E674 Juan Moreno on Feed Efficiency: What the Numbers Mean for Your Next Sire Order

Juan Moreno still remembers the exact name and sire of every single Brown Swiss cow in his family’s 60-head dairy in Colombia—and the 70 cows in the Ohio State university barn he worked in decades later. That memory is a quiet haunting. It sits at the exact center of why a man who co-founded Sexing Technologies and now commands STgenetics as its CEO can stand before World Dairy Expo and talk about 13,000-cow herds, 15% feed gaps, and genomic breeding values with absolute, unsparing precision. We live in an industry that traded individual animal care for group management, betting everything on sensors, algorithms, and straws of sexed semen. But as Moreno unpacks the real economics behind EcoFeed, he forces us to confront a bracing truth: a genomic evaluation is just a prediction on paper until it meets the concrete reality of a cow at the feed bunk. This is a journey through the math, the marketing, and the human cost of chasing efficiency in a changing world.

The Story You'll Hear

• The phone call that changed everything: Why a quiet upbringing on a 60-cow family dairy in Colombia shaped a lifetime of looking at cows as individuals rather than inventory numbers.
• The mentor who saw something no one else did: The partnership with Maurice Rosenstein that birthed Sexing Technologies and permanently re-engineered global dairy reproduction.
• Why they almost walked away from dairy entirely: The industry-wide friction of shifting from old-school stockmanship to massive group-management systems—and the risk of losing our connection to the animal in the process.
• The moment the math didn't match the bunk: Unpacking the 13,000-cow commercial test where a 14-point EcoFeed gap collided with daily farm management.
• What happened when they ignored every expert's advice: Why chasing feed efficiency requires looking past seminar hype, decoding the 50% transmission rule, and questioning whether a gross calculation will ever match your actual cash flow.

Every dairy farmer, breeder, and industry professional knows the crushing weight of feed costs—it eats up 60 to 65% of your operating expenses. When STgenetics leadership stands on a stage and promises a 15% drop in intake and a 15% cut in methane, it sounds like salvation in a bag of semen. But Juan Moreno’s story isn't just about corporate metrics or genetic indices. It’s about the tension every modern producer feels: the desire to modernize, optimize, and genomic-test every ear while trying to hold onto the intimate, boots-on-the-ground stockmanship that makes dairy farming a calling rather than just a spreadsheet. This episode connects the high-stakes science of UC Davis research and CDCB Feed Saved evaluations directly to the rhythm of your morning chores. You will learn how to separate phenotypic variation from genetic transmitting ability, why a $58,000 gross savings looks very different to a farm CFO once replacement lag and rearing timelines are factored in, and how the massive shift toward $1,500 beef-cross calves is quietly altering the genetic turnover of your entire milking string. You won't just walk away knowing the numbers; you'll feel the weight of how you choose to use them.

Subscribe to The Bullvine Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite listening app so you never miss an episode that challenges conventional industry wisdom. Head over to https://www.thebullvine.com/genetics-breeding/juan-moreno-st-genetics-feed-efficiency/ to read the full analytical breakdown, data tables, and research links accompanying this episode. Have you run your own feed-intake comparisons between genetic evaluations, or want to share your perspective on the next sire order?