new ebo figures

jersey101

I see ncbc have got new proofs for there bulls, highest fr bull is €303 and highest JE bull is €268.
They say the average herd EBI will drop to €98, big drop for some lads

jaymla627

jersey101 wrote: »

I see ncbc have got new proofs for there bulls, highest fr bull is €303 and highest JE bull is €268.
They say the average herd EBI will drop to €98, big drop for some lads

I wouldnt get to hung up about herd ebi, a lot of lads just use it as a way to big up their heifers/ cows when selling them.
Granted its a good guide but isnt the be all and end all to breeding good quality cows.

Timmaay

http://www.icbf.com/?page_id=202 the highest ncbc bull not PSZ?: http://webapp.icbf.com/bull-search/view/869412387.

But yeh, some readjustment to the EBI scale, so everything will drop by the 100, overall it shouldnt have much effect other than we'll need to adjust ourselves, bit like going from miles to km? The new breeding worth index should be useful for deciding likes of cull cows, or putting a value on bought in cows etc.

stanflt

jaymla627 wrote: »

I wouldnt get to hung up about herd ebi, a lot of lads just use it as a way to big up their heifers/ cows when selling them.
Granted its a good guide but isnt the be all and end all to breeding good quality cows.

Maybe your right but it is the answer if you want to deliver a lot of milk to the dairies- Ebi rewards cows for milk solids Fert and management all key things that provide the best possible outcome- sure if Ebi doesn't work prove what you are doing by posting co op performance reports etc

No points making an argueiment if you can't back it up

jersey101

Timmaay wrote: »

http://www.icbf.com/?page_id=202 the highest ncbc bull not PSZ?: http://webapp.icbf.com/bull-search/view/869412387.

But yeh, some readjustment to the EBI scale, so everything will drop by the 100, overall it shouldnt have much effect other than we'll need to adjust ourselves, bit like going from miles to km? The new breeding worth index should be useful for deciding likes of cull cows, or putting a value on bought in cows etc.

he has savage fert

mahoney_j

stanflt wrote: »

Maybe your right but it is the answer if you want to deliver a lot of milk to the dairies- Ebi rewards cows for milk solids Fert and management all key things that provide the best possible outcome- sure if Ebi doesn't work prove what you are doing by posting co op performance reports etc

No points making an argueiment if you can't back it up

Agree totally ,ebi system has to be embraced ,I have .the says of your big 2 or2.5 k gallon a year cow calving every 450 days are in the past where they should be.its now all about a fertile high solids decent volume cow that calves every 365 days.and this is largely what the ebi system is delevering

mahoney_j

stanflt wrote: »

Maybe your right but it is the answer if you want to deliver a lot of milk to the dairies- Ebi rewards cows for milk solids Fert and management all key things that provide the best possible outcome- sure if Ebi doesn't work prove what you are doing by posting co op performance reports etc

No points making an argueiment if you can't back it up

Agree totally ,ebi system has to be embraced ,I have .the says of your big 2 or2.5 k gallon a year cow calving every 450 days are in the past where they should be.its now all about a fertile high solids decent volume cow that calves every 365 days.and this is largely what the ebi system is delevering

Timmaay

jersey101 wrote: »

he has savage fert

Production also very good, 28kgs of solids. However calving difficulty is 2.3, not a sire for heifers at all.

Timmaay

mahoney_j wrote: »

Agree totally ,ebi system has to be embraced ,I have .the says of your big 2 or2.5 k gallon a year cow calving every 450 days are in the past where they should be.its now all about a fertile high solids decent volume cow that calves every 365 days.and this is largely what the ebi system is delevering

Jay had a bad experience with afew high EBI cows that he bought in before, thats the only reason I can see why he is bashing it 2bh! 4 cows which all were 150ebi that we bought in before didn't do as good as I expected either. However on hinesight, there was some minor flaw with all of them, which would explain why the previous owner let them on, I'd blame that issue (and my naivety for not spotting any of the flaws!) instead of the EBI index for them not preforming as well as they should have.

