Podcast Ep. 5: Make Longevity Your Legacy

Thanks for tuning in to the Select Sires Podcast. I’m Joel Penhorwood.

We know a focus on the healthy, longer-living dairy cow is a win for dairy farmers. We’ve talked about Making Longevity Her Legacy. And today, we’re listening in to a conversation about that focus, in action, on the farm and its long-term consequences. Make Longevity Your Legacy, and for more on that, we’ll reach back to our Q&A series for that discussion with Select Sires Director of Research Dr. Bo Harstine, and guests senior sire analyst Kevin Jorgensen and Mitch Breunig of Mystic Valley Dairy.

First though, a quick highlight. In past episodes, we’ve talked sires of the podcast, programs of the podcast – today, it’s a designation of the podcast. Joining us now, Rebekah Mast, genetic director at World Wide Sires, discussing one designation that’s helping to focus on the healthier cow.

Rebekah Mast

Milk quality and mastitis resistance are important to everyone from dairy producers to milk processors to consumers. In addition to improved management practices, dairy producers now have more ability than ever before to improve mastitis resistance through genetic traits, including Somatic Cell Score, and the Zoetis and CDCB Mastitis Resistance. The question is, what is the best way to incorporate these traits in genetic selection when there are so many other traits to also consider? After extensive research, the genetics team at Select Sires has developed the Mastitis ResistantPRO designation to appropriately weight the three traits related to milk quality and mastitis resistance and combine them into one index. You can still rank bulls based on the overall genetic selection index that makes the most sense for your herd. And then, make your final selection by looking for bulls that have the Mastitis ResistantPRO designation. The great news is that we have a wide variety of sires who qualify for this designation, as a result of the focused selection efforts of our sire acquisition team. Now, instead of trying to analyze and weigh three different traits that are all related to the same general goal, you can simply look for the Mastitis ResistantPRO designation and have confidence that the next generation of females in your herd will be genetically improved for mastitis resistance and help you in reaching your herd health goals.

Joel Penhorwood

Thanks, Rebekah. More on the Mastitis ResistantPRO designation, and other helpful selection tools, online at www.selectsires.com.

Now to Dr. Bo Harstine with today’s main discussion.

Bo Harstine

Today, we’re joined by Kevin Jorgensen, senior sire analyst at Select Sires, and Mitch Breunig, owner/operator at Mystic Valley Dairy in Wisconsin. Kevin, Mitch, thank you both for joining us today.

Mitch Breunig

It’s great to be here, thank you.

Kevin Jorgensen

Good to see you, Bo.

Bo Harstine

Good to see you both. Throughout this Q&A series, we have gained a better understanding about genetic tools to create the next generation of healthy, trouble-free cows. This is the foundation of making longevity her legacy. But today, I'd like to shift the narrative to make longevity your legacy, and talk a little bit about how producers can benefit from later lactation cows. I want to lead our discussion by asking Mitch, can you tell us a little more about your farm and specifically your older lactation cows?

Mitch Breunig

Yep, we have a 450-cow registered Holstein farm and we have about 550 young stock, about 1,000 acres, and currently our cows are producing about 105 to 110 pounds of milk per day. We have a cell count under 100,000 and a preg rate over 30.

Bo Harstine

Do you have any advice or suggestions for a progressive producer who's trying to prepare themselves for accommodating these longer-lived, larger cows?

Mitch Breunig

Yeah, I think it's really important that you look at what the stall design is on your farm. And, you know, many years ago when we had 46-inch stalls, we had a struggle to get cows that lived a long time and we remodeled our barn. We made stalls that were wide enough and big enough for older cows and immediately that paid dividends because those cows were just so much more comfortable, and comfortable cows produce a lot of milk. And you know, it helps them live a long time because they're not losing that energy of stress from, you know, not being able to fit comfortably in a stall. And one of the main things that we did that really made a difference is our curtains on the outside of our barn, we had to redo those, and we extended the front of our stalls 18 inches when we put new curtains on, and our herd average immediately went up 2,000 pounds of milk. And it's just because those older cows were just so much more comfortable.

Bo Harstine

That's really great information.

Kevin Jorgensen

I'll add a little story in on this that I was here one time when this process began and he would run from one side of the barn to the other and jump into the stall and say, "Is this a comfortable stall?" And we would look at the cows as they laid in the stalls, and they laid corner to corner instead of straight in. And it was pretty pronounced that once those improvements were made, you can see the cows just were far, far more comfortable.

Bo Harstine

That's great.

Mitch Breunig

And so, as you have a goal to have older cows, which we all need to desire to do, you got to make sure your facility is set up to be able to handle those cows.

Bo Harstine

And Kevin, I understand that you've worked with Mitch for quite a while. Can you tell us a little bit more about that relationship?

Kevin Jorgensen

Well, absolutely, Bo. Obviously the two of us have been together in college and began our relationships with Select Sires and Mystic Valley Dairy back in 1999 as an SMS consultant, and so I've had the opportunity to work with the dairy and the farm and the cows for a really, really long time. Over time, that morphed into more, just not just a consultant, but we own a lot of cattle together. What started as a little project of four head has grown into well over 100. And so, I have a unique situation here, not only my duty to Select Sires, but also as a friend and partner and collaborator here at the dairy. And I'm blessed that Mitch puts a level of trust in me to be able to look at the data on the farm as a whole to be able to really, truly measure the metrics here, which ultimately helps me do my job better because I've got real life experience and metrics to be able to do that.

Bo Harstine

Very good. And so, I'm going to go back to Mitch. Mitch, what advantages do longer living cows provide for Mystic Valley Dairy?

