The role that milk recording has to play on farms was discussed at the farm walk on the farm of Pat and Sean Kelly near Nenagh, Co. Tipperary.
The walk focused on breeding and how the use of the economic breeding index (EBI) on the Kelly’s farm has led to increased production and profitability.
Herd management
Martin Kavanagh from Munster Bovine spoke to the farmers in attendance about the role milk recording has to play on farms.
Martin said that in the top 20% of dairy farms for EBI, milk recording is used as a tool for breeding and culling. In fact, 83% of these herds record their cows he said.
The replacement rate within these herds is around the 20% mark, while in the bottom 20% it is only 14-15%.
This means, according to Martin, that these herd are not getting enough genetic change and therefore, are not improving the overall herd. In comparison, the herds that are recording cows and have a replacement rate of 20% can aggressively select cows for culling.
Milk recording
Martin commented on the role milk recording has to play in the management of cell counts on farm, he said: “From a veterinary point of view, I cannot fix a cell count issue without milk recording – I cannot do it.
“We will all hear the story about the guy down the road that did something and the cows got better.
“But if I want to have sustainable cell counts within a herd I cannot do it without milk recording data.
“It says on the board milk recording can be inconvenient, I would suggest that it is a pain,” Martin said.
“So a lot of you are going to be put off by the sheer nature of the milk recording such as labour, time and cow identification.
“You cannot mitigate against a lot of that.”
After a milk recording, farmers are presented with a large number of reports, Martin explained.
“But then you end up with all these reports, he said.
“When we start to look at reports it can be a real challenge to get the information out of them.
“There is help; speak with your advisor, milk quality advisor and vet. All the reports can be broken down to individual cow level, which makes decisions easier.”
Martin said that the vast majority of cell count issues he deals with creep up during the season and come to his attention in July or August – at which point it is too late.
“The game is over at that stage, it is way too much of a challenge at that point,” he said.
“The advantage of recording cows all the time is that you are making decisions based on facts.
“You can use the best bulls – but if you use them on poor-quality cows your outcome will not be a good and you will complain.
“So you really think about what that cow is doing.”