ABS Marketing Agent of Angus Sire Alliance Bulls

ABS Global Inc. and Circle A Ranch have formed a marketing agreement for ABS to distribute top Angus Sire Alliance bulls.

The agreement includes the exclusive lease for ABS to market semen globally from the 1996 Angus Sire Alliance first and second place bulls, JLB Exacto 416 and GDAR SVF Traveler 234D, respectively.

The Angus Sire Alliance was developed by Circle A Ranch to help breeders predict profitability differences among sires. Willing Herring and Vern Pierce, University of Missouri-Columbia, along with L.L. Benyshek, University of Georgia, developed the profitability index with an attempt to objectively measure selection emphasis to achieve and maximize profit for production systems. "This concept was developed so that producers could choose genetics based on which bulls would maximize profit in their program," said Herring. "It provides producers with an objective means to practice multiple-trait selection."

The extensive evaluation process began more than two years ago on 19 bulls. Progeny data collected included birth, weaning, backgrounding and yearling weights and carcass data on 675 steers. The sires were ranked using EPDs combined with the relative economic values for a predescribed production system. The progeny profitability value for JLB Exacto 416 is $35.50 and $31.48 for GDAR SVF Traveler 234D, while the average of the reference sires was $18.18.

Not only did these two sires win the first Angus Sire Alliance, they are at the top of the breed for balanced trait genetics. Ranking second and third for Ribeye Area EPD, JLB Exacto 416 and GDAR SVF Traveler 234D also have strong Marbling EPDs, Yearling Weight EPDs that rank at the top 10 percent of the breed, and Birth Weight EPDs that would qualify them as calving ease sires in most breeding programs. ABS plans to release semen on the bulls in early spring.

ABS Global, Inc. is a provider of bovine reproduction services and technologies.

Circle A Ranch founded the Angus Sire Alliance in 1996 with the objective of helping producers carcass test bulls and utilizes its 6,000 commercial Angus cows for proving the sires.