Vets, consultants and other advisors should encourage dairy farmers to make use of available information to help improve their herd's performance and profitability through breeding.  This is the message from DairyCo breeding+ director, Marco Winters, who says farmers should use genetics to improve not only milk production, but also health, welfare, management and type traits.

Breeding briefs, a new booklet from DairyCo, identifies some genetic improvement tools that allow farmers to make better breeding decisions and concentrates on how to use them in practice.  And for those who feel confronted by an overload of information, the booklet helps identify the figures to seek out and prioritise.

Breeding decisions are cumulative: their effects build up over the generations so a problem can be introduced or cured over just a few years.  A series of poor breeding decisions can mean the difference between profit and loss; even between a business's survival and failure.  Yet the time, cost and effort needed for a good breeding decision to be made is much the same as those needed for a bad one.

Mr Winters says: "High quality cattle are at the heart of profitable dairy farming and this requires good quality genetics.  Without these, however good farmers' management, there is a ceiling to their herd's performance and profitability.  Vets, consultants and other dairy advisers have an important role to play in helping farmers access the information they need to make informed decisions."

DairyCo Breeding briefs is available to download from http://www.dairyco.org.uk/.  To request a pdf version by email call 01285 646510 or email: publications@dairyco.org.uk.

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