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Premier Sires
Premier Sires is not only the profitable breeding option, it ’s the reliable option. There are several aspects to reliability:
- Does Premier Sires deliver what LIC promises each year?
- How reliably proven are the bulls in the team?
- Does the team live up, on reproof, to the team average BW? In other words, how reliable is the team BW?
- How reliable is the Premier Sires product?
PREDICTED VS ACTUAL
We know the provisional composition of the Premier Sires team by March. Even at the beginning of the spring mating period, we still do not know the team ’s exact composition until the Forward Pack has identified itself from early lactation information. So how do we manage to market and sell Premier Sires to about 70% of New Zealand dairy farmers when nobody knows the exact composition of the team?
Premier Sires is a unique product that sells itself on the strength of its reputation and delivery of its promise. At the beginning of the season, we make an informed prediction (or calculation) based on what we know of our proven and still-to-be proven bulls, a vast amount of experience, and many other factors. That ’s the promise part of the marketing.
Then, towards the end of the calendar year, we calculate and announce (usually announce on the Livenews page of the Dairy Exporter) how the teams matched up to our predictions.
The following charts for each breed show how the predicted BW (announced at the beginning of the year) and the actual BW (known at the end of the season) compared:
Holstein-Friesian team weighted average BW
| |
Predicted BW
AE July/August |
Actual* BW
AE December
|
Difference |
|
|
|
|
|
| 1996 |
72 |
81.5 |
+9.5 |
| 1997 |
102 |
107.9 |
+5.9 |
| 1998 |
90 |
91.7 |
+1.7 |
| 1999 |
98 |
105.4 |
+7.4 |
| 2000 |
127 |
121.2 |
-5.8 |
| 2001 |
152 |
154 |
+2.0 |
| 2002 |
188 |
189.7 |
+1.7 |
| 2003 |
225 |
222 |
-3.0 |
Jersey team weighted average BW
| |
Predicted BW
AE July/August |
Actual* BW
AE December
|
Difference |
|
|
|
|
|
| 1996 |
83 |
85.5 |
+2.5 |
| 1997 |
93 |
90.3 |
-2.7 |
| 1998 |
97 |
99.3 |
+2.3 |
| 1999 |
106 |
107.7 |
+1.7 |
| 2000 |
136 |
128.1 |
-7.9 |
| 2001 |
160 |
162 |
+2.0 |
| 2002 |
201 |
200.3 |
-0.7 |
| 2003 |
228 |
225 |
-3.0 |
|
* Actual BW is based on the doses dispatched. |
Because Premier Sires usually meet or exceed our predictions, they build on their reputation for reliability.
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