When you have a cow family that has produced multiple national champions and is famous around the world, you want to make sure it continues.
Elmar Holsteins’ Jessica family fits that bill, and TLG’s IVF services are helping to extend the genetic gain for the most famous cow, Elmar Goldwyn Jessica 11, now aged 14-and-a-half years old.
Elmar Holsteins is a family-owned stud, established in the 1920s and based at Leitchville in northern Victoria and run today by Steve and Deanne Hore and their son Brady.
The Jessicas have been bred and developed over the past 35 years and the success of TLG’s IVF services is giving the family new impetus.
The first 10 IVF calves are on the ground and at least 30 more are on the way.
Deanne is impressed with the results.
“Our first IVF calves were born around August-September and they’ve been nice, big, strong calves,” she said.
“They have done really well in our system and we’re more than happy.”
Elmar Holsteins has been naturally increasing numbers over the decades, more recently accelerating from 450 in 2019 when a barn was installed to 600 today.
“Some of that comes from the benefits of using sexed semen in a controlled environment with the barn,” Deanne said.
“We get really good conception rates, so natural increases happen pretty easily.”
Steve is the third generation at Elmar, Brady the fourth and the original 48 hectare home farm has grown to about 740ha over two sites, with Deanne’s former family farm added to the mix for fodder production.
The stud was started by Steve’s grandparents Elsie and Martin (whose names led to Elmar).
In 2019, the family changed the way they farm by building a 150m x 45m shed to house the milking Holstein herd, giving them shelter, fans and a sprinkle of water when needed.
Animal welfare was at the heart of the move, but avoiding production loss due to extreme conditions was another factor.
The results were stunning.
“The first four to six months offered ‘wow factor’ improvements in herd health and the flow-on effects of production increases because the controlled environment stopped our normal losses due to summer heat,” Deanne said.
That success brought forward plans for a second barn.
The following year they built a second barn which houses herd health, dry cows, calving cows and has room for heifers when joining.
The heifers are joined on natural heats wearing responders.
“We’ve eliminated reproductive programs and just use our collars,” Steve said.
“We’ve seen amazing gains with all the data and the health benefits of having cloud-based on-tap information, and it saves using artificial means such as fixed-time AI, as we try to have a more natural environment.”
They previously calved in spring and autumn, but over the past three years, have transitioned to every-day calving.
“It takes some years to transition fully through your system because you still want your milking herd re-joined in the right time frames, but we got there,” Steve said.
They have introduced a refined TMR system and improved programs and protocols to have a quality product all-year round for their Coles fresh milk contract.
“We have always supplied a liquid milk company,” Deanne said.
“I like supplying milk that people are consuming in our country. I think that’s important, and it’s been able to work in with our system.”
Elmar Holsteins used embryo transfers for 35 years, but it was time to move to the next level.
“We’ve been very fortunate that our Jessica cow families have bought us a lot of success, so we decided to send cows to TLG,” Deanne said.
“They had expired their embryo work on-farm and we needed to take the next step and use IVF to try to continue using those genetics.
“We felt there were benefits in using newer sires over those genetics because those cows had really made an impact for us.”
Over the past 18 months, TLG has managed the animals and the IVF side, while the Hores have managed the recipient side on the farm.
“TLG has managed our donors, and when the IVF embryos are produced, we drive there in the morning, bring them back and put them in our recipient program,” Deanne said.
“That’s the only artificial program we do. We’ve used a range of sires from what was available and what we thought would best fit.
Instead of the semen being delivered to us, it’s delivered to Total, but then we have the recipients on site so we can manage them, which is an important cog in the business, because calving and milking is still a priority in our system.
“We try not to treat them any differently. If we’re rearing a calf, we’re rearing a calf as if it’s elite genetics or from the bottom tier.
“It doesn’t matter, all we want is a really healthy calf.”
The family looks for dairy functionality.
“Our cows live in a controlled environment, so dairy strength is important,” Deanne said.
“They’re not under a lot of physical stress with no demands to walk long distances, so they can carry weight, and therefore, we don’t need a big, heavy-boned animal.”
The changes have worked.
Fertility is up and production has increased more than 25 per cent since bringing the herd into housed conditions.
“We’ve got a really good genetic base, so when we feed them well, they do well and we get the rewards,” Steve said.
They will continue using IVF.
“Jessica is 14 and it was time to bring her home; she’s done her job,” Deanne said.