Mitch Breunig

Well, there's a couple of things that they provide an advantage for us. Two that come to top of mind are pounds of solids per cow. That's kind of a new metric that people are looking at across our industry is how many pounds of solids are you shipping per cow per day? And our goal is to our goal is to get to eight, we haven't made it to eight. But as an industry, people are talking more like, well, six is kind of that minimum place to be. Well, for the last twelve months, we've been over seven pounds every day, you know, for the year. And when we're able to produce that amount of milk, it really makes our, actually the second part of that equation, the income over feed costs. And so, we want to, on any dairy, you want to feed cows, produce milk and sell the output and income over feed costs is a way to measure that profitability because that's going to be where our money comes from. And so if we're able to have those older cows producing a lot of milk, that helps the financial position of the dairy. And then the other thing that we have is because we have older cows that have sort of gotten there because we have a lower cull rate, we're able to sell other cows to other farms for dairy purposes, and in the past several years, we've actually between 150 to 200, and in the history of our dairy farm since 2003, we've actually sold 2,800 cows to other farmers, and that's like having a complete dispersal seven times.

Bo Harstine

That's really impressive. And so, Kevin, you're seeing the advantages of longer living cows there at Mystic Valley. What else do you see in the industry? Do you see producers reaping the benefits of well-rounded indexes like Herd Health Profit Dollars (HHP$)? Do they need it? Do they want it?

Kevin Jorgensen

I certainly think so, Bo, and just to tie back a little bit to here, you know, the selection parameters here have always been well-rounded, index driven, and I think it's been part of a secret of success. So, what Mitch was talking about with those older cows, whenever we're talking about anything on this dairy, and I see the metrics or get into production reports from the parlor, the old cow pen is sort of the barometer of the entire dairy. So as what we call pen one is how that pen goes, so goes the dairy. And I don't think that's unique just to this farm. I think it's translatable to other dairies as well. So, when those old cows are really doing well, paying the bills, running in road gear and doing very well, those are the pieces that really make a well-operated dairy run well. As it comes to things like HHP$, that index just has a little more completeness to it. It's a little more balanced in terms of not focusing only on just health, just production. It's all encompassing with a little more balance all the way throughout of it. And then one of the things I see in my travels and we as a sire team, you know, have made some really protracted efforts to do more in mastitis resistance, and it's been a major initiative over several years and heard about it in other sessions of make longevity your legacy. Every time I have that conversation with a producer about mastitis resistant cows, you've got a captive audience immediately. They're seeing the benefits of that. They know if cows are going to live longer, they need to have some of those unique traits that allow them to stay in the herds longer. And so, any index that that puts those longevity traits at the forefront, whether it's mastitis, whether it's productive life, served in combination with the production and other fitness traits, I think that's a great selection tool that can meet a wide-ranging group of customers.

Bo Harstine

Excellent points. And finally, Mitch, how have longer living cows made an impact on the future of your family and your farm?

Mitch Breunig

Well, as I said before, you know, it kind of gives us a different opportunity and we're able to sell cows to other farms. We’re able to have enough replacements for our farm. I think about the stalls in my barn as sort of being apartments for rent, and each one of those apartments is a very valuable piece of real estate. And I want to have the very best possible cow in that stall every day. And so, by having long living cows, there's a pretty good chance that that cow is producing a lot of milk, she's healthy, she's able to get to the parlor. And, you know, she's hopefully a low maintenance cow, and having those cows in those spots really help our farm be profitable. And if we have a cow that, you know, is underperforming or maybe not doing as well, you know, because we have enough replacements, because our cull rate is lower, we're able to say, well, you know, let's replace that cow with a different cow because we want to have the best possible 400 cows we can have.

Bo Harstine

I like that analogy. You're the owner-operator, but you're the landlord. You make sure the cows are earning their spot.

Mitch Breunig

Right. Absolutely.

Bo Harstine

And Kevin, I'm going to ask you the same question. How have longer living cows made an impact on the future of your farm and your family?

Kevin Jorgensen

Well, obviously here with our partnership and the ability for us to continue to build and grow this herd of cows to being not only great for Mystic Valley, but for those people that buy those cows from here that go on and do well and creating a premium product that one of the things we always talk about is when we're marketing cows, we need to be at the top of the market whatever the market is and the only way you do that is with the right set of cows. We get accused every once in a while for looking at some funny metrics. One of the things that we look at is lifetime total milk of the cows that are born here and leave here. And over the last 24 months, the group of cows that have been here and left but not for dairy reasons, but just to be here as a member of the herd, is tickling 90,000 pounds per cow. We would like that to be 100,000 pounds per cow. Every cow that was born here and lives here, on average, makes 100,000 pounds of lifetime milk. That just adds to the profitability. And again, I don't think we're unique in that circumstance. I think other farms, every time they can raise the bar, a lot of averages we've seen in that is more in the 60,000-pound range. So, if you can double the productivity years, 65 percent of the increase in the productivity of every cow, on average, that is a huge economic impact for either sustainability, for growing in the future to adding and becoming a larger operation. There's just a lot of opportunities that make long living cows just a bedrock of dairy sustainability in the future.

Bo Harstine

Great points, you brought up important concepts like sustainability, and it makes me think of something that we use a lot at presentations at Select Sires; skate to where the puck is going. You guys are doing that, and I think that you'll reach some of those goals sooner than you think. And so, with that, I appreciate both of you spending time with us today to help our farmer-owners understand the value of cow longevity and how to make longevity your legacy on the dairy.

Joel Penhorwood

Thanks Bo, as well as guests Kevin Jorgensen and Mitch Breunig. Great discussion. As always, find out more on how to make longevity her legacy and make longevity your legacy online at www.selectsires.com. That’s all for today’s episode – keep an eye out for more discussions down the road. And from all of us at Select Sires, thanks for tuning in!