jaymla627

stanflt wrote: »

Maybe your right but it is the answer if you want to deliver a lot of milk to the dairies- Ebi rewards cows for milk solids Fert and management all key things that provide the best possible outcome- sure if Ebi doesn't work prove what you are doing by posting co op performance reports etc

No points making an argueiment if you can't back it up

Will hit 400 kg milk solids this year 85% herd heifers of a ton of meal with 10% empty rate 12 weeks breeding season with 70% calved in first 6 weeks next year.
new entrant this year with all stock bought-in so factoring in disease pressure and mixing of cows from different herds lots of room for improvement
Im not disputing that ebi dosent work so need to jump down my neck, having seen some of the messing that ICBf goes on with bull proofs from sires outside of Ireland with their ebi no way reflecting their genetic potential and daughter proofs i wouldnt take everything as gospel the ICBf comes out with.

jersey101

mahoney_j wrote: »

Agree totally ,ebi system has to be embraced ,I have .the says of your big 2 or2.5 k gallon a year cow calving every 450 days are in the past where they should be.its now all about a fertile high solids decent volume cow that calves every 365 days.and this is largely what the ebi system is delevering

ypur dead right on that, have friend who is the same age as me and says the ebi is a load of ****. He has HO cows fair enough but he is putting no fert into them, he told me during the summer he's going calving all year round now because he doesnt see the point on two set calving blocks, when i know he cant get them in calf and he is too set in his ways to change the way he picks his bulls

Timmaay

Jersey prob the same type of chap who will be calling you a lazy bollox for only working till say 6pm and 50hours a wk, when he is still out calving/dosing/drying off individual cows most days of the year :P

jersey101

Timmaay wrote: »

Jersey prob the same type of chap who will be calling you a lazy bollox for only working till say 6pm and 50hours a wk, when he is still out calving/dosing/drying off individual cows most days of the year :P

ah he's a bit of a messer, spend all summer racking silage for contracters and that crack so he doesnt want to have a heap of cows bulling in may, he preferes to let the bull in than AI and he did the course and bought all the gear and never bothered

Timmaay

Aim to buy him out in 5/10yrs time so when he has gone bust :P

jersey101

Timmaay wrote: »

Aim to buy him out in 5/10yrs time so when he has gone bust :P

haha no dont think id do that to a friend

TossL1916

http://www.icbf.com/taurus/ai_application/active_bull_list.php?Purpose=M

Will many of ye be tempeted to use Lucky Whistler?

stanflt

TossL1916 wrote: »

http://www.icbf.com/taurus/ai_application/active_bull_list.php?Purpose=M

Will many of ye be tempeted to use Lucky Whistler?

first wly heifer off a ex90 point cow- balanced breeding

Timmaay

I was just checking my expected calving list, the updated EBI figures helped me anyways, afew with 240/250s EBIs, and over 30kgs MS. Assuming some of them are bull calves, are figure likes of that worth considering for stock bulls, or are they far too common anyways?

awaywithyou

jaymla627 wrote: »

Will hit 400 kg milk solids this year 85% herd heifers of a ton of meal with 10% empty rate 12 weeks breeding season with 70% calved in first 6 weeks next year.
new entrant this year with all stock bought-in so factoring in disease pressure and mixing of cows from different herds lots of room for improvement
Im not disputing that ebi dosent work so need to jump down my neck, having seen some of the messing that ICBf goes on with bull proofs from sires outside of Ireland with their ebi no way reflecting their genetic potential and daughter proofs i wouldnt take everything as gospel the ICBf comes out with.

explain further please.....

jaymla627

awaywithyou wrote: »

explain further please.....

