Huge genetic gains are just the icing on the cake for a South Australian dairy business that’s undergone an extensive transformation in recent years.
And the rewards are paying dividends on the business’ balance sheet as well as delivering a better work-life balance.
Ray and Marg Pearson, sons Shaun and Adrian, with Adrian’s wife Shannon, have increased their herd by 50 per cent to 900 cows and replaced an old dairy with a new rotary, and now their Holstein herd is within the top 200 in Australia according to its genetic merit.
The family, from near Mount Gambier, have improved the Balanced Performance Index of their Burrungule Dairy herd by 161 per cent — moving from an average BPI of 67 to 175 in four years.
This represents a shift in the herd’s overall ranking to 137 in Australia from 576 in 2020.
Underpinning this significant rise has been the family’s focus on breeding with top bulls on DataGene’s BPI and genomic testing.
“We started with genomics because we wanted to get better quality animals through the herd and see where our calves were at,” Shaun said.
“It also helped out with choosing our export heifers too; it made sure that when we were selling groups of heifers those groups never included any of our best ones,” Adrian added.
Now, the genomic information for each heifer determines which ones are retained — generally those 250 BPI or above — and which cows are bred to sexed semen.
Long-term breeding adviser, Genetics Australia’s Graham Heaver, helps the Pearsons choose bulls to fit their breeding goals.
He said a bull’s BPI is the most important consideration for selection and then they focus on improving any issues within the herd.
“If there are traits showing up, we tend to work on that,” Graham said.
“For example, if there are more lame cows, that would become a focus. But if a bull has a serious problem, he’s not going to be a high BPI bull; a high BPI bull generally has all the traits you want.”
It’s tough for the Pearsons to determine the true production gain from their breeding approach, because there have been so many changes within their business in the past five years.
For example, they’ve seen a production increase of five to six litres/cow/day — to an average of 9500 litres/cow/lactation — in the new rotary dairy, where each cow is fed in the bail, according to its production. Previously, in their old herringbone dairy, the herd was blanket fed.
But when it comes to their heifers, there’s no argument. Better genetics are making a mark.
Shaun said all heifers enter the dairy “at a consistent size” which makes them easier to manage and break into the dairy. They are also more comparable to the cows in the herd — both in size and production.
Pulling up one heifer’s record on the dairy office computer, he points out the production capacity within the young group.
“Here’s one heifer, she’s 48 days in milk and doing 31.9 litres on 9.7kg (of wheat, canola and minerals),” he explained.
“As an average, the heifer group probably does around 29 litres, which is about 80 per cent of the average cow production.”
Choosing high BPI bulls has also improved calving ease within the Pearson herd.
The brothers are incredibly grateful for the time it gives them back for other things.
“I think one of the best things happening with calving ease, we are not pulling many calves at night,” Adrian said.
“Years ago, we’d be driving around the cows every night checking them.”
“And now once the last person drives out the gate, they [springers] stay in the paddock until the next morning,” Shaun added.
It’s a similar story with other health traits. For example, less mastitis saves time and money, delivering more milk in the vat consistently.
Moving forward, the family doesn’t want to lift herd numbers to more than 1000 cows and instead, will concentrate on improving their genetic merit to lift production, health and profitability.
They will continue to focus on breeding with high BPI sires but start to investigate traits such as feed efficiency and heat tolerance.