs pushing the high protein ratio.
It really does. It opens your eyes. Okay, that
stops the bleeding today. What about the medium
-term strategy? The next 90 days, we call this
the rebalance phase. This is where you get out
of the office and walk the pens. Do a visual
and data audit of your replacements. Look at
your freshest group of first lactation heifers.
Really look at them. What are we looking for?
Are these new genetics creating big, tall, long
-framed, high -maintenance fluid -type cows?
Or are they creating moderate -sized, highly
efficient component makers? Your index choices
today are physically determining what your pens
look like and how much feed they consume a decade
from now. And when you were sitting down to plan
your next breeding cycles, re -tier your sires
by their actual economic role rather than just
taking the top five from a list. Right. Our playbook
suggests making 60 to 70 percent of your matings
from what we call core sires. These are your
high CFP, sensible ratio, solid net merit bulls.
Then maybe 10 to 20 percent are your specialty
bulls. Maybe those are the luxury high TPI bulls
you use intentionally on specific cows to correct
a trait or extreme type bulls, but you do not
use them across the board. Exactly. And the rest
are clean outsires. Finish off the ratio heavy
straws you already own on lower value cows or
just use beef crosses to generate immediate cash.
You can also take control of your genomic testing
software. Almost every major genetic provider
allows you to compute a custom index just for
your herd. This is a huge tool. Sit down with
your advisor and build a simple score. Something
like 1 .0 times fat plus 0 .8 times protein plus
some heavy credits for fertility and productive
life. Use that specific custom score to prioritize
which heffles you keep and breed, rather than
relying on an external one -size -fits -all index
that clearly doesn't fit your market. And finally,
long -term positioning. The next 365 days, data
-driven independence. This is where you transition
from playing defense to playing offense. This
is how you prove the math on your own farm, under
your own management, set up a split test, tag
and track. Yeah, take a group of daughters from
high TPI ratio bowls. Call them Group R. Then
take a group of daughters from High Total CFP
Bowls Group C. Track their actual physical pounds
of fat and protein shipped over a standard 305
-day lactation. The ultimate proof. The Buy Sire
Milk Check Sanity Check. Yes. When those records
come in, multiply their actual component yields
by your actual historical milk check prices.
If Group C makes $20 to $30 more per cow than
Group R, you have undeniable local on -farm proof
that the breed association formula is mathematically
wrong for your specific dairy. At that point,
you formalize your custom index, you trust your
own data, and you never look back at the national
rankings again. Never. You know, the genetics
revolution over the last half century built the
incredible productive cows we have today. But
it was driven by farmers demanding better output
for their operations. Right. Let's make sure
the concentrated sire pressure we apply today
is paying us, the farmers taking the risk, and
not just padding the cheese yield at the processing
plant down the road. That is the core of it.
Your milk check has to dictate your genetic index.
not the other way around. Do not let a breed
association's mathematical quirk or a desire
to appease processors bleed $17 ,500 out of your
operation every single year. You work way too
hard for those tight margins to just give them
away to a flawed ratio on a piece of paper. Absolutely.
That brings us to the end of our analysis for
today. This has been another deep dive from the
Bullvine podcast. If you want more straight talking,
no BS industry analysis, and if you want to look
at the full article and all the math and case
studies we discussed today, you can find it all
at www .thebullvine .com. And make sure you subscribe
to our deep dives as we are out with new actionable
insights every single day. But before we go,
I want to leave you with one final thought to
mull over while you're out on the tractor finishing
up chores today. Oh, this is a good one. We started
this by talking about how that GPS might be routing
you for someone else's benefit. Well, if the
national organizations setting the genetic standards
are becoming increasingly misaligned with the
economic reality of the farm gate, at what point
do commercial dairymen need to bypass the traditional
breed association indexes entirely and pool their
data to create a fully open source farmer -owned
genetic evaluation system? One built entirely
on farm gate profitability. Exactly. Keep the
wheels turning on that one, and we'll see you
on the next video.