First example is a genomic bull called pesky his ebi was dropped considerably on his second proof then his first one on ebi, ai company in question ring up <modsnip>
Second example involved a lm bull was rated as a one star bull on icbf despite the fact that he was throwing really good stock in England, again <modsnip>

bogman_bass

trust me, unless you can prove there was a mistake made somewhere then ICBF will tell the AI companies to go and jump

farmerjack

jaymla627 wrote: »

First example is a genomic bull called pesky his ebi was dropped considerably on his second proof then his first one on ebi, ai company in question ring up <modsnip>
Second example involved a lm bull was rated as a one star bull on icbf despite the fact that he was throwing really good stock in England, again <modsnip>

How do you know this? These are serious allegations and I wouldn't go making them without serious proof, tbh I wouldn't believe a word of it

John_F

jaymla627 wrote: »

First example is a genomic bull called pesky his ebi was dropped considerably on his second proof then his first one on ebi, ai company in question ring up <modsnip>
Second example involved a lm bull was rated as a one star bull on icbf despite the fact that he was throwing really good stock in England, again <modsnip>

whats the second example?

stanflt

he mentioned what ai company it was in a previous tread- sales talk i reckon as their sales are well down since ebi came in- ill find out by how much- they havent one bull id use in their whole cateloge

RobertKK

Nice cow and wly calf there stanflt.

I have 5 expected from him, please God be heifers...

awaywithyou

stanflt wrote: »

he mentioned what ai company it was in a previous tread- sales talk i reckon as their sales are well down since ebi came in- ill find out by how much- they havent one bull id use in their whole cateloge

Not one?

jaymla627

farmerjack wrote: »

How do you know this? These are serious allegations and I wouldn't go making them without serious proof, tbh I wouldn't believe a word of it

Was told so by a very well respected ex dairy farmer/now ai sales men, what's got lads so blinkered about EBI that they so the flaws in the system.
The biggest joke about the whole system concerning non-Irish bulls that even though a bull might have a really low calving difficulty, good temperament and mastitis resistance backed by over 1,000 plus milking daughters the bull still gets marked as pure muck on the ebi system at 30% reliability on these traits whatever about fertility/kilos of milk traits which aren't directly transferable cant be recognized in a Irish context.
Why cant they recognize the above traits when working out a bulls ebi, that's already daughter proven

stanflt

awaywithyou wrote: »

Not one?

There are no bulls with higher type that have milk and fertility figures as good as my herd avg

Any bull I use has to significantly increase the avg or I'm on the road to no where

stanflt

jaymla627 wrote: »

Was told so by a very well respected ex dairy farmer/now ai sales men, what's got lads so blinkered about EBI that they so the flaws in the system.
The biggest joke about the whole system concerning non-Irish bulls that even though a bull might have a really low calving difficulty, good temperament and mastitis resistance backed by over 1,000 plus milking daughters the bull still gets marked as pure muck on the ebi system at 30% reliability on these traits whatever about fertility/kilos of milk traits which aren't directly transferable cant be recognized in a Irish context.
Why cant they recognize the above traits when working out a bulls ebi, that's already daughter proven

SALESMAN hmmmmmm

jaymla627

stanflt wrote: »

SALESMAN hmmmmmm

Look up peskys first ebi evaluation was 97 in April, its at 169 now what caused his ebi to go up.
Re salesman talk I actually brought it up going using Pesky this year and asked him why his ebi was so low when his pli ranks him as the second highest bull in England then he explained the story, if Pesky genomic proof is accurate looking at a serious bull in my opionin

jersey101

jaymla627 wrote: »

Look up peskys first ebi evaluation was 97 in April, its at 169 now what caused his ebi to go up.
Re salesman talk I actually brought it up going using Pesky this year and asked him why his ebi was so low when his pli ranks him as the second highest bull in England then he explained the story, if Pesky genomic proof is accurate looking at a serious bull in my opionin

english use a different type of cow for a differemt type of system???

jaymla627

jersey101 wrote: »

english use a different type of cow for a differemt type of system???

