northeastern Ohio | kipps - 6/12/2022 11:00
Jay, what's the current polled status of your herd? What percentage of calves born are polled? How many of those would you guess are homozygous polled?
For as simple as dehorning is(if done early), I haven't put the focus on polled like my dad did years ago with herd bulls. I figure five minutes of work per calf isn't worth the hassle of dealing with multiple sire companies, just to get enough polled bull options. If dehorning becomes a political/regulatory issue in the future, I'll probably wish I had focused more on polled. But I assume my herd is as much or more polled than the national average, so I will be in the same boat as everyone else if that day comes.
I think our milking herd is about 80% polled. 95+% of the calves born this year will be polled. We have 50 confirmed homozygous (genomic tested) and I would guess 50 more homozygous but not confirmed out of a total of 320 head.
Dehorning used to be simple. But we are now required by the cheese plant to use pain meds when dehorning. This adds considerable time and cost. I would suspect that if you are not already required to use pain meds, you will be required in the near future: https://aabp.org/Resources/AABP_Guidelines/Dehorning-2019.pdf
My farm logo is "Dehorned at Conception". I don't want to preach, and I don't expect anyone else to change their operation because of what I say. But the public is watching us. Ohio outlawed tail docking in 2017. I think that dehorning could be next. All it takes is one dehorning video to go viral. We need to be proactive and be prepared. As soon as the AI studs see the demand, they can pivot to polled genetics and we can as an industry make the switch to polled dairy animals. But it can't happen overnight. We can't wait for the public outcry. It takes over a year before semen can be produced. 9 months till calving. So this needs to be implemented 2 years in advance so that we can say we were pro-active. The genetic diversity is here today to make the switch. Once the switch is made, no one is going to go back to horned.
I can't do this by myself. I don't have "elite" cows in my herd. I haven't played the game. I've used herd bulls and done some "oddball" matings that don't put me at the top of the genetic rankings. But I've created a herd that is profitable and appeals to the public.
There are plenty of dairymen that have played the game that the AI industry wants you to play to get "elite" cows and thereby create "elite" bulls. If those "elite" cows are bred to polled bulls, the AI industry would instantly have "elite" polled bulls. We can go from 10% polled to 100% polled bulls in 2 years. Then to 100% homozygous polled bulls in another 2 years.
It will take longer to convert whole herds. Cows can live for 12 years. We are not going to get rid of cows because they have horns. But the next generation can be born without horns. And we can eliminate the horn gene completely in the next 10 years. Horns do not have any value. They do not add anything productive to our society.
Sermon over. Sorry to get off topic.
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How badly am I shooting myself in the foot...
