Welcome to the Select Sires Podcast talking Your Success, Our Passion, starting in 3-2-1.
Leslie Maurice
Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of the Select Sires Podcast. I’m your host for this episode. My name is Leslie Maurice, I’m the director of communications at Select Sires Inc. I’m happy to have along with me Herby Lutz, our Jersey sire analyst who I’m sure needs no introduction. I’m looking forward to introducing to you all our guest, Chris Terra of Red Top Jerseys, and learning with you all how he handles genetics and reproduction in his herd in California. But before we get to know Chris and his goals, we’re going to learn a little bit about Herd Health Profit Dollars, the new index here at Select Sires.
Joel Penhorwood
Herd Health Profit Dollars is a new tool to help producers create healthy, longer-living cattle in their herds. The HHP$ index, now customized for the Jersey breed, prioritizes improvement for Combined Fat and Protein while maintaining high fertility and robust mastitis resistance.
Herd Health Profit Dollars has several important features. It’s designed to boost protein yield. It includes general conformation and udder depth along with intermediate optimums for teat length and rear teat placement. It emphasizes somatic cell score and mastitis resistance traits. It also has an added focus on cow and heifer fertility traits, including DPR, CCR and HCR. HHP$ is a health-focused index that can be used to rank heifers in herds that perform genomic testing, but don’t test with Zoetis or don’t have CLARIFIDE Plus results. It allows for comparisons with all active Jersey sires.
Herd Health Profit Dollars. A better cow for a better future. Now available for both Holsteins and Jerseys. Learn more online at www.selectsires.com/longevity
. Now onto today’s main discussion.
Leslie Maurice
I think that the best place to start, Chris, is to have you introduce yourself. Talk to us a little bit about what you do at Red Top, who Red Top Jerseys is, and how that all got started, if you don't mind.
Chris Terra
Yeah, so my name is Chris Terra. And I was hired in 2006 by the Wickstrom and Nyman families who own Red Top Jerseys. When I started at Red Top back in '06 there was just a hole in the ground and skeleton of a dairy. No animals on site. And I kind of oversaw the final construction of the first phase. We started milking in April of 2007. And then we started with 1,200 cows, kind of a hodgepodge of animals kind of assorted from all over the country and California and big, small, short and fat, tall and skinny. Herby saw them.
Herby Lutz
It was the band of misfits.
Chris Terra
It was a band of misfits, that's the best way to explain it. So from April of '07, we just continued construction just grew the dairy cow numbers from there. It was a fast-paced growth from '07 to about 2010-11. We went from, you know, 1,200 cows to where we are now, 5,700, in about five years. That included a second rotary, which we began milking in 2010, spring of 2010. And then I think the last construction with the maternity barn was about 2011 or 12, if I remember right, and since then, the last 10 years, it's just about getting the dairy, getting the animals, getting the genetics to where we want to be, and we're finally getting close to there. And, you know, genetics is an ongoing process. But, you know, I'm really happy where we're at considering, you know, we're only 15 years into this.
Leslie Maurice
That is huge growth and I think that you just kind of started down the path of genetics. What role did genetics play in that growth over the last, from that five years from 1,200 cows to where you're at today?
Chris Terra
Well, like I said, there was a very small amount of those animals that were kind of cows that were, we were ultimately wanting to milk. A lot of them were unidentified animals that we bought off the sale yard or wherever, we were just trying to fill holes at that point. So genetics from the beginning, and always, has you know, been one of my passions and kind of fit right in my wheelhouse. And my philosophy, my goal, then, and, you know, still is today, you know, kind of identify and visualize the cow that you want to milk, and you want 5,700 of them to look that way. And you pick your bulls and your genetics to kind of match what your philosophy is, good or bad. And so early on, I just focused on a half a dozen bulls that were in the tank, and I looked at, you know, percent fat and protein, combined fat and protein, good udders, not so much on overall Type or milk. I always thought that or felt that I could manage milk as well as I could breed milk. I've kind of changed that tune going forward now because milk, we need to protect it. And I always did protect it, but I never really selected for it as much as probably I am now lately the last five years. So, you know, it was a long haul and you know, we're not there yet, but it's nice having Herby come out when you know a guy like Herby or the appraisers from Jersey Cattle that were there day one, and, you know, 10 years into this, they're telling me that early on, they didn't really want to come out to Red Top because it wasn't a fun place to score cows. And now to hear guys like Herby or the appraisers from Jersey come out and say, boy, this is one of our best herds of cows to score and we really look forward to it. To me as a manager and where we've gone and where we're at now, that's probably, you know, the biggest compliment that I can receive.
