DairyCo

South West

Meet the team in your area

Introducing the team in your area

Our job is to link levy payers to DairyCo by taking your views back to the Board.  We organise events (both on and off farm) demonstrating best practice. The results of DairyCo research and development go back out to farmers.

One of our main roles is to establish and run DairyCo Business Groups in the region. The discussion groups consist of 10-12 like minded farmers meeting regularly. They look at subjects including electricity and water costs, optimising fertiliser efficiency, cow fertility, heifer rearing costs, benchmarking, time management and cost effective building improvement.  However, any subject leading to profit improvement can be covered, with group confidentiality being paramount.

What's been happening?

• On the 22 January DairyCo ran a workshop at the British Cattle Breeders Conference titled "Farm, System, Cows - Let's milk!"
  
  The purpose of the workshop was to look at the decisions that need to be taken with regards to breeding, management and infrastructure when moving from an All Year Round calving herd to autumn block calving with the use of a crossbreeding case study farm. Over the course of the session we discussed the Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the business, we looked at the on farm Key Performance Indicators taken from farm records to give the group an insight into herd performance and finally we ran through all the breeding tools available through DairyCo to maximise cow performance. This included Genetic Herd Reports, (GHR's available through DairyCo's impartial and independent cow and bull analysis) Bull proofs and PLI also calculated by DairyCo and the need to compare breeds on their own base although DairyCo can convert all breeds on to one base if requested.
  
  The group concluded it had never been easier to make on farm breeding decisions especially with the recent introduction of management traits (Fertility, Lifespan and SCC) into GHR's.
  
  If you are interested in understanding the breeding tools available to help you make your own breeding decisions please call Andy on 07759 586321.