A trip to the United States showed one Rochester dairy farmer how quickly the genetic merit of a herd can improve.
Back home, tools such as genomic testing, sexed semen and DataGene’s Balanced Performance Index (BPI) are making it a reality in his family’s 280-head Jersey herd.
Andrew Rushton, wife Jess, children Brodie, 4, and Grace, 2, own and operate Benlock Jerseys with his parents, Bryan and Lee.
DataGene’s review of herd performance in March showed Benlock had increased its herd average BPI by 310 per cent to 172 BPI, since 2020.
The BPI accounts for the traits that affect a cow’s lifetime contribution to the farm business: production, health/fertility, longevity, workability, feed efficiency and type.
“It’s good to see what we are doing is working,” Mr Rushton said.
“These types of advancements — genomics and sexed semen — we have to take hold of and use the data the best we can so we can reap the rewards in the future.”
Twelve months ago, Mr and Mrs Rushton and their children moved out to the family farm to officially take over the management from his parents Bryan and Lee.
Tongue-in-cheek, Mr Rushton said the improvement in Benlock’s herd average BPI was proof that he hadn’t “totally stuffed the job” after taking over the breeding side of the operation from his parents.
More seriously though, he said the BPI improvement came from a “good base” of Jersey cows and a focus on continual improvement.
Last year, Mr Rushton travelled to the US with regional development organisation Murray Dairy as part of a study tour.
He visited the ST Genetics bull facility in Wisconsin, where he confirmed his practice of focusing on young stock was the best way to lift genetic gain.
“One thing they did there to progress quickly, they were using eggs from calves and semen from calves to get genetic gain,” he said.
“It was quicker than waiting for the heifer to grow out and really opened my eyes to how quickly a herd can improve.”
Genetics aren’t the only tools the Rushtons are using to improve their farm business.
In the past few years, they have changed their calving pattern and invested in a new calf shed.
“Rather than drag out the calving period for 12 to 15 weeks like we used to, we now have an intense six-week period so we needed to update our facilities,” Mr Rushton said.
“We wanted our new shed to have good air flow and provide the calves with protection from the elements.”
He recently purchased some Calf-Tel pens — a free-standing, modular indoor pen system that interlocks back-to-back and side-to-side.
The pen set-up ensures there is no physical contact between calves, which also helps prevent transmission of sickness through the shed.
Prior to the Calf-Tel investment, calves were housed in pens welded up by Mr Rushton’s dad which served their purpose, but didn’t isolate the calves individually.
“I had been looking around for quite a while for other options and I had seen the Calf-Tel system working overseas.”
Mr Rushton said investing in a good calf set-up to give the best possible start to the calves ensured the future of the herd.
The full story about the Rushtons’ use of genetics in their herd is in Country News