Parentage Verification: Some Interesting Statistics

Looking at online pedigrees the other night, I found some interesting statistics on Parentage Verification on the ADCA website.

• 32,039 - The total number of cattle registered with the ADCA as of Dec. 7, 2014.
• 20,182 - The number of Dexters born since April 2000, registered with the ADCA.  If you search the registry by "Birthdate," you will find animals born in April 2000 beginning on page 475 and running through the next 807 pages, for a total of 20,182 Dexters.  (There are 25 animals per page, although the count sometimes begins or ends in the middle of a page.  Some of those would be steers, of course, and not used for breeding.)  
• April 2000 - Why is it significant?  Keep reading . . .

Searching by "Parentage DNA on the ADCA website brings up some interesting results:  

• 791 Dexters have a genotype on file.  
• 2,341 Dexters are “Sire Qualified."
• 71 Dexters are “Dam Qualified.”  
• 1,175 Dexters are “Sire and Dam Qualified.”  

If you search the “Sire and Dam Qualified” animals by "Birthdate," you will see several things:

• The first two animals have no birthdate listed, and one was born in 1994.  Excluding these three animals . . .
• April 2000 was the birthdate of the oldest “Sire and Dam Qualified” animal.  
• 20,182 - The number of Dexters born after April 2000, any one of which could be “Sire and Dam Qualified.”  
• 1,172 - The number of Dexters born since April 2000 that have been "Sire and Dam Qualified."  
• 5.8% - The percentage of Dexters born since April 2000 that have been "Sire and Dam Qualified."  

Let's go back just to 2010, the last four years . . .

• 7,564 - The number of registered Dexters born since 2010.  
• 960 - The number of Dexters born since 2010 that have been “Sire and Dam Qualified.”  
• 12.7% - The percentage of Dexters born since 2010 that have been "Sire and Dam Qualified."  
• On the rise -  The percentage of fully PV'd Dexters born since 2010.
• 87% - The chance you still run when buying any four-year old registered Dexter that its parents have not been qualified.  You can hope for the best, but you have no guarantee that that animal's pedigree is what it says it is.
• 215 - The number of breeders accounting for the 1,175 "Sire and Dam Qualified" animals.  (It’s important to realize that sometimes it is an owner rather than the breeder who “Sire and Dam Qualified” the animal, as is the case for one of ours.)  Keeping this in mind . . .
• 4 - The number of breeders accounting for 321 of the 1,175 fully PV’d animals, a whopping 27% of all “Sire and Dam Qualified” Dexters!  
• 9 - The number of breeders accounting for 465 of the PV’d animals, almost 40%.

I did not have a way--short of counting the number of breeders on 1,282 pages of the ADCA registry--to calculate how many breeders currently have Dexters registered with the ADCA.  It would be interesting to know what percentage of all breeders are actually doing PV.  Considering that nine breeders have done almost 40% of all PV'd animals, I would guess the percentage is not great.  However, I have two more very significant statistics for you . . .

• 12 - The number of Area Directors plus the President of the ADCA, currently in the process of discussing Parentage Verification and the direction the ADCA will take in the future.  And finally . . .
• 1 - The number of breeders it takes to effect change.  If that "one" is you . . . and you . . . and you . . . and you . . . change will happen, one person at a time.  Contact your Area Director and let them know you support full Parentage Verification as a requirement for registration.  Thank your director and the Board for moving in the right direction.  And even more importantly, don't wait for the Board's decision.  Start getting your herd PV'd today!