Recovery in milk recording continues

THE cost-cutting push in the late 1990s unfortunately resulted in many essential practices being scaled down or eliminated on farms.

Among these were milk recording and dairy AI breeding. From 2004 to 2008, milk recording increased rapidly, but dairy AI usage increased by only a few per cent per year until 2008, when it increased by more than 5%.

Unfortunately for the Irish dairy industry there was a reversal again in 2009, particularly for milk recording.

This year the recovery in milk recording continues.

Less than 40% of replacements have been coming from AI sires in recent years. This level of AI usage will cause serious long-term losses for the farmers involved.

Unless there is a massive increase in milk recording and dairy AI usage farmers will not be able to expand with good quality cows, when quotas become more freely available.

According to the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF), only 101,100 dairy heifers were bred from AI in 2006, but this number increased by an average of 13% per annum to 139,273 in 2009. However, that represents only 16 AI-bred heifers per 100 cows.

Andrew Cromie of ICBF says that many of the best farmers are now setting a target of 40 AI-bred heifers per 100 cows to allow for expansion and the sale of surplus stock.

There has been a steady decrease in dairy cows in recent years, and there will be no major increase in cow numbers in the next few years, because there are not enough replacements.