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Heifer Rearing gets
on Target
The John Thompson & Sons Ltd, AFBI (Hillsborough) and CAFRE Heifer Rearing Project is now six months in progress on a number of farms - and is already demonstrating its potential to improve profitability in dairying. Eight dairy farmers, from across Northern Ireland, are involved in the project. These farmers are adopting a “blueprint” approach to their heifer rearing to ensure that they can calve good quality heifers at 24 months of age. The “blueprint” is based on the latest research information and uses a simple approach to measuring the size of a few heifers in each age group on the farm at chosen intervals. This information is then used to make robust decisions on future feeding and performance requirements. In the project Thompson’s staff, in conjunction with the farmer, measure the size of a small number of animals at 3-month intervals. They then provide detailed feedback to the farmer on heifer performance against target curves of “growth for age” and advise on management and feeding for the next
3-month period.
The calves born in Autumn 2005, which are now 6 months old within the project, are already demonstrating that modest but properly structured feed programmes can provide the correct growth performance. The measurement of size of animals on the farm against the graph of “target size for age” are helping farmers to develop confidence with their heifer rearing programmes. Gaining this confidence is critical to ensuring that animals can be mated at 14-15 months of age - and this must be the key objective in heifer rearing.
Recently these eight farmers visited Hillsborough to discuss the information that has been recorded on their farm. It also gave them the opportunity to use Hillsborough calves and heifers, which are being reared on similar systems to these on their farms, to visually compare with their own heifers. During the meeting the Hillsborough team also discussed their ongoing heifer research programme.
At the end of the Hillsborough meeting, Donald Coulter from John Thompson & Sons Ltd. concluded that, for a variety of reasons, replacements for the dairy herd are, in reality, costing over 3p/litre on all milk produced. This project, by providing robust feeding and management systems coupled with a simple approach to measuring heifer performance, can help farmers make major savings by delivering good heifers at 24 month calving. Thompson’s is committed to working with farmers to make these savings.
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