This article outlines the economic outcomes of alternative breeding strategies that combine sexed, beef and conventional semen. Using both short-term decision support tools and long-term simulation models, we explored how reproductive performance and semen use strategies interact to shape profitability on dairy farms.

What goes into the bunk doesn’t just affect milk production, it also impacts the farm’s bottom line and its environmental footprint. Our team explored a simple but powerful strategy to address this challenge: nutritional grouping. The results showed promise.

The main objective of developing this model is bringing to farmers, consultants (veterinarians, nutritionists, etc.), researchers and agricultural students a high-level, simple, minimalistic, user-friendly, still powerful and scientifically sound whole-farm decision support model to assess economic and environmental tradeoffs of dairy farming for strategic nutrient management decisions.