Herdwatch did a survey and found that more than three quarters of dairy farmers in the UK and Ireland now record milk to keep track of cow health and improve herd performance.
And the latest set of data from the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) shows that there were 12.9% more recordings on Irish farms in 2022 than in 2021.
Recording of milk
The Herdwatch survey also showed that the reasons farmers in each country choose to milk record are very different.
The main reasons Irish dairy farmers keep records on their cows are still cow performance and somatic cell count (SCC). In the UK, SCC and tracking Johne’s disease are the top two reasons.
Some people think that up to 30% of all herds in the UK have Johne’s disease, which costs some farmers a lot of money.
In 2022, Irish dairy farmers are likely to record more milk than ever before.
Under the new Regulation (EU) 2019/6 on veterinary medicinal products, dry cow therapy with antibiotics has been illegal in Ireland since January of this year. This means that farmers can no longer give dry cow tubes to all cows in the herd by default.
This is part of a global plan to cut down on the use of antibiotics in food chains, which has been making people more resistant to antibiotics.
Because of this, farmers will need proof that their cow needs antibiotics by keeping records of the milk.
Herdwatch
Milk recording is only part of the process. Understanding the data that comes back is more important than the recording itself.
Conor Vaughan from Herdwatch said that figuring out how to make sense of milk recording data and the information it gives will be a very important part of making breeding plans on farms in the future.
“As blanket dry cow therapy is phased out, it will become even more important.”
Farmers who use Herdwatch can easily tell which of their cows are the best and which are the worst by looking at their milk records and performance dashboards.
Then, they can choose cows for breeding replacements, choose cows to get rid of, and make sure problem cows don’t get bred. This will reduce herd SCC and improve herd performance in the end.
When more selective breeding is used, the EBI, solids, and fertility of the herd will all go up.
Vaughan added, “We know how important milk recording is to dairy farmers in Ireland and the UK, so we added a milk module to the Herdwatch app last year.”
“In the app’s performance section, you can look at your milk records by herd average and/or by cow.
“This will help you figure out which of your animals are the best and which are the worst so you can make better decisions on the farm.”
