The days of farmers having to dehorn their cattle may soon be over after CRV Ambreed announce they can offer genetics to farmers that will guarantee the birth of polled calves.
This comes after the births of a trio of homozygous polled bulls as part of the company’s genetic development programme. CRV’s goal throughout its polled genetics breeding programme was to breed bulls that had two copies of the polled gene, CRV research and development manager Phil Beatson said.
“When the bull has two copies of the polled gene, you are guaranteed the bull’s progeny will all be polled as all get one copy of the poll gene. Conversely, bulls with only one copy of the polled gene are referred to as heterozygous and their progeny only has a fifty percent chance of being polled.”
Polled bulls progeny will not need to be disbudded, the process of removing horns from calves. For a farmer with 200 replacements in their herd, this can cost up to $1400.
“Farmers also require that their dairy cattle have reasonably high indexes. Our three polled bulls which have just been born are high indexing. Breeding polled cattle while at the same time having acceptable index is the trick,” Mr Beatson said.
Tokoroa based organic dairy farmer Ged Goode started using semen from polled bulls on his 750 strong kiwi cross herd this dairy season and aimed to have the whole herd polled and producing A2 milk.
“Horns are a health and safety issue as far as the staff and animals are concerned.”
Mr Goode described CRV Ambreed’s announcement as “quite an innovation”.
“We’re very interested in it. We want to make sure that we have got the whole herd polled.”
Two of CRV’s polled bulls are holstein-friesian/jersey crossbreds and one is a holstein-friesian bull and the company will continue building up its homozygous polled bull team.
Source: Stuff.co.nz