The American Hereford Association (AHA) NRSP is a program that allows Hereford breeders to test young sires in real-world commercial settings.

The Sandrock Ranch runs a herd of 300 commercial Hereford cows and 130 registered Hereford females at their operation in Benton, Wisc. The Sandrock Ranch became a National Reference Sire Program (NRSP) test herd two years ago.

“We’ve been in the Hereford business a long time,” Kevin Bennet, owner of the Sandrock Ranch said. “My grandmother bought some registered Herefords in the early 50s and we’ve been with them ever since.”

As a part of the NRSP, the ranch was given a list of bulls to select from. They selected 43931763- BR Relevant D67 6201 8826 and 43855869 -BR SRR C&L LOEWEN Valiant. 43408924 -GERBER Anodyne 001A will be used as a reference sire to link the NRSP projects together as his data has already been collected through the program. Each bull will be mated to a group of females this spring.

“Our goal is always trying to improve our genetics,” Bennet said. “Utilizing the selected bulls and data collected through the project, we will be able to improve our genetics at a faster rate.”

Breeding the test group of females is the first step to finding and collecting data on young sires through the NRSP.