Developing future dairy genetics at farm level

Andrew Rutter, Herd Manager, Clayhanger Hall Farm

In the late eighties, genetic selection was based on a few production traits and type linears. Today we have a plethora of traits and composites designed specifically and evaluated for the UK farmer through AHDB. We can aggressively select for improved profitability, whilst reducing our impact on the environment and make our cows less susceptible to diseases and reasons for involuntary culling, whilst ultimately improving the efficiency for turning forages and bi products into healthy, nutritional, delicious food for a growing and ever more demanding population.

And generally, select for these traits we have as an industry. We have embraced the new traits and indices which is borne out by the improvement in genetic levels we see for production, improved health traits and now reduced carbon footprints.

Genetics and breeding equates to about 1-2% of outgoings on a dairy farm in the UK, yet its return on investment is second to none. Do we as an industry spend enough time selecting? Are we selecting for too many traits which will blunt genetic progress in more key traits or even selecting for antagonistic traits by following aesthetics rather than out and out performance.

Looking at correlations on traits and composites for the available bull list today, high TMerit composites counterintuitively slows down progress in improving longevity compared to selecting for PLI/EnviroCow/healthy cow indices. Type Merit is actually negatively correlated with Feed advantage. Feed is one of our largest costs on farm so surely breeding our cows to be more feed efficient should be a key goal for both our profitability and sustainability.

Shouldn’t form follow function? Type used to be one of the main reasons for culling in the national herd decades ago, these days it wouldn’t trouble the top five reasons as studies by AHDB, CAFRE and Esselmont et al have shown.

We have significantly skewed the population for udders, legs and feet and frame and we should also consider the continuing troubling correlations with “higher” type merit and size. We have slowed the rate of progress of size increases in the national herd, but we still increase, which is troubling.

The national herd could progress genetically more rapidly with targeted selection. At Clayhanger we started with aggressive sire selection. After a few years we started genomic testing females to make much more progressive matings for goal traits.

I use AHDBs HGR at home religiously. All our youngstock are now genotyped, and the eldest ones tested are now in the milking string (genetic audits are showing that genetics pays us back on its promise). Each proof run is like GCSE day for our girls so I can grade our females well in advance of reaching the breeding pens. I use a combination of a cutoff for certain traits below which they will be bred to beef, and a ranking that will sort my top 2/3-3/4 which are bred to sexed dairy.

We started with a herd and youngstock both in the 65th percentile, and within six years have got the herd into the top 5%, without buying in stock or ET, showing what targeted selection can offer for performance, efficiency and future proofing stock.

For a 400-cow milking herd, moving up this much is worth nearly 230k in improved margin over the herds lifespan. And for our youngstock, a further 200k.

We have seen UK females at the top end of the list improve phenomenally in respect to the sires available. The interesting point now is looking at the top list and seeing how they would compete against bull studs. 137 females would each have been high and old enough to take a place in the top 100 PLI sires available today to the UK farmer had they been born male, yet not one of the bulls in the top 100 is born and bred on a UK farm.

UK females have to perform under UK conditions, and we have generations of world class leading information and reliability on them, yet they seem to be overlooked these days as a population for the studs. Should we just depend on overseas sires going forward? These bulls at the top of the list will have initially been made as matings to hit US goals and we are just “lucky” they rank so well on our system.

TPI and NM$ remain internationally accepted and marketed indices. If they breed for NM$, then the correlation is high, nearly 0.9 between PLI and NM$ so we should end up with high UK value bulls.

However, the correlation is not 1 and that correlation whilst high starts to show noticeable differences when you get to the extremes as when you get to the top 100 NM$ available list and compare to the top 100 PLI they are very different beasts.

The issue with the main studs breeding for overseas indices first is that we could be missing out on more tailor made solutions to our own problems, which ultimately could affect the speed of progress. PLI is a financial index, and not historic, it’s also forecasting and predicting what the market will be like in the future for UK dairy farmers, it’s the only index out there doing that.

Then, consider the semen contracts. Many of the top bulls today come with some sort of a contract.

Of the top 100 sires available today, 34 came with some sort of contract you must sign before being able to buy semen to use on your own stock at home. Genus ABS’s Geneadvance/Icon sires, Alta Edge, Faststart from Semex, WWS Nxsgen, AI total and STCogent Legend contracts all have some restrictions about what you can do, where and when. Some of them where you can use them, some impact your ability to sell females and/or bulls without permission, if at all, some even impact the next generation, some include a compulsory purchase for stock over a certain value, and anything in between, all as a way for the studs to protect their IP.

You should speak to your genetic company of choice about the full implications to your business before you sign anything. The studs want to protect their assets, but who is protecting the IP of farmers? We have developed female lines in the country sometimes of many generations, and decades of work to get the herds we have today, so the ability to breed a world class female and lose it or force some of your decision making for the next generation or two is alarming. Ultimately this will slow genetic progress for the country. And the reasons are three fold.

As it currently stands, it’s not easy finding out which sires currently have contracts, it just becomes a bit of a nightmare. This is another reason for farmers to align themselves to one stud, sign up to them to use their best bulls and save themselves the hassle. Which means you are beholden to that stud for the long term. If you are considering this, work with a stud with a large enough critical mass of sires at the top, and continuing large investment, with goals that seem to fit in general with your business, as they are more likely to deliver high ranking sires that suit you. The downside is you have a much smaller pool of genetics with one stud, missing some extreme bloodlines that other studs develop and you will likely see your inbreeding coefficient rise more aggressively.

You may elect to use just contract free sires, as currently 2/3 of the top 100 are free. Over time, pressure will increase this ratio detrimentally, and the higher that bull is in the charts, and certainly when he is extreme in some combinations of traits, the more likely he carries a contract. You may decide to sign and follow all the contracts to use the best bulls to make maximum genetic progress. The issue is that all of these contracts are different, and in some cases you just cannot make some matings as the contracts forbid crossing sire A over daughters of sire B which will impact your progress. Some contracts even demand you use 100% of that studs semen to even be able to use their top bulls. And if you do make a worldie, you could see her leaving the farm in some situations for a pre-set fee, which ultimately slows your herds progress as you lose her altogether.

Ultimately genetic progress is also harmed from the studs POV as it means they affected which mating sires they themselves are able to use, impacting their ability to make what could be the best matings, and breeding from within will see inbreeding rise.

As time progresses, we are likely to see more consolidation from the studs, more sires controlled by contracts, and less flexibility of what you, the breeder can do.

We are making serious genetic progress in the UK, thanks to top class indices to select from, genomic sires, g testing females and the huge improvement in sexing technology all which have seen the UK population improve massively.... But we could be breeding even more robust, profitable, efficient cows right now, which in an extremely challenged sector from all sides seems like something we want and need, and what is holding us back is not the cow or the how, but rather us ourselves.