EXPERTISE

Genetic selection

is an effective tool for shaping a herd and meeting your breeding objectives. Our ambition here is to select the best breeding stock to produce the best offspring.

Changes in breeding methods, health, social and environmental constraints, labor issues, the quest for performance and genetic progress, increased income from breeding… selection is a concrete and reliable response to the issues facing livestock breeding today and in the future.
With its teams of technicians and engineers, and with the participation of Selection Organizations and partner breeders, AURIVA has been selecting and highlighting high-quality genetics for breeders for over 50 years.

Several selection methods :

Quality is AURIVA’s sole objective

Dairy or suckling breeds, size of reference populations, available data and technologies… the selection processes for each breed are not identical.

Although indexes (genetic values enabling comparison and overall assessment of each bull) are published for evaluated traits, they are not all obtained in the same way. Reflecting the diversity of French livestock, the multiplicity of these territories and the plurality of breeding methods, our breeding programs use all the technical innovations at their disposal, as well as methods that have been tried and tested for decades.

Today and tomorrow genetic progress
AURIVA works with its international, national and local partners to continuously improve the genetic progress of your herds through the joint efforts of the R&D departments and the dairy and suckling divisions:
  • The progression of already known traits, widely used in all breeds or currently being deployed in some.
  • The emergence and perpetuation of new characteristics that will make the difference tomorrow. Thanks to a proactive R&D policy, we are working to identify genetic markers whose heritability or impact will help your herds to progress in a number of areas: performance and income, working comfort, animal hardiness, animal welfare and environmental impact.

How does AURIVA select the best bulls?

Directed couplings and biotechnologies
Our teams of breed technicians and engineers first select the best females on the farm to mate them with the best insemination sires. The male calves resulting from these matings are then rigorously selected and evaluated according to methods that differ from breed to breed.
To multiply the best strains and work more quickly on specific traits, our programs also benefit from the support of the Denguin laboratory and station. Thanks to embryo biotechnology and OPU-IVF, biopsy, sexing and genotyping techniques, we can produce more calves that will meet your expectations in the future.
Phenotyping and/or genotyping
For the Abondance and Tarentaise breeds, male calves are selected after genotyping. Evaluated on the basis of their DNA, thanks to Marker Assisted Selection, and checked for their sexual function, they are then selected on the basis of their genomic results by a genetic commission.
For the Blonde d’Aquitaine and YPERIOS INRA 95 and YPERIOS Excellence Charolais breeds, the male calves selected after genotyping are integrated into the individual control station at Soual. The Individual Control evaluates each bull calf’s growth and feed efficiency according to a very strict protocol under homogeneous conditions.
For the Aubrac, Bazadaise and Gascon breeds, and after genotyping for the Aubrac breed, the performance of the best male calves is evaluated at Racial evaluation stations.
Progeny testing: the reliability of the Blond program.

Unique in the world, in the Blonde d’Aquitaine breed, the genetic value of genotyped bulls selected following Individual Control or Breed Station Control and Sexual Function is measured by a large-scale progeny evaluation.

Their genetic value will be confirmed by the performance of their sons and daughters. This progeny test is carried out at the Casteljaloux station.

Since 2012, AURIVA-Elevage has also carried out on-farm weaning evaluations to offer an ever more complete panel of bulls. Young bulls in the program are evaluated on the performance of their progeny at weaning, in addition to the bulls involved in the Maternal Qualities evaluation at the station.

The Aubrac, Gasconne and Bazadaise breeds are also subject to on-farm IBOVAL progeny evaluation, first at weaning and then for maternal traits.

This attention to testing, and thus to the reliability of the indexes issued, is one of the pillars that enable us to offer you a superior level of quality for the renewal of your livestock.

Find out more here

detailed presentation of all selection programs

Single step

The single-step system introduced in 2022 for dairy breeds will also be rolled out for all suckling breeds in 2024.

Developed by the various players in French and international genetics, the single step allows indexes to be calculated in a single step, harmonized internationally, corrected for genetic progress and all genotyping data to be taken into account.

Find out more: Towards a better representation of genetic progress