August New Graduates Offer Diverse Pedigrees, Performance and Profitability

In this episode of The Select Sires Podcast, Host Ethan Haywood passes the microphone to Jersey Development Manager Herby Lutz and Dairy Sire Marketing Coordinator Marc Bolen as they discuss the newest proven graduate in the Jersey lineup as well as some of the new values around Percent Jersey Ancestry. Then, Senior Holstein Sire Analyst Kevin Jorgensen and Rick VerBeek share great insight on recent daughter-proven sires, what they are seeing in milking daughters of these bulls, and what producers have to say about the impacts that these proven genetics are having in their herds.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Welcome to The Select Sires Podcast, talking Your Success, Our Passion. Starting in three, two, one.

Ethan Haywood

Hello and welcome back to the Select Sires Podcast, I’m your host, Ethan Haywood, and today I am excited to pass the mic over to members of our Sire team to discuss results of the August 2025 proof run. First off Jersey Development Manager Herby Lutz and Dairy Sire Marketing Coordinator Marc Bolen discuss our newest proven graduate in the Jersey lineup as well as some of the new values around Percent Jersey Ancestry.

Herby Lutz

Marc, let's get into the data that came through the system on Tuesday. And why don't you talk about our only graduate this time? 

Marc Bolen

Only graduate, but he was the, I'd say, shoe-in from what we've seen the last few months since April proofs. But the new graduate today is 7JE2023 UNCOMMON. JX-free bull, so he hits that market. He's number 13 for JPI. Being +147 JPI be the number four JX-free JPI sire be number six for HHP$® over +500 for Milk, over +50 CFP, positive DPR, positive mastitis. So that put him as the only bull in the proven ranks over 500 pounds of milk, at least a +1.0 on DPR and a +1.0 mastitis. So he's kind of in a league of his own. The daughters we've seen have been pretty impressive. The three on your screen we pictured within the last two to three months. But really, really a good bull that we thought needed to come to the proven lineup with 137 daughters in his Type proof and 252 in his production proof. So he added 200 daughters this time and held really well, actually went up and we’re really, really satisfied with this bull. And you'll find him as a sire for some of our young bulls in our GForce™ lineup currently. 

Herby Lutz

Yeah, and one thing you'll see new on the slide right there above JPI is PJA. And that's Percent Jersey Ancestry. It's a number that the Jersey Association Board of Directors voted on and came up with. And you see he's a 100. The only way you can be a 100 is to never have any JX in your pedigree. If you've ever had any back there, you'll only ever get to 99. So just another way for people interested in staying in the JX-free realm. Go ahead, Marc. 

Marc Bolen

I almost forgot to talk about his fertility. He's over +3. He's +3.8 on a sexed CFI. So that's our internal fertility data. But then he's also +1.7 SCR. So a really, really good bull. JX-free fertility kind of just checks all the boxes and is easy to use being a Gislev out of the Steve out of a Voltage. So, good to use on that 7JE1758 JX THRASHER {6} blood that everyone's high on and has used.

Herby Lutz

Yeah, this really fits in as an option to get away from the 7JE1789 JX CHATHAM {4} and THRASHER that we have out there right now.

Ethan Haywood

Next up we have Senior Holstein Sire Analysts Kevin Jorgenson and Rick Verbeek who will talk about our Holstein sire lineup after the August 2025 proofs. Rick and Kevin have some great insights on recently daughter-proven sires, what they are seeing in milking daughters of these bulls, and what producers have to say about the impacts that these proven genetics are having in their herds. With that, here’s Kevin and Rick.

Kevin Jorgensen

We had 12 new proven graduates. We won't touch on all of them today in the essence of time, but I think it's extremely exciting that we brought in 12 new graduates to the proven lineup this time, and they're sired by nine different sires. And eleven of the 12 are top-one hundred TPI® bulls, and one is a breed-leading Type bull in the Showcase™ program that we'll touch on just a little bit later. So in terms of not just graduating bulls to graduate, these are major leaguers. Five of them are in the top 50 of the breed, so they're certainly at the top of the heap. Our rankings are, as typical, right where we want them to be. We want to be the breed leader, and we have the most proven bulls on the Top 100 TPI list. If you go to top 100 HHP$, again, same situation. We want to be in a leadership position, and fortunately this summary gave us that opportunity. The other thing that we look at most often is, 97% reliable. What you bought three years ago, and these new graduates were very exciting, very marketable, familiar names. What did you get when you bought semen three years ago, and how are they performing? This continues to be a dominating position for us, and we're very, very proud of that. But as we get into this, I'm going to turn it over to Rick, because he's got the floor on one of the most exciting things we've had happen here at Select Sires in quite a while, Rick. Bring it on.

