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Paradise, Raven, Zandra, Ghost, Golden Girl and Rolls families.
“But the herd has now been closed since 2008 to help maintain a high health status, as well as vaccinating for IBR and Lepto. This helps with marketing surplus heifers privately and at Leek Market. “Five years ago the decision was made to build a new parlour and cow shed, with the cow shed housing 220 head in Wilson Agri cubicles, mattresses and tipping troughs. Cublicles are head to head, compared to previously being against the wall. “We no longer have problems with cows getting stuck with extra lunging space,” explains Ed.
The new system drove a move to three times a day milking and although management didn’t change much the new shed offered more space, light and drier conditions, that combined with three times a day milking increased production from 8071kg to 10,500kg.
The herd now consists of 270 cows and 250 followers with the milking herd running at about 235 and averaging 10,520kg at 3.8%bf and 3.04%p, comprising 33 Excellent, 76 Very Good and 91 Good Plus.
Havendale Shottle Beauty 6 EX92-2E is an eighth calved great-granddaughter of Rainyridge Tony Beauty EX.
There were also other benefits to three times a day milking with calving index reducing and cull rate dropping. Tom admits the genetics in the cows offered top end production and three times a day produced an almost immediate increase. The aim for Tom and Ed now is to breed long life, cublicle cows. “When selecting bulls we look first at type, then PLI and target bulls without positive cell counts, although we don’t like using anything with a big minus as they tend to breed slow milkers. Bulls have to have positive scores for fertility and life span to meet our criteria, although the figure ranges keep changing according to changes made to proofs. We also aim to keep power without stature – medium capacious cows are our ideal,” explains Ed.
The Beauty and Rolls families are currently standing out in the herd, adds Tom. “The Beauty family are long lasting cows that won the family group in the Derbyshire winter herd competition in 2015. While the Rolls family are establishing well, with the embryos out of Avenham Outside J Rolls EX94 by Cogent Maestro producing three heifers and a bull. Each of the heifers has in turn produced
heifer calves.”
Havendale Maestro Rolls EX92 is one individual that stands out for Tom and Ed in the herd, having produced 15,000kg in her second lactation they think she is the complete package. “Maestro Rolls is a cow with great feet, legs and udder, combined with production. Two other cows that are lasting the test of time are Shottle Beauty and Melody Beauty, they have had eight and nine calves, respectively. Both cows are still youthful, milk well and live in cubicles.”
Shottle has been the most influential sire in the herd in recent years, having been heavily used and producing long life cows. The Flower family have found Shottle progeny to be easy to manage cows with good udders, that keep milking and get back in- calf.
Service sires have now become 60% genomic with most purchased from Semex and Genus and a small percentage from Alta. “The move to genomics has been a cautious one, as daughters of genomic sires have calved down and pleased us we have used more genomic bulls, we also continue using bulls that breed well. Iota has produced daughters that we like and we are continuing to use him. We also like Jeeves daughters and are now using his sons Jettie and Zeber which are breeding calves that look promising,” says Ed.
Heifers and the best cows are bred with sexed semen and heat time collars have helped detect heats in the heifers. Fullwood pedometers are now used for ID and heat detection on cows since upgrading the parlour.
The aim is to calve heifers at two years old, with the use of automatic milk feeding machines and a TMR ration helping to improve heifer growth. “Heifers are now ready
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