KANSAS CITY, Missouri (April 8, 2021) – The American Shorthorn Association Board of Directors met to discuss the Shorthorn breed participation at the 2022 Cattlemen’s Congress and 2022 National Western Livestock Show.

The Board of Directors unanimously approved the 2021-2022 ASA Point Show System recognizing the 2022 Cattlemen’s Congress as a super national and the 2022 National Western Livestock Show as a regional show. The National Shorthorn Summit Sale will be held at Cattlemen’s Congress.

The approved show system will recognize five regions, each having two regional shows, one super regional show and one national show. Regional Awards for the five regions will use the four shows in each region for point calculations. The American Shorthorn Association will recognize one national show within each region and two super national shows for a total of seven shows used for National Award calculations.

“We are excited to announce Cattlemen’s Congress as a super national show for our membership,” said Montie Soules, Executive Secretary/CEO of ASA. “Our new show system expands the available point shows to allow more breeders to exhibit across the country. We look forward to seeing our show participation grow for the 2021-2022 show season.”

The complete ASA Point Show System will be announced to our membership in the May/June issue of Shorthorn Country and will be available at shorthorn.org. The announcement will include participating shows for the 2021-2022 show season and point distribution for each show level.

About ASA

The American Shorthorn Association’s mission is to serve all members and enhance the value of the Shorthorn breed by managing data, maintaining the integrity of the herdbook, educating members and communicating the value of Shorthorn cattle resulting in the expanded use of Shorthorn genetics in the U.S. beef industry. Visit www.shorthorn.org to learn more.

American Shorthorn Association : 7607 NW Prairie View Road, Kansas City, MO 64151: Phone 816.599.7777

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The National Sire Test (NST) program has been a valuable tool for testing the ability of Shorthorn genetics to perform in a real-world setting. The third and final year of the NST and our partnership with the University of Illinois provided us with more data on a genetically diverse bunch of Shorthorn sires. Once again, we were able to collect a full set of data on Shorthorn-influenced cattle from birth to rail. The NST provides breeders the opportunity to test the genetics in their breeding program in a real-world setting while gaining more progeny data on their sires. From a big picture standpoint, the NST gives ASA more information on the breed to show to the industry that our cattle have the capability to be used as a profitable piece of their breeding program.

As was the theme with just about every walk of life in 2020, the National Sire Test experienced some unexpected hiccups and changes to plans. With the Tyson plant in Joslin, IL having capacity cut due to Covid-19 restrictions, the cattle had to stay on feed longer than anticipated before they were able to be harvested. Like previous installments of this program, the ten enrolled sires were bred to 200 U of I cows at their Dixon Spring research farm in December 2018 for these fall-born 2019 calves. After weaning, the calves were moved to the beef farm on campus for the feeding trial and finishing phase. The cattle were on feed for a slightly longer time period than in the past. You will see this longer feeding period reflected in weights on these animals. Below are data compilations of all the sires from the 2019 calf crop. Data is broken down into steers and heifers by sire.

I want to thank all the breeders that participated in this program over the past three years. It has been very rewarding to see Shorthorn-sired cattle perform to industry standards and validate that this breed deserves a chance to play a role in the commercial cattle industry in the United States. Without the help and cooperation of Dr. Dan Shike at the University of Illinois, we wouldn’t have been able to make this project happen. Special thanks to him and his team for all their work, data collection, and being a gracious host and partner over the years of the NST.

March brings spring and a time for new beginnings, including some changes at the American Shorthorn Association!

Emily Velisek, the ASA Director of Events, Show and Membership activities left her job at the ASA at the end of February. Emily joined the ASA staff in July of 2017 and we watched her grow in her position during her time here. We enjoyed working with her and wish her all the best for her future in Iowa! She will be missed but we know we will see her down the road.

Matt Woolfolk, the ASA Director of Performance Programs, Performance Data and Commercial Acceptance recently got engaged and will be leaving us in April. He will still continue to work in his current position. We look forward to our continued work with Matt, even if it isn’t full-time. We are so excited for him and his future with his soon-to-be bride. Congratulations Matt!

Cassie Reid has joined us as Customer Service Specialist and Co-Director of Shows, Event and Membership Services. In this position she will provide customer support and assist with press releases and eblasts. She will also coordinate shows, events and communicate with membership.  

