Saturday, March 30, 2024

Plan ahead for best breeding

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Dairy farmers should be making a five-year herd improvement plan to extract the best value from their cows, to ensure they are not rearing replacements from their worst-performing cows.
It will take a rebound in dairy demand in China or New Zealand’s spring milk production to break the current lull in international dairy prices.
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Most farmers don’t have a breeding plan written down. Instead, they make mating decisions on an annual basis, LIC principal adviser Jack Hooper says.

“You’re not going to make fast progress if you’re changing that every year.”

LIC’s central North Island territory manager David Chin and Hooper addressed the Dairy Women’s Network conference in May.

It was rare to see a farmer with a documented plan around their herd’s future, Hooper said.

If farmers set a target for their herd it made their herd asset more efficient and profitable and created more options to leverage their asset to make extra income.

Farmers spent a lot of money getting cows in-calf every year and having a plan added more value.

It’s the surplus calves through good reproductive practices such as a good six-week in-calf rate that gives farmers leverage opportunities.

“If you can’t generate surplus calves you don’t have any choice in your system. You just have to rear every single calf you’ve got,” Chin said.

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