April 2025 Sire Summary: Strength in Genetic Diversity  

Publish date: 4.4.25  

Genetic diversity, an exciting base change, positive movements for key bloodlines, and future mating flexibility: these phrases all sum up ABS Global’s April 2025 Genetic Evaluation results. The outcome of this proof run strongly reinforces our long-standing strategic focus committed to genetic diversity and its positive impact long term. This Sire Summary was also met by U.S. and U.K. base changes as well as a formulation update to Net Merit (NM$), causing significant industry shifting. 

This blog breaks the day down into three areas: the actual base change, the importance of genetic diversity, and the performance of ABS sires. Without further ado, let’s dive in. 

First: The Base Change 

The April 2025 Genetic Evaluation reflected a base change for both the U.S. and U.K. A base change occurs in the U.S. every five years, while the U.K. base changes annually. As a reminder, a base change is a recalibration of the population back to zero to account for genetic progress that has been made. Think of a base change as a report card for genetic progress.  

Earlier, we communicated the base change estimates, and we are happy to announce that the actual total PTAs were higher than anticipated. The tables below outline the total change for the U.S. as well as the U.K. base change for the April 2025 Sire Summary. Specifically, regarding the Net Merit formulation, a drop of 404 NM$ was estimated, but the actual change was 338 NM$.  

The base change also impacts internal ABS evaluations, particularly the ABS Health Index (AHI) as three CDCB traits are incorporated into its calculation. Here’s the impact the base change had on AHI: 

• For ABS–marketed Holstein sires (236 sires), the average AHI change decreases slightly by 0.68 points, with a high correlation of 98.22% when compared to their December 2025 AHI values. 
• For all ABS sires (8305 sires), the average AHI change is a minor decrease of 0.82 points, with an even stronger correlation of 99.19% to their December 2025 AHI values. 

Overall, these changes suggest that the genomic improvements are having a positive impact on health, resulting in only a slight change in AHI and indicating ongoing progress in improving health traits. 

Next: The Importance of Genetic Diversity 

Some players across the industry have relied on genetics that dominate the ranks, which results in a few sires drastically influencing genetic plans. While this strategy could lead to generating the next high-ranking sire, it’s an approach that is more likely to increase the risk of future challenges for dairy producers that come with potential inbreeding. So, balancing both is imperative, which is why ABS strives to offer a diverse lineup with genetic superiority. 

What is genetic diversity? In simple terms, genetic diversity is the number of different bloodlines used within a customer’s herd or a genetics company’s breeding program. It is determined by the number of different sires, maternal grandsires, and maternal great grandsires of bulls used in a breeding program. 

Why Does the Diversity of Sires Used in Our Genetic Plan Matter? 

1. It minimizes the risk of any single sire reranking or dropping significantly. 
2. It maximizes pregnancy production by lessening fertility influences. 
3. It reduces the potential of uncovering hidden haplotypes.

Today, it’s important to be aware of the genetic diversity in your genetic plan as well as your genetic supplier’s. The average dairy herd size is increasing, the shift to using genomic bulls over proven continues to grow, and genetic protection is changing the industry. Thus, the need to use a bigger team of different sires is becoming a necessity. Our focus on diversity puts us in a prime position to provide dairy producers with genetics that work in their specific operations and offer future mating flexibility.

Finally: The Performance of ABS Sires 

Overall, it was a great Sire Summary for our key bloodlines around the globe, strengthening our core lineup and the next-generation sires in our pipeline. Our influential sire lines had a tremendous day, and the summary below showcases the highlights. Customer satisfaction around the world continues to soar because our diversity allows us to offer genetic solutions that meet our customers’ needs.   

U.S. Sire Summary Highlights 

HOLSTEINS 

• Our key sires, which include 29HO19973 BENEFIT, 29HO19964 CASCADE, 29HO19773 DUFFY, 29HO19625 LAKER (sire of 29HO20684 LEEDS), 29HO19071 MONUMENT-P, 29HO19518 MENDEL-P, and 29HO20544 MAXWELL-P, added milking daughters and beat the base change. 
• Emphasizing our genetic diversity, the above-mentioned bulls are sires of 115 dairy bulls in our production stalls today and have 51 different maternal grandsires! 
• ABS has 25 of the top 30 NM$ heterozygous polled bulls on the industry list with a stud code, demonstrating our powerful polled lineup. 
• The 37 new Holstein releases trace back to 15 different sires and 17 different maternal grandsires, which means diverse options for you. 

