Take a look a the proven list and then the genomic. For years now top genomic bulls have had amazing fertility and lifespan. This hasn't translated to the proven list. Sure the pli keeps going up but it's all based on production. Those bulls that did have good health traits have either lost them or have slipped down the list because of lack of production.
Surely, if genomics was as good as they say, vets, foot trimmers and PLi's should be out of a job now!
Where are these proven ex genomic bulls with high health traits and high pli. The top proven pli list is not full of these type of bulls. Where have they gone. The op also doesn't care about averages. He wants consistent results. He doesn't care the whole breed might be getting better on average, he wants all his heifers to be better than the previous generation.
Only 4 bulls in the top 50 proven pli list are negative fertility, many above plus 10 so I don't understand your point.
I agree it may not work with British Friesian.
To explain, I pick bulls on production then health traits then stick them in the mating program mainly for inbreeding but it automatically corrects for type which I don't mind and we actually need to improve udders imo as we've never bred for type and now yields are increasing udders on our older cows aren't good enough
The point is a few years ago all the top genomic bulls on the list would of been plus 10 for fertility and 0.5 for lifeapan. This hasn't translated to the proven list. Yes there are some good bull but not many. Maybe 3 or 4 what happened to all the others.
There average will be the same don't forget in rough terms the top bulls 3 years ago were circa 500 pli the best proven bulls today are 700 pli way above predictions.
But what is the point in averages. On average test bulls have always been better than proven but like test bulls how are you meant to know which ones will stick. Sure you can use 20 bulls and on average its probably going to work out but what about the 50 percent worse than average. The bottom 10 percent will be hardly be fit to milk. Its fine if your selling a lot but even then it's not easy to tell they a useless until they have been milking a year or 2. Like I have said before great for the breed, pointless for the individual farmer.
I used to think exactly the same my cows certainly aren't show cows but I'd rarely see a heifer classify fair once a year perhaps. There is nothing wrong with the bottom end and any bull can throw a dog occasionally.