Different type of system? not every herd in Ireland is a 100% grass based system based on 4,500 litres cows following what your teagasc lad tells you to do. Working towards a 7,500 to 8,000 litre cow here so am breeding with that in mind.
Having worked on about 15 farms over the past 3 years in Ireland and abroad with varying types of systems I can safely say I"d rather have 160 cows doing 8,000 litres then 300 5,000 litre ones, half the workload with your 160 cows for about 70% of the milk and your noting spending 2-3 hours a day on a quad getting cows in and out of paddocks for milking because your walking cows 3 plus kilometres a day along with the extra hour our two in the parlour.

stanflt

jaymla627 wrote: »

Different type of system? not every herd in Ireland is a 100% grass based system based on 4,500 litres cows following what your teagasc lad tells you to do. Working towards a 7,500 to 8,000 litre cow here so am breeding with that in mind.
Having worked on about 15 farms over the past 3 years in Ireland and abroad with varying types of systems I can safely say I"d rather have 160 cows doing 8,000 litres then 300 5,000 litre ones, half the workload with your 160 cows for about 70% of the milk and your noting spending 2-3 hours a day on a quad getting cows in and out of paddocks for milking because your walking cows 3 plus kilometres a day along with the extra hour our two in the parlour.

i have a 9000litre herd grass based 4500litres from forage high ebi herd

calving interval 389 and will be 375 next year down from 427 four years ago when fertility sub index was very low

disregard ebi at your perill

Timmaay

But its not at all about litres anymore, many of them 5000L cows are able to knockout 80% of the solids of a high production milky cow, especially if the higher yielding cows diet etc isnt up to scratch (which was the case with our setup previously I'll admit straightout!). And anyways, just like with Stans herd, you can easily get the best of both worlds, high production and high MS from the EBI, just pick bulls with fertility greater than 100, and MS as high as possible, 30kg+. I'll admit I've one or two cows who are high EBI (160ish), but utterly desperate for solids (+5kgs!),this can be seen with their poor production in the parlour, why they were ever selected I don't know, but I suppose the key thing with them is they are still calving in Feb every year, still better than an 8000L cow who needs 5straws and 450day CI to get back in calf!

mahoney_j

jaymla627 wrote: »

Different type of system? not every herd in Ireland is a 100% grass based system based on 4,500 litres cows following what your teagasc lad tells you to do. Working towards a 7,500 to 8,000 litre cow here so am breeding with that in mind.
Having worked on about 15 farms over the past 3 years in Ireland and abroad with varying types of systems I can safely say I"d rather have 160 cows doing 8,000 litres then 300 5,000 litre ones, half the workload with your 160 cows for about 70% of the milk and your noting spending 2-3 hours a day on a quad getting cows in and out of paddocks for milking because your walking cows 3 plus kilometres a day along with the extra hour our two in the parlour.

I m thinking along the same lives as you jay but I've a lot of faith in the ebi system.it is working .for me At least anyway in a high production spring based system.on the grass based system there is no one doingbit on 100 % grass system as of they did cows would melt in early spring and back end when grass has a low energy value.saying that grass is king for cows and they have to eat as much of it as possible when producing milk.but crucially they need adequate supplementation at stages of the year particularly in spring after calving and at breeding when they need a high energy feed .a lot here seem to think that New Zealand is king and we should all be farming like them which is madness.our climate is different,herd size is different ,land blocks are smaller and to manage an Irish cow the same as a kiwi cow isn't feasible .by all means pick bits from the kiwi system like grass budgeting etc and also in corporate sone of what the Dutch and Americans are doing in high input/output systems.id like to think I've a nice blend of both.
Give me 170 or 180 high ebi 8 k a year cows any day over 300 4500 to 5 k a year cows.whats the point in chasing big nos for a huge workload and running around like a blue arse fly all year for little extra profit.in 34 now and I'll admit about 8 years ago I was like jersey (no offence!!)all I wanted was loads of cows and to cross our British freisan x hol cows with je ,luckily my dad said no and the trade off was we'd cut out winter milk and go all spring but keep breeding as we were with Holstein bulls mainly.thank god he did and after going to loads of farm walks I saw he was right,we had limited land around parlour and to go the jex rout our herd would of been totally devalued and milking less litres and less kg solids.my final rally for this year was 7200 litres delievered,4.02 fat 3.47 protein with 100% calved In just over 10 weeks on 1.3 tonnes of meal and an average price of over 41 cent a litre.

