Fertility the key in all milk systems

With the breeding season just around the corner on winter milking herds, what did delegates hear from the Teagasc Winter Milk Conference about this important topic?

Seamus Hughes from Progressive Genetics highlighted what he thinks farmers should be looking for when picking bulls this winter. He said that the majority of milk produced by liquid or winter milk herds is still priced at A+B-C, so farmers should be focusing on picking bulls that are going to maximise returns in this area.

He said that he regularly hears farmers say that they only pick bulls based on their kg of fat and protein or only pick bulls if they are above a certain percentage of each in an attempt to speed up genetic gain in this area.

However, after explaining the make-up of the production sub-index within the EBI, which has a weighting for kilogrammes of protein and kilogrammes of fat and a negative for milk kilos, he says that farmers should just look at the overall milk sub-index when picking bulls as this is the best indicator of how a bull will perform production wise.

“I don’t like calling it the milk sub-index because this gives the impression that it is just about milk yield. It is really the production sub-index because it looks into all aspects of production,” Seamus said.

Seamus said that winter milk herds should be selecting bulls with a minimum of €90 in the production sub-index and said these bulls are readily available off the active bull list. He also said that one of the most effective ways of increasing production was to breed for fertility.

To explain this, he said that a cow in her second lactation produces 14% more milk than a first-lactation cow and a cow in her third lactation produces 22% more milk than a first-lactation cow.

“By simply breeding for more cows to last in the herd, production will automatically increase – this is worth a huge amount and cannot be overemphasised. We should be aiming to get five lactations out of cows,” he said.

Again, he pointed out the role EBI has in selecting high-fertility bulls. He presented a graph showing that lower fertility cows, with an EBI sub-index below €10, took almost one year longer to get to fourth lactation than cows with a fertility sub-index of greater than €50.

He also presented results from a fertility study in Moorepark which showed that, on average, low fertility sub-index cows needed one extra service per year, had a lower body condition score, had longer cycle intervals and 20% more silent heats than high-fertility sub-index cows. Again this shows the reliability of the EBI in selecting highly fertile bulls.

He cautioned farmers on the reliance of angularity-type measurements when selecting bulls. He said that data from the United States shows that cows with a high angularity score tend to have reduced fertility and longevity and are at greater risk of being culled.

UK experience

Gareth Davies is a grazing consultant based in south Wales and is also the manager of Ireland Genetics UK, a joint venture between himself and Progressive Genetics. Gareth gave a talk on the milk price contracts system in the UK and how this can influence farm system and breeding decisions.

Amazingly, he outlined that there are 57 milk contracts in operation in the UK and the range in prices between the contracts is as high as 17c/litre. He said that the main difference between the contracts is down to where the milk is going, with some of the aligned supermarket contracts offering a good milk price while other, non-aligned and manufacturing milk contracts offering low milk prices.

He says that many of the milk supply contracts require a certain percentage of milk to be supplied every month, making it difficult for farmers to switch to single-block calving systems. As a result, many farmers are forced into winter milk systems.

According to Gareth, winter milk doesn’t necessarily mean huge volumes of milk per cow. He says his most profitable winter milk clients produce less than 8,000 litres per cow, from simple systems. “They calve in a tight block, they feed their cows well over the winter with good silage and meal in the parlour, they get everything served by late February and then they turn into low-cost spring-calving farmers for the rest of the year.”

He says the key to achieving this is to have highly fertile cows that calve at the right time, in a tight bunch, at the same time every year, as this is the most effective way of filling the winter milk contracts with as few cows as possible. “With good fertility you can maximise your milk supply curve and/or your grass growth curve.”

Gareth says that many farmers in the UK are now waking up to the EBI message and more and more are using the EBI when picking bulls. He says irrespective of your system of milk production, the focus should always be on fertility and like Seamus Hughes, he says this is what drives production, particularly calving interval.

“There is no point in boasting about massive lactation yields if it is taking over 400 days to achieve. You don’t do your accounts every 400 days so it’s about 305-day yield and 365-day calving interval.”

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