10 reasons why milk recording is beneficial

Irish dairy farmers have an opportunity to invest in the long term profitability of their herds, through resuming or even entering milk recording for the first time.

For dairy farmers, the most important piece of performance data that can be collected is milk yield and quality results.

Why milk record? Paschal Coughlan, a senior business analyst with the Irish Cattle Breeders’ Federation (ICBF), has outlined 10 benefits that recording offers.

Benefits of milk recording

1.Best vs worst

The most obvious benefit of milk recording is that it allows the farmer to track their best and worst producers.

This allows the farmer to make management decisions such as which cows are underperforming and may be suitable to cull, or which cows are producing in the system and are more suitable for breeding replacements.

2.SCC

Regular recording of milk will also allow the herd owner to keep track of the somatic cell count (SCC) of each cow.

This will identify and facilitate the management of repeat offenders and could dramatically decrease the herd’s overall SCC and improve milk price.

3.Reports

Herds that are milk recording get a CellCheck Farm Summary Report after each recording – this report highlights the areas of excellence in terms of mastitis control, and also areas that could be improved.

It quantifies the daily loss occurring as a result of high SCC cows, so the herd owner can clearly see what can be gained financially from preventing infection.

4.Selling stock

Milk recording adds significant value to any surplus breeding stock being sold off-farm and increases the chances of a bull calf being selected to enter AI.

5.EBI reliability

Recorded milk results are fed into ICBF’s genetic evaluations. This allows the federation to give cows an EBI with a higher reliability.

Herds that are milk recording also get access to high EBI young bulls through the Gene Ireland programme.

Getting these bulls tested in herds that are milk recording allows ICBF to prove these bulls in a shorter period of time, thereby increasing the speed of genetic gain.

6.COW

In autumn 2017, ICBF launched a culling tool known as ‘Cows Own Worth’ or COW. This ranks cows on their expected profit potential for the rest of their lifetime.

The COW takes into account the environmental aspects such as calving date, age, milk recording results, health events.

COW acts as a guide in choosing which cows to cull from the herd, and is only available for herds that are milk recording.

7.Pregnancy testing

Cost-effective pregnancy diagnosis is now possible through milk samples.

This service will indicate if a cow is in-calf or not, at a reasonable cost and will remove the task of handling all the cows for scanning.

8.Phenotypic

Milk recording data provided the phenotypic (on the ground) data that has allowed ICBF to launch genomic evaluations for the Holstein/Friesian breed and most recently for crossbred cows.

9.Annual Report

Herds that milk record at least four times in the calendar year and have the dry-off dates recorded for their cows, receive an annual report every year from ICBF.

This report is now being requested by banks when farmers are seeking finance, to benchmark performance and repayment ability.