“That really makes a big difference to our breeding decisions and we can pick bulls to suit individual cow’s faults and try and correct them in their offspring.”
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When it comes to bull choices Jim is a fan of only using proven bulls, with only proven sires used in the herd for the last 10 years until a brace of genomic sires were used last year. “I wasn’t really too keen to depart from our policy of only using proven sires as it has worked for many years and means we know exactly what we’re getting. However, I was conscious we could be missing out on some good new blood if we didn’t try it, so we’ve used Gillette Jessic and Gen-I-Beq Sammy.
“Both are Windbrook sons and offer us something different for an outcross on their dam’s side,” he explains.
“I hope their daughters will prove a useful addition to the herd and if they do then I can see we’ll be using more genomic sires in future.” Previous sires that have left their mark in the herd include Mtoto and Shottle, with Jim admitting he was perhaps a little late getting to Shottle. “We’d used a lot of Mtoto and he’d done a great job for us, so we had to be careful when looking at Shottle and find cows we could use him on safely. “We’ve now got a lot of good Shottles in the herd, with 92 registered Shottles and we’re really pleased with how they perform for us. He’s helped with structure and correctness and also helped improve temperament, something which suffered when we used Decker,” says Jim. Regular trips to the USA have also helped inform Jim’s breeding choices, with Madison a key visit as well as trips to Cremona, Italy, also proving influential in his bull choices. “It’s great to get out there and see good cows in other countries, no matter where I go I always find something to bring back to what we’re doing here.”
Left to his own devices by the Hall family Jim has full control of all breeding and management decisions for the herd and is looking to improve milk
LEFT Reydon Journalist Annie 15, an EX93 fifth calver.
RIGHT The herd has won the Suffolk herd competition several times.
48 THE JOURNAL DECEMBER 2014
Classifying is without a doubt one of the best things we do for cow management and breeding
quality with future sire choices. “We’re selling to Arla on an Asda DairyLink contract and we know they’re looking to push towards higher protein levels.
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“Our milk price will be heavily influenced by milk quality, so we need to ensure we’re well placed to make the most of it. At the moment we’re averaging 3.96% butterfat and 3.13% protein, but I’ve picked sires to help improve that in the next round of breeding.”
When it comes to cow families Jim says a small number of strong families are serving the herd will, with the Annies, Harriets and Lauras among the best cows in the herd.
“The herd was non-pedigree, but started upgrading in 1994
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