Posts Tagged Better Life Efficiency

Dairy farmer Willem Alders about feed costs

‘Difference in feed conversion financially interesting’

Posted by in category better life, Efficiency

The income over feed costs is a key financial factor for Willem Alders. Feed intake data really opened his eyes to the individual differences between cows. ‘The poorest performing animals add little or nothing to the total income over feed costs. However, the best performing animals contribute more to the profit than expected’, he states.

Willem Alders had expected there would be differences, but such a large variation in feed conversion rates between individual cows came as a big surprise to the dairy farmer. The Alders family from Overloon started registering the feed intak…

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Breeding for feed efficiency gives economical cows

Posted by in category Article, Efficiency, Genetics, Index run

‘How efficiently a cow converts feed into milk is a key economic figure on a farm’, believes dairy farmer Jan Nieuwenhuizen. He has always been convinced that feed efficiency is hereditary. But until recently he had to estimate how well bulls would pass on this trait himself.

‘How is it possible that the daughters of one bull produce 10 kilos of milk more on the same feed ration than daughters sired by another bull?’ A question Jan Nieuwenhuizen has asked himself many times during his career in dairy farming. ‘Feed efficiency, the number of kilos of milk a cow produces using …

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Save on feed not used for milk production

Posted by in category Article, better life, Efficiency

Thanks to a database of 4350 cows, more – and more reliable – breeding values for feed efficiency can be calculated. As from April the breeding value for ‘saved feed costs for maintenance’ (SFCM) will be included in the  NVI formula. The biased belief that breeding for efficiency results in smaller cows can be banished to the realm of fables.

>>Read the original article here<<

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High lifetime production is in the genes

Posted by in category better life, Breeding, Efficiency, Health, Other

Farmers with many cows that achieve high lifetime production, are convinced that this high lifetime production is in the genes. The Knoef and Winter families tell all about their vision of high lifetime production.

Big Boukje 192 produced a whopping 208,000 litres of milk with 4.64% fat and 3.86% protein. The cow, which belongs to Jos and Ingrid Knoef in Geesteren, is the champion par excellence of lifetime production. She reached the age of 19 years old, calved an impressive 15 times and also obtained an exterior score of 90 points. Jos is convinced: ‘This high production is…

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