JERSEYS 

• Despite big industry changes, the ABS Jersey lineup is as strong as ever with nearly a third of the top 30 JPI and CM$ Jersey sires who have a stud code and are more than 12 months old.  
• ABS has 18 of the top 25 CM$ bulls on the industry list with a stud code.  
• The ABS lineup features: 
  • Five sires more than +550 CM$ 
  • Six sires over +165 JPI 
  • Five sires that offer +1,000 lbs. Milk or more 
  • 11 sires at +85 CPF or more 
  • 10 sires more than +1.5 CCR 
  • 15 udder improvers at +15 JUI and above 
• Five new sires launched globally, including the first 29JE4421 DELL {6} and 29JE4422 DEALER {6} sons.  
  • 29JE4553 JOSHUA and 29JE4546 TENACITY {6} are high-ranking JPI sires that will improve daughter fertility and udders. 
  • 29JE4566 MICCO {6} is a balanced bull from a new maternal line and offers excellent component production while improving longevity and fertility.  
  • 29JE4538 PARROT {6} is the best CM$, Milk, and Productive Life sire among the group. 
  • 29JE4557 DUBLIN {6}-P has a unique polled pedigree ((29JE4426 JX SCHOONER {5} x 29JE4276 JX BAZZAR {5}) and will improve Milk and daughter fertility. 

LINEAR CHOICE SIRES 

• Six new sires join the Linear Choice lineup following the April 2025 Sire Summary. 
• 94HO22212 MARVIN combines impressive % Fat & % Protein with great Type and a fantastic linear. 
• 94HO22211 OSCAR combines strong TPI with good values for the production traits and a very exciting Type proof with great udders.  
• 94HO21908 ACOUSTIC checks all the boxes with positive components, good Milk, and solid health traits, including strong fertility, calving ease, right-hand linear, A2A2, and BB. 
• 94HO21893 PANAMA is an exciting HOTWHEELS son from a strong-performing line at Bomaz Farms that has put many sires in stud. 
• 94HO21848 PARMA is an early BILLBOARD son backed by a unique and different line to the Planeta line of the RUDY MISSY family. 
• 94HO21847 CESANA is an exciting all-rounder from a strong line that includes household names like CARDIGAN, CALE, CRIMSON & COSMOPOLITAN. 
• 94HO21866 METEOR *RC combines Milk and Protein with good fertility numbers, a faultless linear, and an easy mating sire stack, topping it off as a Red Carrier as well. 

European Sire Summary Highlights 

U.K. HOLSTEINS 

• With 6 of the top 10 £PLI bulls, including the top 4 available young sires, Genus ABS had a strong day!  
• 29HO21534 HARMONY retains his #1 spot on the ranking, followed by paternal brothers 29HO21487 COLUMBIA, 29HO21537 ZEST, and 29HO21530 SEGMENT. 
• 29HO21675 SECTOR-P and 29HO21531 HYPE also made their way into the top 10.  
• Our 42 genomic sires in the top 100 are backed by real genetic diversity, represent 27 different sires and 28 different grandsires, and are the result of 41 different sire/grandsire combinations.  
• 29HO19442 KNOWHOW remains the #1 proven bull on £PLI at 807, followed by 29HO19334 KETTLE. 
• 29HO19376 ATLANTIS, the #1 bull with semen available in the U.K., finds himself in the top 10 for £PLI. 

BRITISH FRIESIANS 

• It was a strong day for our British Friesian young sires, as the top 4 sires are owned by Genus ABS. 
• 29HO20184 VERITAS remains #1 and is followed by former #1 29HO20365 COVERACK*RC.  
• In total, Genus ABS has 5 bulls in the top 10. 

ITALY 

• 29HO21384 ECBERT remains the # 1 young sire on the domestic Italian list now at 5363 PFT.  
• The new high-ranking bull on the domestic list is ODINO (Vivify x Pellegrino) at #3.  
• On the list with foreign sires, MOJO remains our highest bull at #7. 
• Former #1 genomic sire in Italy, BEERBUM, maintained a strong proof and now ranks as the #11 proven bull on the domestic Italian list.  
• Also at the top of the proven rankings are 29HO19154 REDDINGTON (#13) and 29HO19415 YOOX (#16). 

GERMANY 

• Germany moved to single-step evaluations this summary, which caused quite a shift in rank. 
• They also operate on a rolling base change, meaning there is a base change every Sire Summary. 
• While the full lists including the foreign bulls haven’t been published, the domestic list saw plenty of reranking.  

NORDIC COUNTRIES 

• 29HO19485 EPISODE remains the #1 bull on the proven sire list in the Nordic countries. 

Even with the massive industry changes, the performance of key influential sires demonstrated the strength of the ABS lineup globally. Don’t let that get lost in the shuffle of base change; ABS had a solid day.  

Over the last eight decades, we are proud to have delivered significant genetic progress for our customers, and we look forward to continuing to in the future. As your partner in genetic progress, we are here to help you accelerate genetic improvement through a diverse genetic offering and a customized genetic plan that keeps your goals top of mind.  

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