bogman_bass

jaymla627 wrote: »

The biggest joke about the whole system concerning non-Irish bulls that even though a bull might have a really low calving difficulty, good temperament and mastitis resistance backed by over 1,000 plus milking daughters the bull still gets marked as pure muck on the ebi system at 30% reliability on these traits whatever about fertility/kilos of milk traits which aren't directly transferable cant be recognized in a Irish context.
Why cant they recognize the above traits when working out a bulls ebi, that's already daughter proven

This isnt an EBI issue, its about converting international figures using different messuring systems.

These figures arent converted by ICBF, they are converted by Interbull, an international coallition of breeding groups. The problems that you outlined exist in all countries.

If an AI company wants to they can Genotype a straw and get figures that way which is probably how the change happened in the example you gave above

stanflt

mahoney_j wrote: »

I m thinking along the same lives as you jay but I've a lot of faith in the ebi system.it is working .for me At least anyway in a high production spring based system.on the grass based system there is no one doingbit on 100 % grass system as of they did cows would melt in early spring and back end when grass has a low energy value.saying that grass is king for cows and they have to eat as much of it as possible when producing milk.but crucially they need adequate supplementation at stages of the year particularly in spring after calving and at breeding when they need a high energy feed .a lot here seem to think that New Zealand is king and we should all be farming like them which is madness.our climate is different,herd size is different ,land blocks are smaller and to manage an Irish cow the same as a kiwi cow isn't feasible .by all means pick bits from the kiwi system like grass budgeting etc and also in corporate sone of what the Dutch and Americans are doing in high input/output systems.id like to think I've a nice blend of both.
Give me 170 or 180 high ebi 8 k a year cows any day over 300 4500 to 5 k a year cows.whats the point in chasing big nos for a huge workload and running around like a blue arse fly all year for little extra profit.in 34 now and I'll admit about 8 years ago I was like jersey (no offence!!)all I wanted was loads of cows and to cross our British freisan x hol cows with je ,luckily my dad said no and the trade off was we'd cut out winter milk and go all spring but keep breeding as we were with Holstein bulls mainly.thank god he did and after going to loads of farm walks I saw he was right,we had limited land around parlour and to go the jex rout our herd would of been totally devalued and milking less litres and less kg solids.my final rally for this year was 7200 litres delievered,4.02 fat 3.47 protein with 100% calved In just over 10 weeks on 1.3 tonnes of meal and an average price of over 41 cent a litre.

fantastic performance
feed cost of 5.3cent per litre

compared to my 9000litre id say we made the same profit per cow which shows that chasing yields by purchased feeds doesnt pay off full stop

my feed cost will be close to 9cl including brewers etc


grass is king

mahoney_j

stanflt wrote: »

fantastic performance
feed cost of 5.3cent per litre

compared to my 9000litre id say we made the same profit per cow which shows that chasing yields by purchased feeds doesnt pay off full stop

my feed cost will be close to 9cl including brewers etc


grass is king

Maby I'm wrong stan and open to correction,but I don't think your chasing yield,your cows proably have been bred and are genetically capable of that level of production.they are achieving what they are because of the way you feed and manage them.my bet is that if you didn't feed them to the level you are your yields of milk and solids would. Be lower,fertility wouldn't be as good and you'd have a high empty rate.im somewhat chasing yield still but am nearly there.im aiming for 8k Ltrs and hopefully 650 kg solids.i reckon I'd have done 7500 Ltrs plus no problem and hit a protein % of close to 3.55 only for long spring and drought in summer..my production will be back a bit next year as I will have nearly 40% heifers but hopefully solids sold will be up

delaval

I want a robust fertile cow and a simple system that's repeatable.

awaywithyou

[QUOTE=mahoney_j;88131979.my final rally for this year was 7200 litres delievered,4.02 fat 3.47 protein with 100% calved In just over 10 weeks on 1.3 tonnes of meal and an average price of over 41 cent a litre.[/QUOTE]


What's your empty rate? Ours was 8% this yr...

