The Australian Wagyu Association (AWA) is proud to announce the commencement of what we hope to be a long and successful partnership with Vytelle, as the AWA Feed Efficiency Partner.
Vytelle, an industry leading IVF company, merged with GrowSafe in 2020 and proudly supports the Australian Wagyu Sector with comprehensive programs featuring feed intake and in-pen weighing technology, combined with remote support analytics and insights.
The new partnership with Vytelle will unlock discounts to AWA members who wish to purchase Vytelle technology (formerly known as GrowSafe) for their own operations and is aimed at bringing to the Wagyu Sector the latest technology to advance the industry, in terms of net feed intake and feed efficiency measures.
Vytelle is committed to partnering with AWA and its members to make their technology and analytics available and to reduce the barriers to collecting valuable feed efficiency traits. Vytelle’s Beef Genetics Program encompasses all the technology that beef producers are familiar with from GrowSafe with highly informative analytics including breeding values for feed efficiency. Vytelle has the world’s largest feed efficiency analysis with more than 80,000 animals measured worldwide producing breeding values for over 260,000 animals.
Recording of net feed intake has been a core focus of the AWA/Kerwee/MLA Net Feed Intake Project since 2017. Leading feed efficiency sires were awarded at the 2021 WagyuEdge Conference and the Kerwee Net Feed Intake project is continuing to take Wagyu feeder cattle for the project until 2023.
The AWA is increasing its focus on measuring net feed intake over the coming years as part of the AWA-Progeny Test Program. The AWA is excited about the new partnership with Vytelle to enable the Wagyu Sector to obtain additional capacity to undertake recording net feed intake data alongside the flagship Kerwee net feed intake project.
In-line with AWA guidelines to maintain 0.8kg per day gain from birth up to feedlot entry, many Wagyu producers have their own significant feeding operations for backgrounding their feeders to achieve high feedlot entry weights. These animals can be recorded for net feed intake on-farm, prior to feedlot entry.
The AWA/Vytelle feed efficiency partnership will help the sector to obtain additional feed efficiency data prior to feedlot entry, producing more data which will assist EBV development and understanding of genetic variation in feed efficiency. Increased industry capacity for net feed intake testing will enable further research such as testing the relationship between early life net feed intake vs later life net feed intake in Wagyu – some of which are on feed for 600+ days.
To kick off the partnership, AWA will host the Vytelle team as part of the Wagyu Webinar series, for Wagyu Webinar #10 on Tuesday 19 October, at 4:30pm AEDT. To register for Wagyu Webinar #10 CLICK HERE