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50 IDENTIFYING RED HOLSTEIN GENETICS


The market for red Holsteins has never been stronger and breeders looking to use red bulls have plenty of choice with more than 150 currently marketed in the UK. Firstly though it’s worth reminding ourselves what exactly is meant by a ‘red’ Holstein and how do you identify one? Two separate genes located on different chromosomes are indicators of red coat colour in Holsteins;


1) the MCR1 gene, sometimes known as the traditional or recessive red gene, has three red versions (or alleles) and one black allele. The red alleles are all recessive to the black allele and so only animals with two copies of any of the red alleles (homozygous) will have a red and white coat colour (at least as a young animal).


2) the Variant red gene has a dominant red allele and so either one copy (heterozygous) or two (homozygous) of this variation will produce an animal with red and white coat colour, regardless of the MCR1 allele carried by the animal. Holsteins are commonly DNA tested for the variations of these genes and carriers will have their names suffixed by the various red colour codes such as;


RDC and BRC which indicate carriers of at least one red allele of MCR1 (RDF signifies no MCR1 red alleles) VRC and VRS which indicate carriers of Variant red alleles (VRF signifies no Variant red alleles) Note than an animal can be labelled VRC and RDF as the latter code refers to the MCR1 gene only.


However, many red coat colour bulls are not tested and are commonly only identified by the convention of having the word ‘RED’ in their name. These will either be homozygous for an MCR1 red allele or carry at least one copy of the Variant red allele. Dutch bulls in particular, which are red and white in colour, often do not carry the word ‘red’ in their name.


The table below shows the top 10 red and white coat colour and red carrier bulls by PLI, plus a selection of other interesting red and RDC bulls, with semen available as of February 2016. Red and white bulls are shown in red font.


Animal Name AMAX


MIDWOLDER ROSWELL STANTONS ELOPED RED


JENNITON AIKMAN RORY-RED POPPE RED HOT DARREL RED MS RIVERBOY ABS POLDARK ODIN P


WILLSBRO ARTWORK TOPSPEED KODAK BLONDIN INTEGRAL HARTFORD L SVEEN P VANDE DOMINANT-RED ONE-RED


ABS BONA FIDE RED APPLES ABSOLUTE-RED


Genetic code PLI £ PLI Rlb % RDC RDC


RDC RDC RDC RDC


RDC RDC VRC VRC


616 579 568 564 564 552 550 549 540 509 432 389 386 360 237 -56


63 63 64 63 62 64 61 62 64 91 64 60 66 65 84 85


TM


2.27 2.54 2.40 1.13 1.28 1.92 1.06 1.70 1.84 -0.78 3.81 3.52 0.84 2.10 0.46 3.13


TM Rlb % 61 61 66 62 57 64 61 59 65 86 65 58 68 67 75 84


AI Co Mastergen Ltd


Genus Breeding Ltd Mastergen Ltd


Cogent Breeding Ltd Genus Breeding Ltd CRV /AIS


Genus Breeding Ltd Mastergen Ltd Semex UK CRV/AIS


Semex UK Mastergen Ltd


Genus Breeding Ltd Mastergen Ltd


Genus Breeding Ltd King Street


* PLI and Type Merit data correct as of February 2016 Those bulls with names in red font have red and white coat colour, such as the high type merit


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