Never had as many heifer calves.

st1979

Ok I have come from a situation where we never had a bull, for more than 30 years we used all AI. In that time we have never had 50% heifers to bulls was always less and some times a lot less.
In the last 3 years i have used a stock bull and have had a definite increase in heifer to bulls. I was always a firm believer in that AI was same as a bull and laughed at lads saying otherwise. But remember when Progressive genetics came out with sexed advantaged semen (which seemed to of failed) they showed data where the normal AI gave around 45% and the sexed advantaged was going to give 54% heifers therefore a 10% increase in heifers.
That for me was the first time i saw data that said you don't get 50/50 with AI and I have not seen it since.
Now Teagasc will show how awful bad it is to use a stock bull as the ebi is so bad. But in fairness this is due to farmers who buy stock bulls traditionally went to their local pedigree extreme holstein farmer/breeder to buy his bull. When in reality a lot of the high ebi bulls are coming from farms that are less extreme in breeding. So it would be a more fair comparison if you compared like with like where you buy a high ebi bull from some one who bred for it.
I know we cant all buy bulls like they get in the AI station and their is a larger element of hit and miss. But how much more profitable is it if you do actually get more heifers to bulls.
And my workload is reduced so much since i used a bull (would this increase my profit if I could handle more cows per person).
Now my first bull was a calf i got out of one of my outcross cows that the AI wanted to test cause he was after RUU but unfortunately I didn't get back to them on time and when i did they had too many RUU sons and cow had gone to factory. I reckon if he was good eough for the AI he was good enough for me.
Anyway a bit of a rant. But I guess I am just happy to of had 8 heifers in a row when i was used to getting 8 bulls in a row.

Timmaay

Yeh I'd be in general in support of alot of the Teagasc stuff, but I remember reading that and thinking it was very biased, With so many high enough EBI stock bulls around the country surely they should of at least suggested that the farmer who wants to stick with a dairybull goes and replaces his low EBI bull with one much higher, and then had costing for that also. Or maybe the likes of PG and the other AI companies etc do have an influence on Teagasc ha!

st1979

I know its so ridiculous. I dont know stanflt but just guessing from what he says on here i reckon his worst bull calves being born would have a higher ebi than the avg stockbull in the country.
And at teagasc meetings they have the huge cost of having a cow empty per day. Well unless you use heat time or check your cows 24hrs a day your bull will get them in calf faster. Never seen this taken in to the calculations. Now I am not for 1 minute saying that AI is useless but it does have its drawbacks.
And the one thing I see is using statistics you can get any answer you like depending what outcome you want to find.

pakalasa

If you check any bull on ICBF.com, for the Beef ones anyway, all are 50/50 for heifers/bulls. Now a lot of people on here have said that early AI gives more heifers than bulls. Now the bull don't follow the AM'PM rule, so he gets in early. Might explain why natural service gives more bulls than heifers, compared to AI.
If that is true, surprised we havn't heard that from ICBF. Afterall, they do have all the data, both AI and Natural.

mf240

Have had up to as high as 70% heifers and as low as 30% other years, would average out 50/50 over a few years. All AI

stanflt

st1979 wrote: »

I know its so ridiculous. I dont know stanflt but just guessing from what he says on here i reckon his worst bull calves being born would have a higher ebi than the avg stockbull in the country.
And at teagasc meetings they have the huge cost of having a cow empty per day. Well unless you use heat time or check your cows 24hrs a day your bull will get them in calf faster. Never seen this taken in to the calculations. Now I am not for 1 minute saying that AI is useless but it does have its drawbacks.
And the one thing I see is using statistics you can get any answer you like depending what outcome you want to find.

i had the vet here today doing a private tb test and bloods, decided to tb test a 3month old bull calf that NCBC tested. it only had an ebi of 196 and was slightly negative on fat%. his mother went ex92 as a 4year old. reason im selling the calve is that if its not good enough for ncbc its not good enough for any other farmer. this is a pic of his mother. as farmers we have to sell a product that we believe in



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TEAT SQUEEZER

stock bull users can genomically test their animal for circa 50 euro and recieve a proof of a reliability which is equivalent to 20 (i think) recorded daughters......... this is a massive development in the usage of stock bulls
it would take a lot of the risk out of using a stock bull......
i see irish bred genomic bulls recieve a type rating now and if that could be translated onto the stock bull it would be the cherry on top..

i think ai for 4-5 weeks when their falling over themselves bulling and then introduce the lad could be the way to go in the future...

just a thought for the pro side in the stock bull debate , have u ever seen a stock bull bred from a stock bull.. ?.answer , prob never ...

ai still offers the top genetics and huge choice with it...