15AGRITECHCAT4: Improving female fertility and calf survival in the UK beef industry

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Fertile suckler beef cows and low calf mortality are essential for profitable beef production systems. Little geneticimprovement has been made for female fertility or calf survival. This project uses national data sets to improve existingfertility traits and develop a new calf survival trait. This will be done using dates of birth and death that are recorded forindustry data and will mean a complete set of calvings being available for each cow, where previously if a cow changedherd or went to a commercial herd we lost part of her calving history. Genomic selection is a novel breeding tool whichincreases the rate of genetic improvement for traits that have traditionally been difficult to improve, like fertility and survival.Genomic breeding values for fertility and survival traits will be developed using single step methodology and will increaserates of improvement, and the overall efficiency of beef production. This will both help to feed the rising population andincrease resource efficiency. To raise awareness and ensure fertility and survival are included in the breeding goal therewill be an extensive knowledge exchange programme. This project is innovative as beef genomics is still in its infancy andthere are currently no breeding tools available for the genetic improvement of survival.