Sale price relationships to performance characteristics and genetic merit in beef bulls sold in beef cattle improvement sales and tests in the southeast USA from 1974 to 2011 .

摘要

Herd sires are an important investment for beef cattle producers in the Southeast United States of America (USA). For producers, bull selection decisions are critical to introduce new and compatible genetics into their cow herd. The impact of bull selection affects the cow herd and many calf crops when heifers by these herd sires are retained for breeding replacements. The objective of this study was to determine the relationships over time between bull sale prices and individual performance and measures of genetic merit for bulls sold in the state of Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina. The study was conducted using data from Beef Cattle Improvement Association (BCIA) and Beef Cattle Improvement Program (BCIP) bull sales from 1974 to 2011. All sales maintained a core set of qualifications. These were used in a hedonic pricing model to analyze their impact on the actual sale price for each bull.