The importance of recording health data for breeding better dairy cows has been highlighted in stark terms by the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) by pointing to the cost high cell count herds can have on profit.
In an update today (Friday, November 6), the federation pointed to figures calculated by Animal Health Ireland’s Cell Check Quick Calculator.
On this, it was noted that the cost of mastitis for a herd averaging 300-400,000 cells/ml is estimated at €186.26/cow/year.
For a 100-cow herd, this amounts to a staggering €18,626 reduction in profit.
In addition, it was highlighted that the total cost of every case of lameness is estimated at €300 once treatment costs and loss of production are all taken into account, as demonstrated at the 2016 National Dairy conference.
“These are significant losses in profit which could otherwise be going to dairy farmers if addressed,” the ICBF says.
“One way to improve mastitis and lameness in the herd is to breed replacements using sires which are genetically more resistant to these diseases.”
The ICBF said it needs farmers to record this valuable data so that it can be factored into future Economic Breeding Index (EBI) evaluations, adding that dairy females with temperament issues can also be recorded with ICBF.
The recording of mastitis has increased importance in terms of Selective Dry Cow Treatment [SDCT] . There is lots of valuable health data locked away in dairy farmer notebooks and, unless it’s recorded in the ICBF database, it cannot be factored into EBI evaluations.
Consequently, the ICBF has called on all dairy farmers to record mastitis, lameness and milking temperament using the “Record Health & Temperament Screen” under “Record events”.
“This survey data should only take a few minutes to complete,” the federation said.
“The EBI has already delivered an estimated €587 million in additional profit to the sector, primarily through gains in milk and fertility.
“Recording this health and temperament information will help improve the reliability of the health and management sub-indexes of the national herd and will better place the Irish dairy sector to select the next generation of high health, easy management AI sires which will ultimately leave more profit for Irish dairy farmers in the future,” the ICBF concluded.