Reid comes to the American Shorthorn Association from the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds & Event Center(OEF) in Springfield, Mo. where she served most recently as the Livestock Director. During her 6-year tenure at OEF, she was active with the International Association of Fairs and Expositions (IAFE), graduating from the Institute of Fair Management in December of 2018. Most recently, Reid served on the IAFE’s Young Professionals Initiative Steering Committee. Reid began her career in 2014 as the Assistant Ag Director at OEF. She is a 2015 alumna of Missouri State University in Springfield, Mo. with a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Communications. Reid originally hails from Bosworth, Mo. on her family’s diversified row crop and cattle farm. As a 4-H & FFA member, Reid primarily exhibited Shorthorn & Charolais cattle & Boer Goats throughout her youth.

“I look forward to engaging with the members of the American Shorthorn Association and seeing success throughout all aspects of the breed,” Reid said. “My experience in the fair industry provides the confidence needed to see association goals flourish, from start to finish.”

Wade Minihan has joined us as Customer Service Specialist and Co-Director of Shows, Event and Membership Services. In this position he will provide customer support, assist with DNA and weights and measurements management for performance data. He will also coordinate shows, events and communicate with membership.  

 Minihan grew up in Blaine, Kansas on a Commercial Cow/Calf and Registered Hereford cattle operation. While growing up, his family showed cattle at the state and national level. He was an active member of the American Junior Hereford association, as well as, the Kansas Junior Hereford association where he served on the junior board. Minihan graduated from Fort Hays State University, with a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness, with a minor in marketing. While at FHSU, he was involved in many clubs/organizations on campus. Minihan was an intern in 2019 at the American Shorthorn Association.

“I think my internship gave me good knowledge and helped prepare me for this position,” Minihan said. “My internship gave me knowledge of the Shorthorn breed and many connections with people involved in the association. I am excited for this new opportunity and look forward to working with the breeders.”

The ASA is excited to welcome two new members to our team. We may go through a small transition period at ASA during training of our new staff members, but we still will be available to assist our membership! After the two new staff members are trained, you can call in and receive assistance from anyone in the office. All staff will be trained to assist you in the registry.

The ASA Annual Meeting will be held virtually on February 6^th at 10 a.m. central time zone.

Delegates, you have received an email with information about the annual meeting. You will receive more emails as we have more information! 
ASA members, we will send out an eblast as we get closer to the date of annual meeting with information on how to join the Zoom meeting!

General Information for Shorthorn Breeders: 

• Shorthorn exhibitors should be able to get into the barn on Thursday, January 7^th. The time of move in will depend on how quickly they can clean the trash out from the breed before. 
• The ASA would like for breeders to be in the barns by Friday, January 8^th in the evening. Cattlemen’s Congress has not put this time out, but we are hoping for this. 
• We have decided to change our check-in time to earlier as you can get in earlier. Check-in will be Saturday, January 9^th from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. (noon). There will be no check-in after this time!
• We do not plan to weigh animals at check-in. We are hopefully, planning to weigh only Open Cattle one their way to the show ring as we are supposed to have scales for that. 
• Tentative Show Schedule (will continue to be tentative up until the last minute, please note some times have changed from what was posted)
  • Sunday, January 10^th at 8 am Shorthorn Pen Show in the Performance Arena. 
  • Sunday, January 10th at 3 pm, Deck the Stalls junior fundraiser
  • Monday, January 11^th at 8 am Junior Purebred, Junior ShorthornPlus followed by Open ShorthornPlus Females then Open ShorthornPlus Bulls.
  • Monday January 11^th at 5 pm The Summit National Shorthorn Sale 
  • Tuesday, January 12^th at 8 am Open Purebred Bulls followed by Open Purebred Females.

