The breeding season for 2023 is approaching on dairy farms, with farmers for the most part making their final selection of sires for use on their cows.
Breeding is a vital part of dairy operation, as without a cow calving she won’t produce milk, but it is also important to ensure that the herd continue to progress in both genetics and production.
Breeding
The Teagasc breeding week has been ongoing this week, with a big focus being placed on improving components and beef-sire selection.
At an event held at Kildalton Agricultural College in Co. Kilkenny, farmers heard from George Ramsbottom from Teagasc on the advantages of selective breeding.
Although the selection of a good sire is important, there are gains to be made from selecting which cows you also use to generate replacements.
The cow also brings 50% of the genetic to a calf and so the best cow should be used to generate replacements.
As the national herd stabilises the number of replacement heifers required is reduced, which means you should look to make the highest genetic gains possible.
Using the highest economic breeding index (EBI) cows in the Kildalton herd along with the incoming replacement heifers, Ramsbottom outlined how there are good gains to be made in the herd’s average EBI and components.
Herd average Expected percentage After selection Expected percentage Protein 0.12 3.82 0.17 4.01 Fat 0.15 4.55 0.24 4.91 EBI 241 285
Commenting, Ramsbottom said: “There is an opportunity to select more intensively from the pool of cows you have to accelerate the rate of genetic gain, that just by selecting intensively on the bull side, but now on the cow side as well.
“Breeding from the top 50% of the cows in the herd and heifers we see a lift in herd average EBI of €44, which to equates to a increase in profit/cow of €88.”
He also stated that farmers should be using their milk-recording data when making decisions, as some of the top cows could have issues with cell counts and thus they shouldn’t be bred from.
The remaining cows in the herd should then be bred to good beef bulls that will generate high-quality dairy-beef calves.