Performance recording helps to take some of the unknown out of breeding, allowing the future performance of an animal to be predicted. It accelerates genetic progress, tightens breeding operations and improves productivity.
An animal’s estimated breeding values (EBVs) produced can assist all decisions, from which animals are used in your breeding programme to what stock to introduce into your herd. When selling stock, the provision of performance figures to prospective buyers can also prove a useful marketing tool.
These figures are expressions of the difference between an individual animal’s genetics and the Hereford genetic base it is compared to, so you can work to get a step ahead of the rest.
Hereford Cattle Society, along with most beef breed societies in the UK, opt to use the Breedplan system which is the most widely beef recording system in the world. Breeders submit data to the society to be sent to ABRI, the providers of Breedplan who generate the EBVs.
If you are a member and wish to begin performance recording your herd, please email hello@herefordcattle.org and request a Breedplan membership pack and start you journey in genetic progression.