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Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 4,841 ✭✭✭mf240



    Theres a few repetitive jobs in factorys and butchers ect that lads get repetitive strain injury after a good few years.



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 2,974 Mod ✭✭✭✭K.G.


    Milking cows from may to december is not a phyisically hard job. milking from febuary to end of may is tough on everything head and body.plastering ,block laying and concrete pouring/shuttering are phyisically hard jobs but even load alls have taken some of the grunting out of it.the way we ve gone with all the calves calving in 6 weeks and all the silage/slurry ,bulling and a good share of calves left all in may is killing us



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 2,974 Mod ✭✭✭✭K.G.


    Anybody genotype the whole herd or part of and have ye found the milk recording has reflected the ebi.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,338 ✭✭✭stanflt


    No correlation between genotype results and milk recording results



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,397 ✭✭✭jaymla627


    Have you got any animals tested using international labs, wws are ment to be bringing in a ear notch type test this year



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  • Registered Users Posts: 3,787 ✭✭✭GrasstoMilk


    How do you pick which animals to keep then?

    genotyping all the bullers here to pick which ones to sell



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,448 ✭✭✭straight


    About 90% of the herd genotyped here. Do all replacements as calves every year since 2017. One of my best/favourite cows had a negative EBI when I started. If you keep giving ICBF accurate information then you will get accurate EBI's. She is expecting a calf with an EBI of 300+ this year I think.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,550 ✭✭✭ginger22


    But the important question is are her daughters with the high EBI better than her.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,338 ✭✭✭stanflt


    Ancestry and visual assessment more reliable- from looking at the back pedigree it’s far more accurate at predicting future performance regardless of the bull used- we’ve genotypes for years and when you cross reference the results it becomes clear that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear-



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,448 ✭✭✭straight


    I guess they would want to have 3+ lactations under their belt to show their full potential. But her daughters are definitely solid healthy cows. I pick my replacements based on their mothers mostly and EBI second. I find that good cows don't always have the best progeny. I have good cows here with 2 daughters off the same bull and they are completely different animals. Breeding isn't that predictable as far as I can see. I do find that the more I work on the EBI the more reliable it is. I have often sold high EBI daughters and kept low EBI ones because their mother was so good and they are often disappointments



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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,205 ✭✭✭Gillespy


    Very frustrating when the offspring of your better cows turn out poor, often despite getting the best bull available.

    There’s a reason throughout the history of breeding, great cow families were so sought after.



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,026 ✭✭✭✭mahoney_j


    👍👍👍longevity and cow families …ebi is just number chasing and unreliable …all genotyped here too …handy to verify parentage I certainly wouldn’t be picking heifers to sell /keep based on an ebi score or genotype .the keepers are free m cow families with longevity and generations of solid milk records



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,448 ✭✭✭straight


    From the day you Ai the cow it's often years before you realise how good/bad the progeny are. Sure if it was easy the average MS per cow would be alot higher. I guess alot depends on the type of cow that you want.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,787 ✭✭✭GrasstoMilk


    Well I personally am quite happy with ebi, here consistently improving.

    im using ebi for my breeding choices so genotyping them should make it more accurate imo

    I will be crossreferencing off the dams but genotyping im hoping will add another layer to improve the choice on which ones I keep



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,338 ✭✭✭stanflt


    It’s great in principle but when you actually sit down and correlate the data years later it’s very disappointing- if you remember I put up a load of them on twitter and was looking for a reply from icbf- I even sent them an email to which I’m still waiting a reply on- reality is nobody likes reality cause it’s much easier to chase a dream



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,787 ✭✭✭GrasstoMilk


    Thanks for the feedback but I do think we’re both looking for different things from the cows we’re breeding

    we’re not into type at all just good functional cows that have good solids and are able to stick the grazing system

    566 kgs for 2022 and bf and protein lifting a bit each year.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,898 ✭✭✭alps




  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 2,974 Mod ✭✭✭✭K.G.


    All confused now.i suppose our expansion days are over so we are trying to improve performance and effiencey and we are finally moving to a stage where we can make choices.only back milk recording with 2 years and i was thinking that genotyping would help with selecting dams to bull and weeding out poorer breeding-over the last few years we have bought a bit of stock every so often with not alot of back ground checking.it would cost over 4 k so its a nice wallop of money but also could pay for itself very quickly if its effective.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,448 ✭✭✭straight


    Pick out your best 20 cows from milk recording results and see how you like it. Also genotype all replacements every year. You won't be long getting through them.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,550 ✭✭✭ginger22


    Bulls need to be matched to the cow. That is the problem with the Irish EBI. You have no idea what the affspring will look like. It is just a number generated by a computer. System developed by a crowd that never bred a cow or milked a cow in their life. I will always pick a bull that compliments and hopefully improves the cow.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,550 ✭✭✭ginger22


    And then also there are good strong cow families that no matter what bull you use within reason you will get a good one.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,212 ✭✭✭Gawddawggonnit


    I see you have Brune des Alpes Ginger, how do you find them and are you crossing them into purebreds?

    Did you import?



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,550 ✭✭✭ginger22


    Yes we have some with about 15 years. Imported the seed stock from north Italy near the Austrian border. Try to keep them purebred but up till 3 years ago they were running with the Holsteins and when the bulls were left out we had some crossbreds. We now run them as seperate herds on two different farms. I love their temprement and they go on forever. The crossbreds are the best cows we milk. They would calve an elephant for you. The only downside to them is they have a longer gestation.



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,385 ✭✭✭✭Green&Red


    When you say visual assessment what are you looking for?

    I'm always amazed at when fellas buy cows off the look of them alone. Maybe its just me but I wouldn't be able to go into someones yard and pick out their 10 best cows on looks alone.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,338 ✭✭✭stanflt


    Serious output- you must have cows doing 800-900 kg ms- why haven’t you bulls in Ai when your production is so good??

    im not breeding for type- I’m breeding for an efficient cow who can deliver 10000 and 3.9% protein

    unfortunately the Irish bulls that were 120-150 milk sub index when we used them turn out to be below 50 when they become daughter proven- that there shows that genotyping doesn’t work


    if genotyping works so well why are there so few daughter proven bulls



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,448 ✭✭✭straight


    "unfortunately the Irish bulls that were 120-150 milk sub index when we used them turn out to be below 50 when they become daughter proven- that there shows that genotyping doesn’t work"

    Or does that just prove that they weren't managed or fed to fulfill their potential?



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,338 ✭✭✭stanflt


    I think this bull sums up the whole genomic system - read the advertisement- the sire that ticks all the boxes



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,338 ✭✭✭stanflt


    2500 herds and 15000 daughters being mismanaged and under fed- I’ll let you decide



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,448 ✭✭✭straight


    Sew is before my time but I have heard about him. I'm sure the genomic salespeople have an excuse for him.

    I'm not a pure believer in the EBI. But I think it is a useful tool to a certain degree. ZSR is a nice proven bull. One of my favorites but a small bit too big.




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  • Registered Users Posts: 28,908 ✭✭✭✭whelan2


    The genomic bulls are basically the test bulls they used to pay us to use years ago. Used Barton last year, fr 7152, along with other bulls, would never use him again, range from 2 weeks early to 1 week over



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