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Whenever Jack Corless performs a farm audit, he always asks producers about their goals. The first answer is generally either “I want more milk” or “I want to make more money.” The second is, “I want to improve the fertility of my herd.”
Selection indexes are great tools because they combine all significant traits into one. They get us away from setting minimum criteria for particular traits, which allows us to make progress for many different traits all at once.
Five years ago, it felt like there was a ceiling on reproductive performance in the lactating herd. Once top-performing herds got to the 24 to 26 percent annual pregnancy rate level, there was no room to grow. Higher annual pregnancy rates were not sustainable or economical for long periods of time.
Did you know traits like milk yield, conformation, rump and calving ability aren’t included in the LPI? Do you feel these traits are important in your sire selection and herd improvement program and should be included in the LPI formula?
Worldwide, dairy producers have put a great deal of focus on improving efficiencies through standard operating procedures, herd nutrition and reproductive strategies.
Crossbreeding is commonly practiced in some livestock sectors such as beef and pork. Producers use hybrids to combine strengths in existing lines and breeds.
CanWest DHI has been producing an annual reproduction benchmarking report for its customers for the past five years. Nearly 75 percent of herds on test contribute reproductive data used for creating these benchmarks.
Getting cows pregnant is arguably the most important task for a dairy farmer. Without pregnancy, there is no genetic improvement, no milk and no money.
Although milk production has almost doubled during the last 50 years, conception rate did not improve and stayed low. Average conception rate is at 39 percent with pregnancy rate being as low as 15 percent.
2014 marks five years since the implementation of genomics in Canada, and has the world of genetic improvement ever changed.
Genomics was boasted by scientists as a technology that would revolutionize genetic improvement strategies and significantly increase rates of genetic improvement.
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