Increase the Speed of Genetic Gain

Without a doubt the genetics of dairy cattle have increased over the last 75 years. That’s about the time when we figured out how to cryopreserve sperm with glycerol. “Freezing” sperm allowed us to transport it from another person’s farm to our farm. In addition, it allowed us to purchase better genetics from someone else. That resulted in a consistent increase in genetics in our dairy cattle over the ensuing years. That trendline of genetic improvement remained fairly consistent up and through 2008. In 2008 genomic testing was introduced which allowed us to accurately predict a cow’s potential based off of her genome. It takes only a small skin sample to accurately predict how a cow will perform. Knowing the genetic potential of both cows and bulls when they calve brings astonishing power to the genetic gain equation. Now you can breed your top heifer to top bulls with female selected semen. Adding that much horsepower to our work on genetic gain caused a rapid acceleration in the speed of genetic gain. See the graph below:

If you are not using every available tool to increase the genetics of your dairy herd, you are falling quickly behind other dairy farmers. In the past, if you didn’t focus too hard on genetics, you fell behind by $20/year in Net Merit. As of late, there has been an $80/year increase in Holstein cow net merit. If you choose to slack off for even just 3 years, you will be $240 behind your neighbors in the net merit of your cows.

Based on the above, what should you do? I am always pretty honest in these musings. If you want your farm to be a profitable dairy business in 15 years you must do 2 things:

1. Immediately start genomic testing your herd. You have to know what you have for genetic levels.

2. Breed your top genomic heifers with heifer selected semen from top bulls.

3. Identify the top 5% of females in your herd and collect their oocytes to be used in IVF (in vitro fertilization) embryo transfer. By magnifying the top 5% of females in your herd, you can crank up your genetic gain in spades

I bet you all have a cow in your herd that produces 150 lbs. Use all the genetic tools at your disposal to make more daughters from her!

By Kevin Hoogendoorn