A common question often asked by dairy farmers is what the role of bull semen in cattle improvement is. Bull Semen must be able to transfer the following traits to a dairy herd. It is the pathway to a profitable dairy business.
Longevity
This is the period your high-yielding cow stays on the farm produce. It is important for the financial performance of the herd. High longevity means a low culling rate, high milk production and low vet costs. The higher the number of lactations per cow the higher the lifetime milk production and the more profitable the cow is.
Health &Fertility
Udder health is a major challenge affecting the dairy enterprise. It leads to huge losses arising from reduced production, and high vet costs and is a major cause of high culling rates. A dairy farmer must select his bull semen from a pool of bulls with proven transferability of protection against mastitis. Often linked to this trait is fertility. Kenyan dairy cows have long calving intervals. Ideally, a cow should produce a calf once a year, but the average calving interval in Kenya is about 600 days. The problem more often is the inability to conceive usually preceded by silent heat and sometimes accompanied by pregnancy loss or abortion. These problems can be avoided by breeding for fertility, the power is in the genes hence a farmer must select bull semen that will impart this power to the daughters of his cows and heifers.
Production
Overall milk production determines a herd’s income. If a farmer is breeding for profit, he must select from the leading cow families in terms of milk production and the willingness to produce. The production must be in terms of the volume of milk and additionally in terms of milk components like protein and fats.
Conformation
Bull semen will also transfer features that contribute to the stature of the future cow. The feet and legs must be “dairy” to carry the weight of the animal and aid in locomotion, especially grazing animals. Conformation traits determine the longevity of the cow and how durable they are and avoid issues of lameness and retained placenta as well they are a factor of productivity. The beauty of a cow is in the genes and if a farmer is breeding heifers for sale and for Agricultural shows selects his bull semen from a pool of beautiful bulls to inherit good conformation.
Reliability
A farmer will select the right bull semen from a bull catalogue. The information contained in a catalogue must be derived from a large number of tests done on the semen and proven to be repeatable over and overusing a large population of animals. Genome trials where gene mapping of useful traits is done on young bulls before they even reach semen production age (puberty) are also used to create bull catalogues. Selected bull semen must have high reliability for a dairy farmer to trust and use.
If a dairy farmer has a cow whose production is low the first bull semen selection criteria will be production trait, he will first select semen from a bull with high production. If the same cow has problems with feet or hooves, the farmer will select to improve both production and feet&legs. It is important that the farmer uses semen from renowned suppliers.
The breeding objective of every farmer is to ensure the offspring is better than the mother.
CKL Africa Ltd offers our Kenyan farmers top-quality bull semen from CRV, who are the leading dairy cattle breeders and semen producers based in the Netherlands.
The CRV breeding programmes aim for high lifetime production efficiency in production in litres, milk components in kg of protein and kg of fats. They also aim for udder improvement in terms of attachment and mastitis control. Other breeding goals include feed conversion efficiency, conformation, longevity and most importantly fertility. CRV provide semen that gives daughters that are fertile as they are easier to conceive. One of the biggest losses for Kenyan dairy farmers is the long intervals.
CRV bulls are important and part of a mastitis control strategy. This is one of the biggest challenges facing dairy farmers, especially during the wet season and leads to huge losses in incomes from milk sales and leads to high culling rates. Farmers must maintain a clean hygienic environment in the milking parlour by cleaning the shed and disinfecting the floor with Kupacide. During milking, they must use medicated CKL Milking Salve. The water they use for washing the udder must be mixed with Mastrite and the teats dipped in Mastrite after milking. For long-term and future mastitis-free herds, CRV bull semen will transfer mastitis protection in the herd.
It is important that a farmer employs the services of a qualified practitioner to help them get the correct bull for each of their animal. CKL offers training in this area of bull selection at no cost to practitioners, college students and farmers.
Detection of heat and proper timing of insemination is key in ensuring conception occurs. The signs to look out for are bellowing, mounting, standing to be mounted, clear vulval discharge and vulval swelling. Artificial insemination should be done when the cow is standing to be mounted usually 12 hours since the heat signs are first noticed. Proper record keeping is important to track the heat, and pregnancy history and to trace the pedigree development for each cow family.
