E551 The 52-Point Gap Hiding in Every Jersey Sire Catalog in Canada

About this episode

This episode discusses the discrepancies in Jersey sire catalogs and the implications for dairy cattle breeding in Canada.

Canada's top 10 Jersey sires averaged 99th-percentile LPI last year. Their Reproduction Index sat at the 47th — below breed average. Nobody's printing that. Ten bulls sired 29% of every Jersey calf registered in Canada in 2025. On paper they look untouchable: 99th LPI, 97th Conformation, 100% A2A2. Murray Hunt pulled the subindex profile on the same ten bulls and found a 52-point gap between what the catalogs advertise and what those daughters will actually do in your barn. The Bullvine Podcast breaks down the math, the miss, and the fix. What You'll Learn Why 5 of Canada's 10 most-used Jersey sires sit below average for fertility How a 34th-percentile Milkability Index quietly taxes every robot herd What $3,010-per-head U.S. heifer prices mean for below-average RI genetics Why 97th-percentile Conformation doesn't always pay — per Alcantara et al. 2022 How A2A2 adoption proves breeders move fast when the signal is clear The one-page sire selection protocol to write before your fall semen order Murray Hunt created the original Dollar Difference Formula and led Holstein Canada's Type Classification overhaul in the 1980s. After six decades in dairy cattle improvement, he's still…

People in this episode

Host: The Bullvine

Topics covered

• Jersey sires
• Reproduction Index
• LPI
• dairy cattle improvement
• sire selection
• genetics

Keywords

• Jersey sires
• Reproduction Index
• LPI
• Milkability Index
• A2A2
• sire selection protocol
• dairy genetics

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Lactanet, Jersey Canada, Holstein Canada

Books & works: Alcantara et al. 2022

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