The winning game plan: Optimising dairy and beef returns with Genus ABS

He comments: “This approach fits in well with our emphasis on autumn calving, with all our heifer calves being born early in the season.

“Aberdeen Angus sires are then used after the required number of sexed pregnancies have been created. We currently achieve conception rates of 40% on cows and 56% on maiden heifers.”

He added: “With such great results we are able to pick and choose which animals we breed from, thus fast tracking our genetic progress. The other big benefit is the ease with which the heifers calve, we have much less problems calving and the heifers perform better in their first lactation, we are delighted with the results!”

The Industry’s Leading Fertility Sexed Product

If getting heifer calves on the ground is your priority, Sexcel is the leading fertility sexed product available, as well as the most accurate method for reading gender skew in the industry. Using Sexcel you are on track to get the heifer calves required for your herd, with more than 1.6 million inseminations proving a 3.3% higher conception rate for Holstein cows and a 3.0% higher conception rate for Holstein heifers compared to competitive technology.

World Leading Beef genetics

Genus ABS’ Beef In Focus genetics provide the best solution for lower-performing animals within the herd. Sires have been specifically selected for dairy cows to maximize beef supply chain profitability through the NuEra Profit Index. These superior beef genetics, enable dairy farmers to increase profit margins by producing a more efficient beef animal.

Genus/ABS have been advocating combined Sexcel and Beef in FocusTM strategies for a number of years now. Customers are seeing the benefits of this change and more importantly the profit from using this strategy. By working with your local Genus representative, you can identify your high performing females to breed from and your lower performing animals to produce a high value beef calf. The DeNovo and NuEra breeding programmes are the genetic engines behind the strategy, allowing you to make this “step change” which increases the genetic merit of your herd, and ultimately increases profit from the genetic progress in both the dairy and beef enterprises.