Librarian,
In another post on SP, the question was ask about A2 milk. We have been looking into all of these things. We were first contacted by a Geneseek rep back in July of last year about offering what they call a dairy profile test to our members and the dairy industry which is a test primarily for crossbred dairy animals. Part of that test includes what we are calling the cheese test which is the Kappa Casein, Beta Casein and Beta Lactoglobulin, and their is an A2 test which is separate.
These traits which deal with cheese, yogurt, and other products that are manufactured by the dairy industry, they also can have an impact of beef cattle growth, rate of gain, carcass quality. There is one other trait that is tested for but not shown and that is Leptin. Leptin has to do with carcass quality and tenderness.
After months of communication since July of last year, we were finally able the end of December to get pricing for these test. We have ran some evaluation test just to see what the results would be. These Cheese test and the A2 test are not breed specific, but some of the other traits in the GeneSeek Dairy Profile are.
These tests as I mentioned are able to evaluate crossbred dairy cattle, but are more for the traditional breeds of Holstein, Jersey, Brown Swiss, Ayrshire, Guernsey and Milking Shorthorn. With our registry representing Fleckvieh, Montbeliarde, Swedish Red and White, Red Dane, Norwegian Red and then there is also Normande, we needed to find out if these test would work on these breeds. We have the results in from just a few head but I have not been able to visit with the GeneSeek rep to find out just how good these results really are. Also we have just a few more Fleckvieh animals that we will run the test on and they will also have a sample sent to Germany for genomic testing, this will give us a better comparison.
We feel that these test will have some value for both beef and dairy producers, and it seems that genomics whether we like it or not are here to stay.