Rick VerBeek

Hey, thanks, Kevin. And it's great to be with all of you here once again on our Facebook Live. And those charts and graphs that you just showed really kind of all of a sudden start to validate the way it felt on Tuesday when the evaluation started to roll off the computers and we started to see what our bulls have done. And certainly one of the most anticipated genetic evaluations this time is 7HO16276 OCD Trooper SHEEPSTER. It doesn’t take a lot to realize how important this bull is for our genetic program. This first run was 78 daughters in 20 herds. The fact that he went up kind of across the board bodes really, really well for the entirety of our program. And so congratulations to the entire OCD family, the Lambs up there in Batavia, New York, for what this bull is just now starting to do. And, you know, we all got in here Sunday night, had some opportunity Monday to go through the barns and meet some new people. Our summer intern, Kevin, Lindsay Ferrea, interestingly, one of her icebreakers was to ask everyone what their favorite bull was. And that was a time to reflect a little bit on some of the good oldies from the past. And she got a lot of different names, which I think is a testament to the program and its sustainability. I'm not saying we're going to put SHEEPSTER on that list of all-time favorites today, but check with me in a year and a half or two years, because he is on that trajectory of being one of the all-time greats. Number two on the TPI list has all the boxes checked for TPI, HHP$, NM$, continues to be a big CFP bull. And then I think one of the things I love about it the best, Kevin, is we start to look at some of the daughters in the pictures here. It's that moderate linear. He is definitely a bull when you go out and see the daughters, they've got width of chest. They've got, especially for young heifers that are just fresh, width of chest, width of rump, substance of bone, beautiful shapely udders. And if I think this bull has any upward mobility, it is in that udder composite. Because to me, these are beautiful, youthful udder cows with nice height and width of rear udder, correct teat size, shape, placement, the whole nine yards. 

Kevin Jorgensen

And I think this underscores the other thing. is that on that linear, you saw the teat placement. Linears are right in the center, and I'd say of all the daughters I've seen, that's been the most impressive thing is that those teats are dead center in the middle of the quarters. We keep hearing about that from producers and I think he's going to deliver on that very very well.

Rick VerBeek

Yep. Robot friendly all the way around ease of milk ability all the way around and so you just can't say enough about what this bull has done what he has meant and means to our program and for him to start out here at number two on the official proven list is a great way for this week to get started here at Select Sires The second new graduate we'll talk about is 7HO16176 Lilra S-S-I GD WAR GEAR. The 7HO15167 GAMEDAY son out of the excellent LIONEL 1910 cow at Siemers Holsteins. Here's another first run bull with 77 daughters in 24 herds, 20 daughters classified. Starts out with a really impressive 1.56 on udder composite. And when you start to, now at the end of the week, do some rankings. That is the fifth highest udder composite bull in the top 100 TPI listing. And so he's one of the highest-ranking TPI bulls in the breed. He has great mastitis resistance. He has a high sire conception rate with great fertility. So this bull coming in, we have six sons in our program. One of the most important is a bull called 7HO17369 FRANKTHETANK, that we have used quitea bit as a mating sire. Another is 7HO17521 CROSBIE that got some use as a mating sire. So again, two bulls right at the top of our program, adding daughter data and really validating their place in the market, in the program, and what they're going to do from a genetic contribution standpoint. 

Kevin Jorgensen

The exciting thing about these bulls is that we probably got, not to say that Gnostic KeJo was always right, but the prognostication ahead of proofs, so we had a list of bulls that we thought we were going to graduate. We went out and looked at the daughters and saw that our team did such a marvelous job, whether it was north of the border in Claire Swale and all the photos that she's got for us and you'll show some later on some of the shots she got. Mickey Gehin and the team in Wisconsin. And so much daughter photos, this one here up in Canada on a bull like this. I think it's very exciting that we've got the goods or the receipts to show how good these bulls really are. 

Rick VerBeek

And the third new graduate, 7HO15862 RMD -Dotterer SSI R ELVIN. I challenge anyone anywhere to find a bull like ELVIN with a sire stack of Rayshen x 7HO14231 BARCELONA the next dam is a 94-point 7HO12788 FRAZZLE that's been a big part of our program and been a great cow and well known throughout the industry but this outcross bull has really delivered once again he has always been a high component bull for both percent fat and protein again first run here was 79 daughters in 22 herds so, he substantiates those high solids and high fat and protein with also outstanding yield deviations for those two traits as well. He's an A2A2 sire. Here's another bull. It's going to give you a little bit of size, a little bit of width, and some frame. Very nice foot and leg confirmation. Really solid all-around udder confirmation. We do want to protect him a little bit in the height and width of rear udder, but we have made... so much progress in the breed with high wide rear udders out there that this bull is a nice place to use it. I know we've used it a lot as a mating sire. We have seven sons currently in the program. We'll talk about at least one of those later on. And so him once again, validating his place in our program is so big for these first three bulls we talked about here this morning. 