What sires have you been using? And are using next yr?

Rovi

[MOD]

Some snippage above.

Don't be posting unsubstantiated allegations!

[/MOD]

jaymla627

mahoney_j wrote: »

I m thinking along the same lives as you jay but I've a lot of faith in the ebi system.it is working .for me At least anyway in a high production spring based system.on the grass based system there is no one doingbit on 100 % grass system as of they did cows would melt in early spring and back end when grass has a low energy value.saying that grass is king for cows and they have to eat as much of it as possible when producing milk.but crucially they need adequate supplementation at stages of the year particularly in spring after calving and at breeding when they need a high energy feed .a lot here seem to think that New Zealand is king and we should all be farming like them which is madness.our climate is different,herd size is different ,land blocks are smaller and to manage an Irish cow the same as a kiwi cow isn't feasible .by all means pick bits from the kiwi system like grass budgeting etc and also in corporate sone of what the Dutch and Americans are doing in high input/output systems.id like to think I've a nice blend of both.
Give me 170 or 180 high ebi 8 k a year cows any day over 300 4500 to 5 k a year cows.whats the point in chasing big nos for a huge workload and running around like a blue arse fly all year for little extra profit.in 34 now and I'll admit about 8 years ago I was like jersey (no offence!!)all I wanted was loads of cows and to cross our British freisan x hol cows with je ,luckily my dad said no and the trade off was we'd cut out winter milk and go all spring but keep breeding as we were with Holstein bulls mainly.thank god he did and after going to loads of farm walks I saw he was right,we had limited land around parlour and to go the jex rout our herd would of been totally devalued and milking less litres and less kg solids.my final rally for this year was 7200 litres delievered,4.02 fat 3.47 protein with 100% calved In just over 10 weeks on 1.3 tonnes of meal and an average price of over 41 cent a litre.

I'm not disregarding it, my biggest reason for using abs bulls is actually largely swayed by the fact they have got a lot of daughter proven bulls.
Having got kicked black and blue from 40 heifers back in the spring all where high ebi but really bad for temperament, with the exception being 10 spock daughters which where are pleasure to work and this is backed up in his figures for temperament.
I swore to myself anything bull used in the future had to be positive for temperament with over 80% reliability try and find these bulls in the Irish system their not there as I work alone I need quiet cows not something that's liable to try and break your arm/wrist on a regular basis the fact that temperament only accounts for something like 1% of a bulls ebi means no matter how nasty our temperamental a bulls daughters are predicted to be they are let into the system if you ever flick through a Irish catalogue 95% of bulls are negative for temperament.

mahoney_j

awaywithyou wrote: »

What's your empty rate? Ours was 8% this yr...

What sires have you been using? And are using next yr?

Empty rate this year was 12% ,dissapointing and inverstigated and found big iodine deficiency.all ai ,I only bulled cows for 11 weeks and that was it as I have ample heifers comming through and quota issues.bulls used this year included xrb,pkr,ztg,qgh and some s1137.for next year I've picked xrb,pbm,pkr,,ksk so far and proab 1 more.
From 2015 ai will start on 20 April and continue for 12 weeks,all ai and will run 3 teasers

awaywithyou

stanflt wrote: »

fantastic performance
feed cost of 5.3cent per litre

compared to my 9000litre id say we made the same profit per cow which shows that chasing yields by purchased feeds doesnt pay off full stop

my feed cost will be close to 9cl including brewers etc


grass is king

http://www.agriland.ie/news/kiwi-dairy-farmers-now-choosing-irish-bulls/

Timmaay

awaywithyou wrote: »

http://www.agriland.ie/news/kiwi-dairy-farmers-now-choosing-irish-bulls/

ABS, ha, you opened a can of worms there!

jaymla627

Timmaay wrote: »

ABS, ha, you opened a can of worms there!

