The Car Sales of livestock

With the wealth of genetic data available for the livestock industry, buying bulls shouldn't be a beauty contest; but many farmers still choose bulls by appearance alone.

Together with the NSW Department of Primary Industry, Meat & Livestock Australia, we built DeSireBull, a world-first search engine that lets buyers and sellers conduct comprehensive searches, simply.

Working alongside expert bull geneticists, we combined complex algorithms with dynamic data sources to calculate a bull's score based on their genetic profile — showing where the real economic value lies. We tackled this problem by developing a tool that simplifies genetic data by grouping related traits and rating and valuing the bull — something farmers acutely understand.

Sliders are adjusted to refine bull listings, and each represents a grouping of genetic traits (known as EBVs), expressed as a percentile band. Sliders dynamically alter according to the others and the bull listing available.

The EBV subgroups developed by the NSW DPI are still a new concept, so farmers can drill down into groupings to understand them in more detail.

We summarise the index components into a star rating and dollar value, so farmers can quickly see how bulls stack up.