Kevin Jorgensen

And again, this daughter here, She doesn't have any problem heights and width of rear udder. We're going to talk about this family more later. This is a daughter at Berryridge, sister to 7HO16735 KARL, and 250HO17075 AKSHAY-P, didn't see any problems with the rear udder height and width on these. And as we ran out and saw these earlier this year, this was a bull that I kept telling the team, the most pleasant surprise in the barns I'm seeing are how good these ELVIN’s are. And he certainly is delivered on that. Very excited about what he's going to contribute. Another couple of bulls that, as my travels with either international guests or being on a farm over the last several months has been a couple of sons of a cow that was one of my absolute favorites of the Sandy-Valley program. I remember distinctly seeing Sandy-Valley Escanaba-ET (EX92-EX-MS-GMD-DOM) two weeks fresh as a two-year-old up at Sandy-Valley a few years ago. And I told Greg Bauer, this is the next great cow in your herd. And again, I'm so glad that it's come to fruition. She's now EX-92. We had five sons of this cow. Two of them graduated this week. The first one may be one of the most pleasant surprises, not that we didn't like, but really surprised us on the production side of it, and that's 14HO15831 Sandy-Valley Taos EAST . 7HO15112 TAOS son with +1,789 pounds of Milk, high protein, right near the top 30 bulls of the breed for GTPI, but he's a bull that his daughter yield deviation is almost 300 higher than what his proof is today, and on 361 daughters already. So this bull, we thought he's been a stalwart in our G-Force+­™ lineup. He's a super high fertility bull, and he's got that great cow family. And we went out just a week ago yesterday and pictured these two cows here on the screen at Vir-Clar Farms up in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and then did this group photo. We could have pulled eight or nine more of them out, but in the essence of time, just very consistent, like his linear shows. They're not as big as the next brother I'm going to talk about, but they're solid. They're great uddered. and they're trouble-free cows, a bull that I'm very excited about and needs. But his full brother has had a big impact on our program, 7HO15937 Sandy-Valley Esquire. And this bull we did use as a sire father. We've got seven sons of him, including 7HO17002 CHUCK and 7HO17163 HAYES, and several bulls from this family that we have used them subsequently as a sire father. A bull that came out, again, with 273 daughters. He's got 41 scored, +1,311 Milk, 2.75 SCS. He's a Mastitis ResistantPRO® and RobotPRO® bull, A2A2. But when I saw that first daughter back in February down in southern Illinois, that's a full sister to CHUCK. And I was like, these are going to be special. They got great udders. So we're very, very excited about what this bull's been able to do. The daughters, again, up in Canada. This one here over in western Canada, you see those kind of udders on cows are like this one here. These are the kind that if you find bulls that you use as sire fathers and they make cows like this, The two of us get pretty excited. The next bull is another new graduate in the Accelerated lineup as well. And another pleasant surprise as I was out traveling, particularly at Larson Acres. 14HO15926, Level-Plain TDG Van Gogh of Old Breton, Wisconsin. A little bit different in that diversity department again. Being a 7HO15069 TOP DOG son from an 88-point Acura, then an 86-point Achiever daughter. A little different pedigree, but he's our merit specialist. He's a top ten NM$ bull for proven bulls in the breed, Mastitis ResistantPRO® bull again, and then the added bonus of being a great HHP$ bull, A2A2, one of our best for CW$™. So he does a lot of things right with a different pedigree, more moderate size, very commercially friendly, but the daughters here pictured, all four of the daughters I'm going to show you are at the same farm, and they stood out extremely, and there's several more of those that have done really, really well. Another bull we use is a sire father. We have 10 VAN GOGH sons in the lineup. We use them as a high NM$ sire. So when you think about these kind of bulls that all come in the top, and VAN GOGH will be a top-50 TPI bull in the industry, and then one of the higher NM$ bulls of the industry, and used as a sire father, it solidifies every other bull down the stream, and that's what we really get excited about. 

