British friesian bulls

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
We did min till, where well grazed no problem, where we flailed it much more challenging, lots of trash, but got it in with with the contractors disc drill... time will tell the results, all learning.
we min tilled it, subsoil, tine/disc machine, very shallow fast pass with p/h, at contractors request, to 'level' the top, to stop the drill bouncing, his instructions, 500 revs, 8mph, 2ins deep. Gone in perfectly. Strip til next year.
 
Have you got any bulls going into ai soon?
Genus gave me the semen for this one born this morning but it’s a girl, Hilton dam Capitol sired
EA9D6D51-A712-4B08-818E-0651F13FE8D7.jpeg
 
I struggle with the total hang up with genomics. We have contract mated cows that have a high PLI that I would never keep a bull out of.
The problem I see is that the Genomic PLI for a bull is 50%? made up of the PLI from the cow and Bull and half from his DNA so however good his DNA is he will never sell at stud if his dam does not have a decent PLI.
Of the three young bulls I have to decide the fate of this year the one who looks best, dam has done 6 8000l lactations classified Ex has the lowest PLI. What to do?
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
I struggle with the total hang up with genomics. We have contract mated cows that have a high PLI that I would never keep a bull out of.
The problem I see is that the Genomic PLI for a bull is 50%? made up of the PLI from the cow and Bull and half from his DNA so however good his DNA is he will never sell at stud if his dam does not have a decent PLI.
Of the three young bulls I have to decide the fate of this year the one who looks best, dam has done 6 8000l lactations classified Ex has the lowest PLI. What to do?
use your instinct, you know your cows better, than a young lad/lass, or not sure which, sat at a desk, looking at a heap of figures, and just as likely not to have seen a cow, close up.
Pre genomics, you looked at the cows pedigree, and yields, and matched a bulls pedigree to it, and the biggest % usually produce a good bull. Genomics, is giving another set of data, for a computer to see, the 'ideal' mating, and reducing the risk of 'failure', by not that much, on a % basis. And we have all seen our 'dream' hfrs, turn out to be well below average.
we had 80 hfrs, out of a really well bred pedigree hol bull, not one of them gave a satisfactory yield, 1st, 2nd or 3rd lactation. Few made the 3rd, none made the 4th, but they looked fantastic.
 
Location
Cornwall
I struggle with the total hang up with genomics. We have contract mated cows that have a high PLI that I would never keep a bull out of.
The problem I see is that the Genomic PLI for a bull is 50%? made up of the PLI from the cow and Bull and half from his DNA so however good his DNA is he will never sell at stud if his dam does not have a decent PLI.
Of the three young bulls I have to decide the fate of this year the one who looks best, dam has done 6 8000l lactations classified Ex has the lowest PLI. What to do?

I do wonder about the pli and how reliable it is. I would pick the bull with the best dam. You look at some of the inch bulls high pli but some of the dams don’t have a recorded lactation.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
the problem with computers, they only churn out the facts that are entered, algorithms are set up to 'compute' those facts, into good, av or bad, the more details fed in, the better/reliable output. Start missing info, the less reliable the result.
On many fr bulls on offer, there is plenty of info, not given, esp in the cows vital statistics, height, width, body, c ease, etc etc.
the hol, on the other hand, nearly has to many.
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
I'm going to moan slightly

Why are there so many narrow chested bulls in stud?? Its not so bad if there stature is also massively negative as atleast then its proportion. But I could do with another 10-20 straws and was trying to find something different to what I have already used and every bull I've clicked on so far has negative chest width!!

I agree, try not to use a negative chest width bull here.

GTW was minus on Genomic testing, when he got his proof he went positive.
Have you used him?
 

Jdunn55

Member
I agree, try not to use a negative chest width bull here.

GTW was minus on Genomic testing, when he got his proof he went positive.
Have you used him?
I have used jake despite being negative chest width because he's soo good everywhere else but I haven't gone crazy with him.
Used a lot of gtw last year and got some cracking calves to be fair. I would be tempted by him again but I like to spread the risk (although that's somewhat lower with him being proven)

Current favourite bull to use is patriot red. Ticks a lot of my boxes (would like a positive fertility score but I'm convinced that's more of a management trait than a genetic one)
 
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Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
I have used jake despite being negative chest width because he's soo good everywhere else but I haven't gone crazy with him.
Used a lot of gtw last year and got some cracking calves to be fair. I would be tempted by him again but I like to spread the risk (although that's somewhat lower with him being proven)

Current favourite bull to use is patriot red. Ticks a lot of my bones (would like a positive fertility score but I'm convinced that's more of a management trait than a genetic one)
Sometimes you have to make compromises. Smaller the better.

We never used to breed replacements from maiden heifers , tb changed that policy. 🤬
 

Jdunn55

Member
Sometimes you have to make compromises. Smaller the better.

We never used to breed replacements from maiden heifers , tb changed that policy. 🤬
Tb changes a lot of things 🙄

I've ai'ed all my heifers this year but I need the replacements, next year I'm going to probably synch them and then put one of my frieisan bulls in.
I don't buy into the crap though that the ai companies push that they're the highest genetic animals on the farm. As far as I'm concerned my most prized cows are the ones who perform the best, heifers haven't given me anything yet - they need to prove themselves
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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