At this stage, dairy farmers will be deciding on or, in some cases, will have chosen what bulls they are planning to use for the breeding season.
To give an insight into what farmers should be looking for when it comes to picking bulls, AgriLand spoke with Seamus Hughes of Progressive Genetics.
He explained: “Farmers should base their decision on what bulls they are going to choose using the Economic Breeding Index (EBI).
I would advise farmers to use a panel of bulls with an average value of €140 for fertility and €90 on production sub-index – on all cows selected for breeding replacements.
“Within that shortlist, farmers should look at using other sub-indices depending on their breeding goal. For example, farmers looking for a medium-sized cow should select for €10+ on maintenance.
“As well as that, farmers may prioritise within the shortlist a plus on the health sub-index, which focuses, essentially, on somatic cell count (SCC), mastitis resistance and lameness.”
Seamus added: “A minority of farmers, with excellent herd fertility, might prioritise the milk [production] sub-index and use bulls with €100+ on this index.
“It’s worth noting that the milk [production] sub-index ranks bulls based on how farmers are paid for their milk, basically on a A+B-C basis, where A is the price paid per kilogram of protein, B is the price paid per kilogram of fat and C is a processing cost deduction.
This milk [production] index takes into consideration the additional value of protein over fat and the cost of ‘watery milk’. Therefore, it makes for a very useful number when assessing a bull’s accurate production performance.
“Choosing sires on percentage solids alone is a mistake, as they may not have the volume – and hence the kilograms of solids – to be efficient; so the production sub-index offers farmers a simple and accurate tool to rank bulls.
“In terms of maiden heifers, the priority is calving and with the new presentation of the calving difficulty figures, we now need to look at the ‘heifer calving difficulty’ number.
“Our advice is to choose bulls classified as “low” risk when it comes to calving difficulty, typically a score of five or less and have a reliability of 70% or more.”
Dairy beef
On the topic of dairy beef, Seamus said: “Dairy farmers have a real motive to use beef straws on a percentage of their herd.
“The huge choice of easy calving, short-gestation, quality-beef sires available gives farmers a simple solution to producing saleable high-priced calves with minimum risk.
“Farmers will be rewarded for opening their minds to short-gestation, easy-calving Belgian Blue, Hereford, Limousin, Simmental and Aubrac bulls for use on their older cows. Ideally, Angus bulls – that have a good beef value – should be used on maiden heifers.”