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VikingNews UK 03 2015
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small, european
jersey
populations want closer cooperation international focus on vikingjersey during the danish
national show i n many european countries the jersey populations are too small to calculate breeding values for these animals
. with genomic selection and the possibility to test females, many feel that they are left behind when not having the same options as the jersey farmers in vikinggenetics. during the latest meeting in european jersey forum, ejf, several countries wished to have their animals includ- ed in the nordic cattle genetic evaluation (nav), and the norwegians already started negotiations about this. at first there may be both financial and technical challenges, but without any doubt it will add value to european jersey farmers - and vg - if all work with nordic breeding values. at the moment many animals from small, european popu- lations are in genomic test in both usa and denmark. however this does not make any sense if the animals do not already have national indexes that can be compared to the genomic indexes ? or if only few animals in the herd are in test. t o finish off the world jersey cattle bureau meet- ing in germany in june, a group of approximate- ly 40 international guests visited denmark and the danish national show. if the guests hadn?t paid any attention to dj zuma before their visit to denmark, they will now! the visits in danish herds and not least at the danish national show perfectly showed the high genetic progress in vikingjersey. many par- ticipants, especially from usa, new zealand and australia, haven?t visited denmark since the jersey world congress that was held here in 2002. all of them were impressed by the high genetics and production level as well as the uniform conformation of the modern danish jersey cows. dj zuma daughter no. 1444 from jørn mikkelsen, denmark, was grand champion 2015 at the danish national show. soon we will have a son at vikinggenetics. t he use of x-vik semen is 17-18% of all jer- sey services in viking. this clearly indi- cates that there is focus on breeding live- stock from the herd?s best animals. many farmers combine the x-vik strategy with increasing use of beef semen for the poorest females and at the moment 9% of the vikingjersey females are pregnant with beef sires. combining x-vik, genomic sires and beef is popular 14 vikingnews | september 2015
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