Rick VerBeek

Yeah, another one of those big-time excitement bulls is 7HO16103 Penn-England CHEW-P. CHEW-Pis one of the most important foundation sires of our bull program. Again, a first proof here with a 128 daughters and 30 herds. And boy, has this bull met our expectations. I just was at Penn-England a few weeks ago. His dam is still there in the herd, third lactation, doing extremely well. And once we had the opportunity to start getting out and seeing daughters again here, Kevin, this bull, you get a lot of confidence and a lot of likability in what he is doing. Again, +3125 TPI. So he's the number 76 bull on the top 100 TPI. He is the fifth highest Polled bull on the TPI list. And then all bulls, regardless of horns or Polled, he is the sixth highest Type bull and the 10th highest udder composite. So he is kind of following in the footsteps of his maternal grandsire, 7HO14160 LUSTER-P, in terms of the type of cow that he is creating with the good components, the A2A2, the BB. You look at that linear profile again, right dead center on teat length, tall, stylish dairy cows with beautiful, beautiful udders. So what CHEW-P is doing, we have 14 sons. He is the sire of 250HO17009 HOWLAND-P and 250HO17075 AKSHAY-P that you're going to talk about here a little bit. So again, to solidify where we have gone with his sons and his offspring in our genetic program is just magnificent to see him enter our program here today on these lofty levels. 

Kevin Jorgensen

We get told that we're a little superstitious in this shop because we are. But Jordan made a comment last week that this bull may be, outside of SHEEPSTER, the most important bull that we're using as a sire father because he's the anchor of our entire bull dominance that we're going to have for a long period of time. And so we're really excited that this bull is going to continue to be a breed leader. And daughters like this, this is AKSHAY-P’s full sister. 

RickVerBeek

Yeah, the next bull we might have a couple of technical difficulties. We're working here, so hopefully this is still streaming live and you can hear us. But  250HO15955 AOT Parfect HARMONY, a 7HO15085 PARFECT son from the VG Hallmark daughter. The next dam is the EX Habitan cow. A cow that has a major influence on our program and we'll continue to talk about her influence as we move throughout the day here. But HARMONY enters the top 100 TPI at number 92. But then the special thing about him is that outstanding Type and outstanding linear. 47 daughters and nine herds this time. This is his second proof. So at 482 daughters and a 100 herds, he is well on his way to establishing high reliability. When you look at all the different bulls that are out there at this time, he is the number one bull for Type in the top one hundred and the number three udder composite bull. So when you combine famous cow family, lofty rankings for Type, udder composite. Plus he's +1,314 pounds of milk. He's terrific sire conception rate bull, with this cow family. And then the daughter material, the daughter pictures that we have established on this bull. I mean, if this bull isn't on allocation from week one or two, I will be shocked because this bull has delivered everything we hoped he could be from his pedigree, from his genomic prediction to just outstanding special Type. And so there's a lot of really nice PARFECT sons out there. 

Kevin Jorgensen

He might be one of the best. And the other nice part is getting that daughter on the top there. We just pictured this daughter again, last Thursday, she's 84-points knew we needed to have something because we liked them. You said we use them as a sire father. 7HO16954 Duckett DIESEL is one of the bulls that we use in this program from him. And then Claire sent us some great stuff from up in Canada. And you look at daughters like this in the barn and who wouldn't love to have cows like this? And I think he's going to do this on a pretty consistent basis. The last of the new proven graduates we're going to talk about is certainly one of my favorites, a bull that we have quite great faith in. Again, sure things are never for sure, but most people around here, I said the one bull I know is going to graduate next week is 250HO16115 PAZZLE, I have seen way to many of them to not know that this bull is going to be a major player in the Type world, and he does so many unique things. Obviously needs no introduction, he is a very popular Showcase bull, out of the world-famous cow, Siemers Lmda Paris 27856-ET (EX-91-EX-MS-GMD-DOM), and a brother to PARFECT and 7HO15523 PARSLY and 250HO17567 PALDWYN  and all the other brothers. But this bull's always been special to me in that we put two of the three best cow families at Siemers Holsteins together in one package, the Rozs' and the Parris'. He's a great component bull. Not going to be a Milk bull. Knew it from what I'd seen. But what he's going to do in terms of making long-living cows with those great mastitis values, his A2A2, his BB, But I hear a lot from people all the time about strength to saturation, strength to saturation. This bull's +1.0 on stature, but he's 1.77 on strength. And that's what we see in the daughters. I think they're incredibly consistent. They're black, silky, they're beautiful udder. And whether it's down here, he's made some show winning heifers already. The Liddleholme heifers that did so well last year. And then you look at daughters like this. This is the same cow that Claire Swale did multiple angles on up at Westcoast. And when they make them like this, that kind of strength, those kind of smackdown udders, I'm very, very glad that we have eight PAZZLE sons in the lineup. And they're going to continue to, this bull's going to continue to have great influence. And he's got some great international rankings. He's number one over in the UK. He's 14 on confirmation in Canada. So a great, great graduate in that respect.

Ethan Haywood

Thanks Herby, Marc, Kevin & Rick for all of your insights, and thanks to every team member in the barns, in the labs, in the warehouses, on the road and behind the scenes for making our sire lineups so successful. We hope you are able to find a sire for every desire in the Select Sire’s lineup, and look forward to talking next time.