WMS or IMAGE?

When deciding which inbreeding management tool, WMS or IMAGE, is the best fit for your herd, the following points are important factors for consideration:

Producers may opt for WMS when:

• You follow individual matings with individual breeding recommendations
• You have accurate parentage data for each cow in your herd
• You identify the parentage of all offspring

Benefits of mating with WMS include:

• Provides a genetic consultation for sire selection
• Provides the value of individual matings for each animal
• Genomic testing files can be utilized with WMS to design a mating program based on genomic data
• Protects against inbreeding, recessives and haplotypes
• Saves time in daily herd management, keeping your breeding program moving forward
• Helps you plan and monitor semen inventory and track genetic progress
• Encourages parentage verification
• WMS was designed for herds who wish to make genetic progress one specialized mating at a time.

Producers should choose IMAGE when:

• You prefer utilizing population genetics rather than individual animal matings
• Individual animal pedigree identification of each animal is not part of your past/current management system
• Your current management system and/or breeding program make it difficult to implement individual animal mating recommendations
• Controlling inbreeding through population genetics is important to you

Benefits of Mating with IMAGE:

• Flexible herd data requirements: can use previous sire usage or any available pedigree information
• Effective tool to manage and reduce inbreeding
• Works well in herds utilizing a synchronization protocol
• Specifically designed to allow herds to mass breed in a limited time frame