Effect of replacement rate, crossbreeding and sexed semen on the efficiency of beef production from dairy herds in Finland

Hietala, Paula; Bouquet, Pierre Marie; Juga, Jarmo

doi:10.1080/09064702.2015.1013978

Cited by 8 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…In the current study, SS use in a TAI protocol for heifers only or both heifers and cows can minimize the production of low value dairybreed male calves while increasing the annual ∆PROF through increased calf sale values by servicing a higher portion of herds with beef semen. A reproductive policy with a combination of dairy SS and conventional beef semen has been shown to be an economically efficient strategy for Finnish and Irish dairy herds (Hietala et al, 2014;Walsh et al, 2021). Our results are consistent with these findings when SS is used in combination with a TAI protocol.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Economics of timed artificial insemination with unsorted or sexed semen in a high-producing, pasture-based dairy production system

Walsh

Fahey

Lonergan

et al. 2022

Journal of Dairy Science

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Economics of timed artificial insemination with unsorted or sexed semen in a high-producing, pasture-based dairy production system

Walsh

Fahey

Lonergan

et al. 2022

Journal of Dairy Science

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“…They proposed that including information on calf sex is unlikely to have an effect on selection response in dairy cattle so we did not include this effect. The use of sex-sorted semen used in combination with crossbreeding in Finnish dairy herds was found to be an economically efficient strategy for increasing dairy beef production (Hietala et al, 2014). Future studies may be extended to study the use of sex-sorted semen in crossbreeding herds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bioeconomics of sexed semen utilization in a high-producing Holstein-Friesian dairy herd

Cottle

Wallace

Lonergan

et al. 2018

Journal of Dairy Science

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A bioeconomic, stochastic spreadsheet model, that included calculation of the net present value of the additional value of all future descendants resulting from increased selection intensity, was developed to study the profitability of using sexed semen in a high input-high output dairy herd. Three management strategies were modeled: (1) only heifers inseminated with sex-sorted semen and cows inseminated with unsorted semen; (2) both heifers and cows inseminated with sex-sorted semen; and (3) a reference scenario, in which all breeding females were inseminated with unsorted semen. A Monte Carlo simulation (@risk software, Palisade Corp., Ithaca, NY) was run to study the sensitivity of net profit and sexed semen advantage to key input parameters. Most input parameters were given truncated normal distributions, whereas the maximum numbers of inseminations in heifers and cows were given discrete distribution functions. The calculated intensity of selection accounted for the different numbers of dairy females born for each of the 100,000 iterations. Using sexed semen (X-sorted, female) was shown to be profitable, with insemination of both heifers and cows being most profitable. The returns on assets were higher when only heifers were inseminated with sexed semen (8.54% ± 2.94; ±SD) or all females were inseminated with sexed semen (8.85% ± 2.93) than when all females were inseminated with unsexed semen (8.38% ± 2.95). The range in net profit was most sensitive to the assumed distributions of milk protein price (€/kg), milk fat price (€/kg), cow pregnancy rate, fertilizer price (€/t), and concentrate price (€/t) when unsorted semen was used. When only heifers or both heifers and cows were inseminated with sex-sorted semen, the range in net profit was most sensitive to the same distributions, with fertilizer price and cow pregnancy rate in reverse order of sensitivity. However, the range in sex-sorted semen advantage (in net profit) when only heifers were inseminated with sex-sorted semen was most sensitive to the assumed distributions of cow pregnancy rate, sex-sorted semen pregnancy rate as a percent of unsorted semen rates, standard deviation of index, additional cost of sex-sorted semen (€/dose), dairy bull calf price (€/head), and dairy heifer calf price (€/head). When both heifers and cows were inseminated, the order of importance of the last 2 inputs was reversed. This study highlights the relatively high effect of pregnancy rate and the genetic value of dairy bulls in determining the level of financial advantage from using sex-sorted semen in a dairy herd.

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“…This weak beef production potential combined with the low producer prices has been one of the main reasons for the poor profitability of dairy beef production and a considerable limitation for enhancing beef production in Finland to meet the domestic demand. However, increasing beef production as a by-product from dairy operations is supported by the fact that it is likely to be more profitable in Finnish production conditions than increasing production based on a suckler cow system (Karhula and Kässi, 2010;Hietala et al, 2014b). In addition, the need for mitigating climate change supports an increase in beef production from dairy herds due to its lower emissions per kg of beef produced (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, beef traits are not included in the current Nordic Total Merit (NTM) index (Kargo et al, 2014) for Nordic Red dairy cattle (RDC). However, given that beef production based on dairy herds seems to be more profitable under the economic conditions in Finland (Karhula and Kässi, 2010;Hietala et al, 2014b) and produces fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per unit of meat (e.g. Nguyen et al, 2010;Gerber et al, 2013) compared with beef production from suckler cow systems, the intensification of beef production from dairy herds could be the most promising option to increase the level of self-sufficiency in beef.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of including growth, carcass and feed efficiency traits in the breeding goal for combined milk and beef production systems

Hietala

Juga

2017

Animal

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Improving feed efficiency in dairy cattle could result in more profitable and environmentally sustainable dairy production through lowering feed costs and emissions from dairy farming. In addition, beef production based on dairy herds generates fewer greenhouse gas emissions per unit of meat output than beef production from suckler cow systems. Different scenarios were used to assess the profitability of adding traits, excluded from the current selection index for Finnish Ayrshire, to the breeding goal for combined dairy and beef production systems. The additional breeding goal traits were growth traits (average daily gain of animals in the fattening and rearing periods), carcass traits (fat covering, fleshiness and dressing percentage), mature live weight (LW) of cows and residual feed intake (RFI) traits. A breeding scheme was modeled for Finnish Ayrshire under the current market situation in Finland using the deterministic simulation software ZPLAN+. With the economic values derived for the current production system, the inclusion of growth and carcass traits, while preventing LW increase generated the highest improvement in the discounted profit of the breeding program (3.7%), followed by the scenario where all additional traits were included simultaneously (5.1%). The use of a selection index that included growth and carcass traits excluding LW, increased the profit (0.8%), but reduced the benefits resulted from breeding for beef traits together with LW. A moderate decrease in the profit of the breeding program was obtained when adding only LW to the breeding goal (-3.1%), whereas, adding only RFI traits to the breeding goal resulted in a minor increase in the profit (1.4%). Including beef traits with LW in the breeding goal showed to be the most potential option to improve the profitability of the combined dairy and beef production systems and would also enable a higher rate of self-sufficiency in beef. When considering feed efficiency related traits, the inclusion of LW traits in the breeding goal that includes growth and carcass traits could be more profitable than the inclusion of RFI, because the marginal costs of measuring LW can be expected to be lower than for RFI and it is readily available for selection. In addition, before RFI can be implemented as a breeding objective, the genetic correlations between RFI and other breeding goal traits estimated for the studied population as well as information on the most suitable indicator traits for RFI are needed to assess more carefully the consequences of selecting for RFI.

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Effect of replacement rate, crossbreeding and sexed semen on the efficiency of beef production from dairy herds in Finland

Cited by 8 publications

References 18 publications

Economics of timed artificial insemination with unsorted or sexed semen in a high-producing, pasture-based dairy production system

Economics of timed artificial insemination with unsorted or sexed semen in a high-producing, pasture-based dairy production system

Bioeconomics of sexed semen utilization in a high-producing Holstein-Friesian dairy herd

Impact of including growth, carcass and feed efficiency traits in the breeding goal for combined milk and beef production systems

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