Robert Bowden, Gwealavellan Partners, in Cornwall operates a 12 week Spring block calving herd comprising 145 head on a once-a-day milking system. Rob is a new entrant into dairy farming and is incredibly forward-thinking and progressive, with plans to expand to 250-300 head in the near future. Therefore a Sexcel® & Beef InFocus™ strategy has been used to expand the herd, providing genetically superior replacements whilst breeding high quality, valuable beef calves from high Beef Advantage Beef InFocus™ sires.
The majority of the herd are Irish Friesian, Jersey X and British Friesian. British Friesian and Jersey sires have been selected to drive the components, Fertility and Longevity, and ultimately shift the genetic gain and profitability of Rob’s herd and to meet the demands of the milk contract.
“We used Genus ABS RMS service for this breeding season, serving for 12 weeks. Our Reproductive Specialist, Andrew Tremayne, did a fantastic job in taking care of the Fertility of the herd, allowing me to concentrate on other aspects of the new enterprise. We are extremely happy with the results: In our 12 weeks service period with RMS we achieved a 3% empty rate 80% eight-week in-calf rate and a 64% conception rate with Sexcel®.”
“The Sexcel® and Beef InFocus™ strategy will enable us to expand providing genetically superior replacements that will advance the performance of our block. By serving the rest of our herd to Beef InFocus™ we are creating high-value, consistent beef calves that will provide us with additional income. The target yield for the herd is 4,000 litres and the role of genetic selection will speed up the process in achieving our business goals. The next steps for our herd in the future will be to use the Herd Ranking Tool where we can rank the herd to further fine-tune the decision-making process.”
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