On last night’s (Tuesday, April 5) Sustainable Breeding Summit, reasons why cows are not selected for the generation of replacements was discussed by the panel.
Last night’s episode focused on how the economic breeding Index (EBI) has delivered for Irish farmers.
As the national herd begins to stabilise, farmers should be looking to breed replacements from their best cows and heifers.
However, your best cows aren’t just the ones that produce the most amount of milk solids, there are several other factors to be considered.
Sustainable Breeding Summit
Martin Kavanagh asked the farmers to highlight some of the reason why they won’t breed replacements from a cow.
Robert Hovenden said that some of the factors why he won’t breed from a cow include temperament, feet and cell counts.
Michael Ryan supported this, and added that: “A high cell count cow or a cow with feet issues will breed a heifer that has the same issues.
“Those genetics will follow on. Identifying these cows is a huge opportunity to remove these issues from your herd.”
Eoin McCarthy also agreed with Robert and Michael, but added that the udder is something he considers when breeding cows and selecting sires too.
All the farmers noted the benefit of selecting cows to breed replacements from; accelerating genetic gain within the herd.
EBI
George Ramsbottom from Teagasc was questioned over what EBI figure farms should be looking for when selecting cows to generate replacements from.
“Cows that are below €150 should be the threshold to get a dairy sire and then the points mention by Robert, Michael and Eoin,” he responded.
“You also want these cows to calve early, within the first three to four weeks of the calving season.”
George also added that your heifers are a good target audience for breeding your future replacement heifers.
Your replacement heifers are the best genetics on-farm, so they should be targeted for obtaining a heifer – ‘a heifer from a heifer’.