Agriland visited the headquarters of Coopex Montbeliarde in Besançon, eastern France where some of the finest bulls in the stud were showcased and the management of the stud was explained.

This visit was part of the Coopex, Bó Sires, and the Montbeliarde Society of Ireland organised trip to see a number of dairy farms in the Comté region.

The Umotest Coopex Group is a federation formed by 10 farmer-owned and controlled cooperatives and provides highly fertile Montbeliarde semen, as well as pregnant heifers and reproduction services.

Coopex Montbeliarde is the world’s largest and most innovative Montbéliarde breeding programme and has worked with farmers around the world for more than 40 years and is present today in over 60 countries.

Only the best bulls and semen make it into service, based on their growth rates; feed conversion; conformation; male fertility; quality of frozen semen, and the updated breeding values of their parents for milk, fat and protein production.

The bull stud itself has 180 bulls in the shed, which is the maximum capacity of bulls it can hold. This includes six different sheds with 20 individual pens in each.

On the holding, there are three sheds for hay storage, one sperm collection room, one shed for quarantining animals and one workshop.

Any bull that is in the stud is bought from the farmer outright, so the farmer has no royalties or rights on the bull.

Coopex Montbeliarde bull stud

The Umotest Coopex group has a stud for rearing younger bulls and the bulls from this stud will be moved to headquarters when they are 12 to 14-months-of-age.

Bulls won’t receive any fermented forages, as export sales manager for Coopex Montbéliarde, Ferréol Roche said “it is not good for the semen culture”.

The bull stud needs about 1,300t of hay every year and the key to this according to Roche, is producing quality hay to minimise concentrate feeding.

Roche talking about the bull stud with the manager of the bull stud, Ellen

When the bulls are at a young age they will receive a 3kg of a 22% protein concentrate every day with a high energy value while receiving their essential vitamins and minerals to push the bulls growth rates on and so they can produce a high quality semen.

In order to produce good quality semen, the bulls have a high energy and intake demand, which emphasises the importance of having a high mineral and vitamin concentration in the diet.

Once the bulls stop producing semen, they will receive 1.5kg/concentrates/day just to keep their maintenance.

Every two months, there is a number of younger bulls that come from the young bull stud to the headquarters, which will have to be trained up to jump and produce quality semen.

Each year, 80 new young bulls are selected and marketed from more than 2,800 breeders who are actively involved in the Montbeliarde breeding programme.

Hygiene and bluetongue protection

The bull stud has a very strict hygiene, sanitary and biosecurity measures, as Roche has worked for Coopex for 13 years and has never been able to go into the yard where the bulls are.

Only eight workers are allowed into the stud at any one time – specifically only workers who are constantly managing the yard day in and day out. They will remove all of their clothing and shoes and put on their provided working attire, so no foreign sources pass through to the bulls.

The bulls will receive a top-up of straw every day and the pens will be fully cleaned out every three weeks. The stud buys in 900t of straw each year.

The open individual bull pens at the stud

Usually, the bulls will be treated for mites and biting lice once a month, as keeping the bulls clean and free from infection is critical, especially with the threat of bluetongue in France at the moment.

As bluetongue is rampant around France, the protocol in the bull stud is to treat the bulls for insects, lice, and mites every two weeks, as the bull sheds are all very open and it is not easy to prevent flies from entering and infecting the bulls.

Semen production

Conventional semen is produced three times a day on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings, which would typically consist of collecting semen from 30 bulls every time.

The stud has 12 sexed semen machines for separating the semen and the machines will separate a batch of raw semen at 7:30a.m, 2:00p.m and 7:30p.m every day.

Two people need to collect the semen from the bull every time for health and safety reasons.

Every time they collecting semen, they bring 10 bulls into the collection room at once, and they have one teaser bull there for a few minutes to get the bulls prepared for producing semen.

Bulls getting halted out from the semen collection shed

Once the semen is produced and gone for sexed semen or conventional, it will be tested under a microscope to see if it is good quality and once it passes the test, it is frozen and split between the different artificial insemination (AI) cooperatives.

On average, each time a bull produces semen, the stud can get 650 straws from the ejaculation and an older bull can produce up to 1,200 straws from one stroke.

At the moment, the bull stud produces around 11,000 straws/day, and at the peak season, they will be producing 15,000 straws/day and the Umotest Montbeliarde group exports 700,000 straws/year.

Last year, the bull stud produced 1,200,000 conventional straws and 300,000 sexed straws.

Bulls

At the end of the day, the group showcased a number of the Montbeliarde bulls in the stud.

Royco was one of the bulls that was shown to the group who is a well-used bull in Ireland and is available to buy through Bó Sires.

Royco has plus 1084kg in milk production, plus 54 in protein kg, plus 82 in fat kg which equates to a plus 26% in protein and plus 56% in fat.

Royco (MO9890) being halted around the stud

The bull produces cows that are well-balanced for all type traits with good chest depth and width, good feet and legs and a good quality udder, while also being an improver for fertility and longevity.

The next bull that was brought out, was Skiper, who again, can produce cows with well-balanced type traits with good body capacity, good feet and legs and good teat and udders.

Skiper (MO1623) being halted around the bull stud

The bull is an improver for milk production with plus 863kg of milk, plus 47kg of protein, plus 52kg of fat, which equates to a 31% protein and a 32% fat.

In terms of health, Skiper is an improver for udder health and fertility and is well-suited for crossbreeding. He is available through Bó Sires.

Coopex Montbeliarde bull stud

Hygiene and bluetongue protection

Semen production

Bulls

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Behind the scenes at Coopex Montbeliarde bull stud in France