Hi,
Welcome to the seventh edition of the Wingman NOTAM!
Gee what a funny couple of months February and March have been! They certainly didn’t behave like they usually do – most farmers managed to grow a pretty reasonable amount of grass in what are meant to be two of the hotter months of the calendar year. Not-in-calf rates seem to be slightly elevated this season compared to last – testament to the fact that it was a fairly ordinary Spring for most parts of the country. The general consensus is that people who left the feed tap on during mating have been rewarded with similar MT rates to last season, whilst those who turned the tap off have regressed. It was easy to think your cows were fully fed, when in fact they were just ‘full’ – such was the low sugar and low DM% in the grass. Just watery rubbish really!
22-code SPS Bulls Herd Testing Data
By the end of April, there should be a really good data set available for the 22-code SPS bulls whose daughters will now have a full season’s worth of herd testing data. I talked about the importance of this in the ‘One Swallow doesn’t make a Spring’ article – waiting till April ensures that we find the bulls who know how to deliver at the back end of the season, not just put it all in the vat before Xmas and then crumble when the going gets tough over Summer/Autumn.
Frozen Semen Orders
One thing I would encourage everyone who is ordering frozen semen this season is to ORDER EARLY – regardless of genetics supplier! Invariably there are bulls who don’t collect as well or who have limited supplies of semen available. At the end of September, some bulls stop being collected for frozen semen as they transition over to fresh allocations for the various ‘teams’ they are in. Our ability to work miracles and pull a rabbit out the hat gets fairly limited the closer to your planned start of mating we get! So if you’re coming back for a second year of Wingman, then please be proactive and get in touch with us; the sooner we start the process the sooner we can get your bull team together.
Abby’s American Experience
This month, we’ve asked Abby to write an article about her experience in the US from the final semester of her tertiary study. Titled “My American Experience”, Abby’s article talks about competitive cattle judging at University and what it was like to attend the spectacle otherwise known as the World Dairy Expo. Whether you agree or not with breeders and the value of ‘show cows’ is a moot point – Abby makes some great suggestions about the things to look at that make a cow, a cow. Sadly, this is something I feel has been lost on a whole generation of dairy farmers in the pursuit of BW and production efficiency.
As always, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with either Abby or myself if there’s something you’d like our help with, or if you’d like to book in a WOF or Future Herd Audit.
Mark: 027 270 2403 or mark@yourwingman.co.nz
Abby: 027 946 4626 or abby@yourwingman.co.nz
All the best for the remainder of the season,
Mark and Louise Benns, and Abby Ross