MASTITIS GIVES A LOT OF FRUSTRATION!

In our previous news article we already showed you the performance of our SCS improver 515HO000285 BAYLABOY. In this news article we would like to inform you about the effects of using SCS in your breeding programme.

Clinical mastitis:

Finding a cow in your herd with clinical mastitis must give you a lot of frustration. A clinical mastitis cow gives extra work with treatments, separating the milk and veterinary costs. In general with such a type of mastitis the financial loss is quite easy to calculate.

A bigger issue besides clinical mastitis is sub-clinical mastitis. Although the particular cow is not sick, she produces a high amount of cells in the milk. The reasons for this high amount of cells in the milk are divers. A huge part of the sources can be found in management and feeding. Think about the handling in milking, feeding system, the bedding in the boxes, et cetera.

With organizing improvements on the above published reasons, the Somatic Cell Score can be improved significantly.  Besides these options, we would like to put more emphasis on another option: Breeding.

During the last decennia with success we have built up a lot of experiences how to implement the farm data in our breeding and how to get successful improvements by using the right bulls.

With the below published information we will show you the effect of using the right bulls on Dutch base and on USA base.

Dutch base:

On the Dutch base, the breeding value of Somatic Cell Score is published in points with 100 as average. Each point difference will give 2.500 higher or lower amount of cells in a milliliter milk. The bull selection can give you a significant influence on your next generation milking cows. This also means a huge improvement in case of choosing the right bulls. Below you will find the effect of using 607HO00002 BALTAZAR.

USA base:

The genetic improvement on the USA base is published in PTA SCS. With an average of 3,0 the most bulls can be found in the range between 2,5 and 3,5. Every 0,1 point difference results in a 5.000 cells more or less in the new generation milking cows.

An interesting bull that improves the SCS a lot is 307HO00014 RAFTER. His PTA SCS is 2,47. RAFTER will give the following effect on the next generation milking cows:

Having less cells in the milk does not only give a more healthy cow, this cow also produces more. This can be shown in the below published table:

It doesn’t seem a lot but when you make a calculation of your whole milking herd, it is worth a lot to spend attention on lowering the Somatic Cell Score.

Example:

-        100 milking cows with an average of 200.000 cells per mm milk

-        The effect of lowering the amount of cells to 150.000 will be as follow:

               100 mc * 0,25 kg milk / cow / day * 365 days * € 0,35 = € 3.193,75

With milking 1.000 cows, it results in an extra benefit of 31.937,-

Together with interesting bulls as published below, AI Total can help you making the right choice for your next generation milking cows.

Interested ? Feel free to contact us: Here.

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