With the calving season in sight for many dairy farmers, the breeding season for 2024 may seem a long way off yet.
But for many farmers the catalogues have already been opened and in some cases the bulls have already been selected.
The advice around bull selection has not changed massively in the last few years, but a few of indexes within the economic breeding index (EBI) do have a little more of a emphasis placed on them.
Eurogene has been hosting a number of future solutions events across the country, outlining some advice to farmers around breeding and the challenges facing dairy farmers.
Breeding
Speaking at one event, James Dunne from Teagasc and Eamonn Coleman from Eurogene outlined to farmers that they should continue to select for milk and fertility, along with health.
Both noted that although banding may have limited some dairy farms in terms of the amount of milk they can produce, it has not limited the amount of milk solids that can be produced from this milk.
Commenting, Dunne said that ultimately dairy farmers are all paid on the same thing.
“We are looking for a highly fertile cow, that is capable of producing high levels of milk solids and to deliver as high of percentages as possible,” he said.
“We are really looking for high levels of combined fat and protein, and maybe not looking for excessive volume.”
Dunne noted that figures from one of the Teagasc joint programmes showed that predicted transmitting ability (PTA) for milk kilogrammes as a predictor of annual herd yield was low, at around 4% of the variation.
But that for kg of milk solids, it explained 68% of the variation.
Dunne said: “So we have one very good predictor and we have one that is a very poor predictor of kilos of milk solids delivered.”
Dunne said that he recently looked at a herd that on the proof was -60kg of milk and was in band three and added that he has also seen herds that were +180kg that were in band two.
Dunne recommended that when dairy farmers are selecting their bulls for the 2024 breeding season, they should use the milk sub-index, the fertility sub-index and to select bulls that will give you cows with high levels of milk solids off as little milk kg as is needed.
He said that herds within band two, which are herds that are producing 6,500kg of milk, can deliver 530-540kg of milk solids.
He also noted that selecting bulls with high health sub-indexes should also be a focus for dairy farmers, with this having a significant impact on cell counts and bovine TB resistance.
Commenting on the carbon sub-index, he recommended not placing to significant a focus on this and that by selecting bulls using the milk, fertility and health sub-index captures much of what is in the carbon index.
He said this means that you are naturally breeding more carbon efficient cows.