“Putting aside differences between breeds and AB suppliers, it’s really useful to see where your animal breeding worth stacks up from a production perspective.”
The new Farm Insights Report includes a whole section on animal efficiency, looking at how enhanced herd genetics can help farmers make cumulative gains on production and functional traits. It includes a graph showing the spread of breeding worth (BW) among cows in the farm’s herd and the difference between the herd’s top and bottom quartiles.
It also includes a graph showing where the farm’s 6-week in-calf rate compares to farms in the region, and a quantified projection of the impact of increasing the 6-week in-calf rate on days in milk and kilograms of milk solids per cow.
“Having a visual representation of the spread of your herd’s BW is enlightening. Why would you trust your really low-quality cows with the responsibility of the future of your herd? Certainly, there will be the odd cow in the lower quartile that has good production worth and lactation worth, but they’re likely to be the exception. There’s no guarantee their offspring will be able to replicate the achievements,” Louise says.
“That’s the importance of the BW system. It allows you to see where gains can be made by breeding from the top 75% of the herd, across performance and productivity. You can then take that to your breeding supplier and have some really valuable conversations. You might choose not to breed from the lowest 10% initially. It’s all about making the herd more efficient and productive.”
The Farm Insights Report provides a useful foundation for conversations with the Co-op’s field teams. Over the past 12 months, Farm Source’s team made more than 2000 visits on-farm around the country.
“Farmers are great thinkers and are always mulling over ways to improve things on the farm. The Farm Insights Report is a great conversation starter with advisors and helps shape your view about what’s next for the farm,” Louise says.
