We want to congratulate Tim Rauen for being awarded the Iowa Holstein Association 2024 Outstanding Young Holstein Breeder!
Tim is a founding member of GenoSource and is our CEO, his passion for the Holstein breed is one to be truly admired! You can find the speech below that was given at the banquet before awarding Tim with this honor, it outlines a great story and some of the breed leading individuals Tim has been involved with.
From a young age, this young man was involved in his uncles’ farm, where he learned about the ins and outs of dairy farming, and this is what sparked his interest for genetics. The passion for the Holstein breed was in his blood, in about the 6th grade he took over the responsibility of preg checking and began memorizing registration numbers and pedigrees, this passion only grew with age. He was active in the Junior Holstein Association, attending conventions, participating in many youth events, and especially enjoyed competing in the show ring. These experiences led him to Iowa State University where he majored in Dairy Science. His time spent at ISU along with his upbringing just confirmed to him that his passion was Holstein genetics and he figured out how to turn that into a successful career.
While in college he started to build his herd of Registered Holsteins by investing in heifers who were backed by multiple generations of excellent or very good dams, at the same time genomics was starting to hit the industry and he embraced this technology very quickly. This adaptation led this young man to invest in numerous genetic females and he started his own IVF and ET Program.
Through the success of his own breeding program, he began to assist other dairymen in achieving their own genetic goals through tailored IVF and ET programs. This career path allowed him to partner in some of the most breed leading cows and bulls the Registered Holstein breed has seen. In 2008 he became part of Apple Partners who purchased Apple, the Red & White cow who went on to completely change the landscape of the Red & White breed. Then in 2013 he became part of the syndicate that purchased OCD Robust Delicious, one of the most influential cows of the genomic era. His breeding philosophy led to bulls like Delta, who has over 58,000 daughters in his proof alone, not to mention all of Delta’s sons who have gone on to impact the breed like the notable Delta-Lambda.
In 2014 he started a partnership with some family members and founded Genosource, now a 4,000-cow milking farm. The breeding program he implemented for GenoSource has successfully created some of the best international donor dams of the industry, creating cows who are efficient and profitable with great longevity and are the kind you want to see in your parlor, no matter what operation you are milking in. From this program, Genosource has placed many bulls into AI, assisting other dairymen from around the globe achieve their own genetic and herd goals.
Most recently, the breeding philosophy of this award recipient went on to create Genosource Captain, the current #1 TPI Sire on Holstein USA’s Top 100 International TPI Bulls list which he has now held for 4 consecutive genetic evaluations in a row. This year’s Iowa Holstein Association’s Young Breeder Award is awarded to Tim Rauen.