Hotels for Shorthorn National Show in Oklahoma City

Headquarters: Best Western Plus Saddleback Inn :: 4300 SW 3^rd St. :: Oklahoma City, OK 73108 :: 405.947.7000 :: American Shorthorn Association Exhibitor :: Rate: $74.99 King, $79.99 Double

Hilton Garden Inn Oklahoma City Airport :: 801 S Meridian :: Oklahoma City, OK 73108 :: 405.942.1400 :: American Shorthorn Association :: Rate: $87.00 King or Queens :: Booking Link

By the International Genetic Solutions Science Team

1.  A new definition of contemporary groups based on the age of the dam.

Regardless of how users designate contemporary groups (CG), all calves born from first-calf dams will be placed into a separate CG from calves out of mature cows. Given the vast majority of producers actually man- age this age group separately, it is reasonable to define their calves as their own CG. Handling these as separate CG will reduce the environmental noise caused by differ- ent management strategies and biological constraints for this age group.

2.  Milk modeling updates.

The magnitude, and even direction, of the correlation between weaning weight direct and milk, has been long debated in scientific circles. In fact, there is a wide range of estimates that exist in the scientific literature. Given that, the science team developed a model that assumes milk and weaning weight direct are independent (i.e., genetic correlation of 0). In addition, with some of the other proposed updates, it was discovered that the evalua- tion solved more effectively when genomics were removed for Milk EPDs. In light of this discovery, the IGS Milk EPD will not use genomic information for the time being.

3.  Different variances for different sexes.

Males usually have a higher growth potential than females simply due to gender. As a consequence, the variation associated with their weights also tends to be greater. This difference in the amount of variation between the sexes are set to a male scale in the up-dated growth trait predictions.

4.  New DNA Marker subset.

As the number of genotyped animals has increased, so has our ability to estimate marker effects and identify subsets that are more predictive. Relative to growth traits, a new (and larger) subset of markers has been identified to add more accuracy to EPD.

5.  Accounting for different birth weight collection methods.

When we began looking into growth trait data, we discovered that not all birth weights followed expected amounts of variation. Some of the examples of reduced variation included weights rounded to the nearest 5 pounds, reduced variation when hoof tapes were used, and likely-fabricated data with little to no variation. Some of these data are useful, but they are clearly on a different scale and need to be treated appropriately. Dr. Bruce Golden developed a way to use machine learning to recognize unique features of each class of birth weight observation and predict how it was obtained. By accounting for the various categories, the genetic evaluation is still able to use submitted records that fall out of biological expectations for most scenarios, while more accurately accounting for different practices of collecting the weights.

Results of Updates to Growth Model

With these proposed changes, a considerable amount of work went into testing if the new models improved growth trait predictions. One of the most common procedures for evaluating updates to EPD systems is to exclude a certain portion of the phenotypes available, run the evaluation, and compare the correlation of the EPD from two systems to the phenotypes that were removed from the evaluation (higher correlation is bet- ter). For these updates, this procedure was used where all animals born after 2018 were excluded from the evaluation system and then comparisons between the current growth trait EPDs and the updated EPDs were made to this phenotypic information. The results for each of the analyses are presented in the following table.

Pearson correlation between parental average EPDs and excluded phenotypes from animals in the IGS genetic evaluation that were born in 2018 or later.

Trait	Updated Evaluation	Previous Evaluation
Birth Weight	0.52	0.50
Weaning Weight	0.38	0.34
Yearling Weight	0.45	0.37

The results in the table above show the evaluation updates had higher correlations to phenotypes than  the previous growth trait models. This equates to more precise EPDs for Birth, Weaning, and Yearling Weight.

An additional trait that is evaluated with the growth analysis is the Milk EPD. A Milk EPD represents the genetic difference in calf weaning weight based on the maternal environment provided by the dam. Due to the nature of this trait being the maternal component of weaning weight, a different validation strategy must be used to evaluate the updated predictions. To evaluate the updated Milk predictions an expected weaning weight for the excluded animals was formed using the following equation:

Predicted Weaning Weight = Calf WW EBV + Dam’s Milk EBV

This predicted weaning weight was then correlated with the excluded weaning weight phenotypes. Again, the updated predictions of Milk had higher correlations compared to the previous Milk EPDs (0.42 vs. 0.39, respectively). These results show that the updated predictions more precisely predict the weaning weight of an animal than the currently published evaluation. Breeders may notice reranking of animals with the release of the growth trait updates. While the change may be unsettling, the end results by every measure have shown an improvement in the precision of the growth trait predictions.