To be honest went over to wales where their main base is and was blown away by their breeding programmes and the services/back-up they are offering farmers, its light-years ahead of anything that's going on in Ireland. Contrary to what a lot of lads believe they are actually breeding some really good functional bulls for grass based systems.
The highlight of the trip was to a 400 cow herd that had a cow valued at 100,000 sterling in the yard and had won every show she had been entered into but wasn't been entertained by abs for ai sires because she wasn't meeting their standards, she had been flushed twice and their was 7 bull calves of her but they weren't been looked at, she had done 17,000 litres in 380 days in her third lactation when we seen her and yes she was back in-calf with it being timed so she would calve down fresh for the royal welsh show at the time.

Timmaay

delaval wrote: »

I want a robust fertile cow and a simple system that's repeatable.

jaymla627 wrote: »

, she had done 17,000 litres in 380 days in her third lactation when we seen her and yes she was back in-calf with it being timed so she would calve down fresh for the royal welsh show at the time.

If she did that in 380 days, her CI must be minimum 425days, thats not worth sh%t to any sort of seasonal system like here in Ireland. I'm all up for trying to drive up yearly MS yields from my herd, but if the cow is not capable of calving every spring then she's useless to me, Del summed it up perfectly above, a robust fertile cow in a simple repeatable system, and that sort of cow is about as far away from fitting the criteria.

mahoney_j

Timmaay wrote: »

If she did that in 380 days, her CI must be minimum 425days, thats not worth sh%t to any sort of seasonal system like here in Ireland. I'm all up for trying to drive up yearly MS yields from my herd, but if the cow is not capable of calving every spring then she's useless to me, Del summed it up perfectly above, a robust fertile cow in a simple repeatable system, and that sort of cow is about as far away from fitting the criteria.

17000 litres in 380 days is irrelevant..cow has to calve every 365 days or she has no place in a herd.

jersey101

jaymla627 wrote: »

To be honest went over to wales where their main base is and was blown away by their breeding programmes and the services/back-up they are offering farmers, its light-years ahead of anything that's going on in Ireland. Contrary to what a lot of lads believe they are actually breeding some really good functional bulls for grass based systems.
The highlight of the trip was to a 400 cow herd that had a cow valued at 100,000 sterling in the yard and had won every show she had been entered into but wasn't been entertained by abs for ai sires because she wasn't meeting their standards, she had been flushed twice and their was 7 bull calves of her but they weren't been looked at, she had done 17,000 litres in 380 days in her third lactation when we seen her and yes she was back in-calf with it being timed so she would calve down fresh for the royal welsh show at the time.

Sure thars exactly why them bulls aren't getting EBIs in ireland, they dont suit ireland, that cow would be typical cow in england or the north. The fert has a big bearing on ebi and if the bulls mother only calves every 400+ days thay wont give the bull a good EBI

Brown Podzol

If your stocked at 4- 4.5 cows/ha all the grass is going to be turned into milk anyway. If the cow is giving 20+lts at drying off does it matter how often she calves?. The less often the better as all the trouble with a cow is around calving.:D I'll get my coat now.

jaymla627

Brown Podzol wrote: »

If your stocked at 4- 4.5 cows/ha all the grass is going to be turned into milk anyway. If the cow is giving 20+lts at drying off does it matter how often she calves?. The less often the better as all the trouble with a cow is around calving.:D I'll get my coat now.

She was still knocking out 40 litres when we where their, on her calving interval she had being flushed a couple of times that year.
305 day calving intervals and getting cows to grass isn't done over there, the dry cows/weanling heifers aren't even let out of the shed in some places:rolleyes: