The focus on dairy farms has now moved towards breeding, as farmers begin preparation for the calf crop of 2023.
On Wednesday (April 6) Agriland made the trip down to Co. Tipperary for the farm walk on Pat and Sean Kelly’s farm near Nenagh.
The focus of the farm walk was on breeding and how the use of the economic breeding index (EBI) on this farm has led to increased production and financial returns.
The farm walk was organised by Arrabawn co-op, Teagasc and Munster Bovine.
Herd performance
The pair milk 120 cows on a 29ha milking platform, with 60ha farmed in total.
Stocking rate on the milking platform is 4.2 livestock units (LU)/ha, with an overall stocking rate of 2.53 LU/ha.
The milking platform in 2021 grew 17.5t of grass dry matter (DM), with Sean describing it as a super farm to grow grass.
Last year, 875kg of concentrates were feed/cow, with 556kg of milk solids delivered to Arrabawn co-op.
This is 140kg of milk solids ahead of the Arrabawn average of 416kg, and equates to €770 more income/cow compared to the average.
Overall, the herd averaged 580kg of milk solids last year, with the whole milk fed to calves reducing this down to 556kg of milk solids.
Herd development
Sean told the farmers in attendance that is it a very diverse herd. It has moved from high-yielding Holstein cows, which he described as a ‘water tap’.
“Over the last number of years our breeding focus has changed. We now focus heavily on EBI, which has gotten us to where were are now,” Sean said.
The herd’s current EBI is €196; €100 is for fertility, €54 for milk and €17 for maintenance.
In 2018, the entire herd was genotyped. This increased the herd’s EBI from €140 to €187 – everything on the farm is now genotyped.
Every year, replacement heifers are genotyped and based on these results, they are either kept for breeding or sold.
The farm has a six-week calving rate of 78%, which Sean noted as something that needs to be worked on.
Sean explained that the herd has gone through an expansion phase and for cows to remain in the herd; they need to be producing 540kg of milk solids, and heifers need to be producing 450kg of milk solids – otherwise they are sold.
Breeding focus
Sean and George Ramsbottom from Teagasc then discussed the breeding of the herd and bull selection.
George explained that cow selection for breeding replacements is as important as bull selection.
He outlined some of the targets that farmers should have when selecting bulls for the breeding season.
Sub-index Individual bulls Team average EBI ≥€200 €270 Fertility ≥€80 €120 Milk ≥€50 €80 Health ≥€0 €5
Two cows on the farm were then compared. Both have a fertility sub-index of over €100, but one has delivered over €3,000 more in milk. She has a milk sub-index of €56.
“This is what the power of selection for both milk and fertility can do. We need a heifer over €100 for fertility and having a high milk sub-index,” George said.
“With that milk sub-index what we are taking about within the bull team we choose is cows that are modest for milk kilograms, but have a high milk sub-index.
“What I mean by modest is selecting bulls from minus 100kg of milk to plus 100kg of milk, but have a very high milk sub-index.
“If we choose bulls like that we will bring a lot of milk solids, without big volumes of water.
“Those cows with a good fertility sub-index will produce the milk solids and last in your herd.”
Sean told the attendees that G1 bulls are used, but that a wide range of them is used to spread the risk. This year, Sean has 15 G1-sires selected.
He accepted that some of the bulls will fall, but that by genotyping the calves he is only keeping the best of the heifer calves.
The bull team selected for 2022 has an average EBI of €351, milk sub-index is €102 and fertility €176.
Breeder farm
George described the farm as a breeder farm, “which we need to produce lots of heifers”.
“Why? The EBI of the herd is good, performance of the cows is excellent and the heifer crop of this herd will be superb for any farm to take on,” he continued.
“But even within a farm like this, we can see there is variation between the top and bottom-performing cows within the herd.
“After you account for the cost of production, the top 30 cows are generating over €2 more than the bottom 30 cows – that for everyday after the first calf.
“So we talk about lasting for 1,500 days after they first calf, that is over €3,000 of a difference between the top and bottom cows.
“So there is enormous variation between cows within a herd, so when you are selecting cows to breed – with the way the heifer mart is you need to be selective about cows you breed replacements from.”
Continuing he said: “I use three tools when selecting on the breeding of the next generation of calves.
“Number one is looking at the EBI and the range in EBI. Number two, look at calving date. You are naturally going to breed from the earlier calving cows. They will be more fertile when they are inseminated.”
Cows that calve early tend to breed calves that will calve early, and we want all our heifer calves born early in the season.
“Number three is the milk recording life-time report, to select the cows in top tier and to select the upper have of average group aswell.
“Nationally, if we do that we will accelerate genetic gain and breed more profitable cows.”