Stratégie de renouvellement :industrial crossing
The industrial crossbreeding consists of using beef breed bulls on dairy females in order to increase income generated by meat thanks to a better valorisation of calves commercially. For several years, the proportion of inseminations with beef bulls on dairy cows has been increasing, from 14% in 2015 to 22% in 2020. On the other hand, pure breed inseminations have decreased, with 81% in 2021 and 72% in 2020. These inseminations of dairy cows with beef breeds are carried out with Inra 95, Belgian Blue, Limousin or Charolais bulls. Specialized organizations in dairy x beef crossbreeding have appeared.[1]
We will explain here why dairy x beef crossbreeding is increasingly interesting to breeders and how to implement a renewal strategy incorporating it.
Advantages of industrial crossbreeding
The livestock advisory organization Eilyps[2] conducted a study in 2021 collecting GTE (Technical and economic Management) data from 682 Holstein dairy farms. The table below was created by distinguishing 2 groups: farms performing less than 15% industrial crossbreeding (117 farms) and those performing more than 50% crossbreeding (180 farms).
| <15% crossbreeding
117 farms |
> 50% crossbreeding
180 farms | |
|---|---|---|
| LIVESTOCK | ||
| SFP (Main Forage Area) | 70 | 66 |
| Milk volume sold (L) | 670,719 | 621,214 |
| HERD | ||
| Total number of dairy cows (VL) | 86 | 77 |
| Total number of LU (Large Ruminant Units) | 129 | 107 |
| Primiparous rate (%) | 33 | 32 |
| RENEWAL NEED | ||
| Culling rate (%) | 25.0 | 24.3 |
| Dairy cow mortality rate (%) | 5.6 | 4.5 |
| YOUNG STOCK MANAGEMENT | ||
| Rearing rate (%) | 34.8 | 31.3 |
| Renewal rate (%) | 30.3 | 29.7 |
| Age at first calving (months) | 27.8 | 26.5 |
| Young stock mortality rate (%) | 18.5 | 13.6 |
| INSEMINATION PROTOCOL | ||
| Crossbreeding rate (%) | 9 | 68 |
| Fertile sexed AI rate (%) (Artificial Inseminations) | 19 | 41 |
| PROFITABILITY | ||
| Milk sales (€/cow/day) | 8.1 | 8.3 |
| Feed cost per cow (€/cow/day) | 2.3 | 2.1 |
| Milk margin on feed cost (€/cow/day) (MCA) | 5.8 | 6.2 |
| Meat coproduct (€/cow/day) | 0.77 | 0.89 |
| Calf price (€) | 87 | 132 |
| Herd feed cost (€/LU/day) | 2.8 | 2.5 |
| Workshop MCA (€/LU/day) | 5.9 | 6.4 |
Here we observe two groups with very different insemination protocols. The group performing little crossbreeding has an average crossbreeding rate of 9% compared to 68% for the other group. Industrial crossbreeding also allows choosing the animals with which one wants to continue working and to benefit faster from genetic progress. It is noted that farms using more crossbreeding use 22% more sexed doses, which allows selecting future females. This is even more true if the crossbreeding strategy is combined with genotyping.
Industrial crossbreeding in dairy farming first allows to better valorize the livestock coproducts. Thus, in farms performing little crossbreeding, calves are sold for only €87 compared to €132 in farms practicing it. Integrating beef breed inseminations into the insemination protocol thus allows a better margin on feed cost (MCA) for the workshop. Farms performing more than 50% crossbreeding indeed increase their workshop MCA by €0.5 per Total Cows/day.
This increase is also explained by the rearing rate and renewal rate. In farms where industrial crossbreeding is practiced, fewer heifers are reared because only those needed are raised and no more. The rearing rate is thus reduced by 3.5%, which also leads to lower rearing costs. The renewal rate is lower because cows are not culled as early as in farms with little crossbreeding. Indeed, they still generate income thanks to the calves sold.
Fewer heifers reared leads to a decrease in the number of primiparous cows in the herd and thus better longevity of animals. This results in an improvement in productivity of 1 L of milk/cow/day.[4]
Thus, farms that mainly use crossbreeding generate a better balance allowed by the milk workshop to remunerate themselves (+€0.3 per present cow/day). At the farm level over 1 year, farms performing crossbreeding generate a balance of €38,100 per dairy worker unit (UTH) with 77 cows present on average, compared to €36,300/UTH with 86 cows for farms that do less. With 10 fewer cows, the crossbreeding strategy thus allows gaining €1,800/UTH or €3,500 for 1.9 UTH (Human Worker Unit) on average and at least 1 hour of work per day.
A renewal strategy based on crossbreeding is profitable economically and in terms of workload.
Despite these advantages, there may remain concerns regarding calving. It may indeed be thought that beef breed calves will be too large and cause more calving problems. However, there are beef breeds adapted for dairy cows such as the Belgian Blue which is particularly efficient for industrial crossbreeding because it improves the meat conformation of calves while preserving ease of calving. These crosses do not cause more problems and promise a very rapid growth phase, thus increasing the balance generated by the breeder.
Implementing a renewal strategy
A good renewal strategy is planned over a 3-year period: from the insemination of the mother until the beginning of lactation of the produced heifer. It is essential to determine the renewal need: the number of heifers to raise in order to replace dead and culled cows in the herd. It must also take into account possible changes in herd size depending on future opportunities. Therefore, one must anticipate and set, according to objectives for the coming years, a heifer rearing rate that will meet the renewal need including a safety margin. It is crucial to limit oneself only to rearing the necessary heifers.
To achieve this, the best strategy is to use sexed semen on females of interest combined with industrial crossbreeding for the rest of the herd. Below is an example of an explained strategy for a herd of 100 dairy cows.
Renewal need and rearing rate
The first step is to define the renewal needs according to the herd's objectives. Here we have a herd of 100 dairy cows. 25 cows are culled each year and 5 die. A 5% safety margin is taken to ensure renewal. Thus, 35 heifers must be raised per year.
Heifer insemination protocol
First, we select the heifers of interest. These will be inseminated with sexed semen. This will improve the herd genetics. In this example, this represents 45% of the heifers, so 15 of them. The rest are inseminated conventionally with purebred semen (20 heifers here). A 15% mortality rate of young stock is considered.
This results in 13 females from sexed semen. From purebred inseminations, we get 8 females and 8 males. From heifer insemination, we have a total of 21 females for renewal. Then 14 females are missing to complete renewal.
Multiparous insemination protocol
To obtain the 14 missing females, 30 multiparous cows are inseminated conventionally to have, with 15% mortality, 14 purebred females.
This is where industrial crossbreeding comes in. The less productive dairy cows, or the older ones, are crossed with beef breed bulls. Their offspring is not kept in the herd.[1] Thus, the remaining 43 cows are inseminated with beef breed semen.
Summary
With this renewal strategy, the following herd is finally obtained:
- 65 multiparous cows
- 35 primiparous cows
- 22 purebred males
- 30 crossbred calves
This ensures renewal while valorizing the calves that will be sold.
For more information on renewal strategies, click here.
Appendices
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Réussir lait, Le croisement des vaches laitières : https://www.reussir.fr/lait/croisement
- ↑ Eilyps, Advisors and experts in livestock: https://www.eilyps.fr/
- ↑ Eilyps, My insemination protocol from A to Z: https://www.eilyps.fr/mon-protocole-dinsemination-de-a-a-z/
- ↑ Eilyps, Clarify your renewal strategy: https://www.eilyps.fr/clarifier-sa-strategie-de-renouvellement-cest-payant/
