A NEW year, a new home and new challenges – what is there not to like? 
So much has been made of the twists and turns of 2016 that there doesn’t seem much left for 2017. Maybe’s aye, maybe’s naw! The sorting out is still to do and no doubt the forthcoming year will be just as exciting and, hopefully, profitable. 
The first happening in our own calendar is the bull sales. Although the work is done and the credit deserved by others, I still enjoy the event. 
The world of pedigree cattle has never been in a more exciting place than it is at the present. For 200 years, buyers at bull sales have estimated the impact of their intended purchase on their future calf crops by eye-balling the bulls on offer which have been masked by extreme condition, covered in a heavy coat of well manicured hair and handled by expert stockpersons. 
The analogy must be with a pig in a poke. Sometimes, it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. 
Buyers today have so much more information at their disposal to reduce guesswork and breeders have access to techniques to concentrate the best genetics that, a few years ago, would have defied prediction. 
For decades, we struggled to get meaningful information on feed conversion. Within the past decade ‘nett (or residual) feed efficiency’ (NFE) has made the process cheaper and more effective. This has been embraced most enthusiastically by the Stabiliser Society. 
Now, other breed societies are waking up to its enormous importance and are making tentative steps to devise an EBV for it. 
The even better news is that the world has already moved on. In America, there is now an EBV for ‘residual average daily gain (RADG) which refines NFE further. 
RADG carries the process on by recognising that NFE is incomplete and must be linking with genetics which have already been measured. 
Simply put, we don’t want the small dumpy beasts which convert efficiently and we don’t want the high gainers which take a mountain of feed to get there. We want the animal which hits market spec’ on time as cheaply as possible. 
The stricture of producing their wares in an environment beyond their control has always prevented cattle breeders from approaching the efficiency of pigs and poultry. 
Now, the possibilities of narrowing the gap are within their sight. Instead of arguing endlessly about the ideal size of our cows, our selection can be made on an accurate assessment of how much feed they need. 
Undoubtedly, the most controversial and often uncomfortable part of the bull sales is the pre-sale inspection, known in the trade as ‘the panel’. 
This has operated with a lighter or heavier touch for as long as I can remember. It varies in process from a vet looking at a bull’s testicles and mouth, and checking for signs of infectious disease, to an assessment of conformation and locomotion by an experienced cattle breeder, usually, for obvious reasons, from another breed. 
Much anguish has often resulted from their judgements which have sometimes appeared inconsistent and, on occasion, biased against a smaller or less experienced owner. 
My own opinion is that the vet inspections should be limited to checking for disease, lameness, and testicles. A potential buyer cannot check the last of these by eye and couldn’t be expected to do it manually at the sale. Any irregularity in any of these three things should result in the bull being withdrawn. 
Walking faults, unless so bad that the bull would be unable to mate, can be assessed by the buyer without physical contact and should not be a reason for failure. 
Many bulls have been failed for dentition. This is a very inexact science and should be scrapped. Bulls are usually at a stage in their life when they are losing their baby teeth and sometimes cutting their broad teeth. 
As with humans, this causes discomfort and can cause swelling in the lower jaw. Many bulls have been turned down or allowed to be sold for commercial use only for a mouth ‘fault’. Had they been examined a few weeks earlier, or later they would have been fine. 
Over a lifetime of working with many thousands of pedigree and commercial cattle, I can’t recall a single one which failed to thrive because of a faulty jaw structure. 
Unlike a sheep, which nibbles close to the ground and has a split between its nostrils and its mouth to enable it to do so, a beast grazes by brushing the grass across its teeth, which acts like a knife, with its tongue. It is very important for a sheep’s teeth to meet the centre of the pad and for a beast not so much! 
Passing judgment on a sale bull’s conformation by an experienced breeder has long been looked at as a means to take out poorer animals which would reduce the breed’s sale average. 
With qualification, many of those bulls eliminated simply lack the high level of condition required for the sale ring. Often, they have been brought out by inexperienced breeders.
Frequently, they will reappear at a subsequent sale with the advantage of a few months extra feed and can do well. 
The panel will always be a time of anxiety and sometimes frayed tempers. Every breed society should look at how the process could be improved. 
Market owners should examine the logistics of cattle flow in reducing the lengthy periods handlers have to queue waiting for their bulls to be inspected. 
Two crushes should be in operation so that a bull can be entered into one while the vet is examining the previous bull in the other!