Herby Lutz
It's made a lot of change, Chris. The KESTREL-P daughters were two-year-olds, when I walked it again - hadn't been there in three or four years. And the consistency of the cows just incredible. And you're getting a lot of flow out of those cows too, and a lot of pounds of fat and protein. And you've had six core bulls, but you're part of Jerseyland, you get sampling semen on all of their bulls. You're on the sire committee for Jerseyland, helping direct what bulls they bring in, through Select Sires to customers worldwide. And just really, it's been a partnership that's been a win-win. We have, I think, two bulls currently from Red Top. I know Primus works most of your females for you. And then you get to milk those. You put in embryos for Jerseyland, so you're getting those genetics back, but just how consistent that herd was when I was walking, and it was pretty warm that July day. Cow comfort's awesome at Red Top, there's no doubt about it. I was there when it was a blank piece of ground before they even put the lagoon in so I've seen this place start to finish, and it's still continuing to mature, but boy what you've done, it's a testament. And you've also worried about getting cows pregnant and keeping those numbers up.
Chris Terra
Yeah, I mean, cow comfort like you mentioned, you know, cows kind of tell us what direction we need to go. And I think it takes a good cow guy with a business sense to kind of put all those things together. But daily, ultimately, if you have any questions and you can't go out and walk cows or look at cows to get those answers then you probably need to get somebody that can look at cows and get those answers for you. But, you know, I've worked for a few dairies over the past. I'm fourth generation Holstein dairyman. Prior to Red Top I managed Holstein dairies, and you know, genetics was my passion. And coming from Holsteins to Jerseys, that was a bigger transition than what I expected. One of the owners, when I interviewed for Red Top, made the comment after they offered me the job, I had said, well, you know, why didn't you go with the Jersey guy? I knew they were interviewing a Jersey guy at the time and he said, well, a cow's a cow. And at the time, I appreciated that, but less than a year into Red Top, I realized, well, a cow is not a cow. Jerseys are a lot different than Holsteins. But you know, along my way of kind of honing my skill and you know, learning how to manage and trying to develop my philosophy on what dairy business is, and what genetics and what cows mean, to me, you know, I had the opportunity to work for cow guys, I had the opportunity to work for business guys. Those helped me develop my style and where I'm at today.
Leslie Maurice
I kind of want to go back to something you said very early on, when you were kind of talking about the history and that was, you said that you like to identify and visualize the cows that you want to milk every day, right? I'm curious, you know, and you talked about a couple of things that you're kind of emphasizing in your genetic selection, CFP, percent fat and protein, and then also some udder traits, but talk to me a little bit more. When you sit there, and I'm sure it's changed, right? It evolves with this industry.
Chris Terra
It has evolved, yeah.
Leslie Maurice
Talk to us a little bit about that, you know, like back in 2007, what that cow looked like, compared to what she looks like today.
Chris Terra
I don't think the cow looks much different then than what she does today, my opinion. I want a functional cow that's moderately sized, has a good udder, good feet and legs, walks in and out of the barn three times a day, gives me 85-90 pounds of energy corrected milk and is not in hospital. So back then it was just a matter of breeding consistency. I needed to pick bulls, small group of bulls, I didn't want a large group of bulls, because I didn't want that variance. I wanted, you know, five to eight bulls, that kind of met those requirements, and hopefully got a lot of daughters and not have a bull in there that was going to be a dud, because, you know, I was going to have hundreds of daughters out of him. So back then it was just a matter of consistency. That's evolved, you know, genomics came into play in that period of time, and I was one of the early adopters of genomics because I felt that was the future. And jumped on some of the early young sires in the genomic programs and stuff. And then so now it's kind of evolved where I'm looking more at these health traits, and, you know, five, eight years ago DPR was a big thing. And I was not the first one to jump on the DPR bandwagon, but soon realized that those are real numbers after I started doing, you know, my own analytics within Red Top and realizing that yeah, DPR is a big number when it comes to reproduction and stuff like that. So, now, I'm not so much focused on the consistency just getting a smaller group of bulls to get Red Top to where they're at, because we're there as far as the phenotype is in the herd. Like Herby said, you go down the two-year-old pens at Red Top, and, you know, they're pretty much cookie cutter. You got better ones and worse ones, but for the most part, 90% of them meet what I would like to say is what my goals were. Now it's fine tuning the genetic side of it and doing more of the individual matings on the upper end genomic heifers, and like Herby said, with the IVF, and some of these marketing cows, but you know, that's just a small piece of it. The marketing side of it is still a result of a commercially managed operation. I don't go out today looking to find the next bull mother or to breed this cow to be the next 7JE1907 MAHOMES or whatever the bull is. If it happens, that's the icing on the cake result. I'm just trying to make the best cow I can out of this mating.
Leslie Maurice
What kind of strategy are you using when you're going through and deciding, you know, I mean, you're utilizing all different kinds of tools, right, to manage your dairy. I want to go back here in a second and talk about the repro piece of this because I can tell it's a pretty big thing. Herby mentioned it, you just talked about it. But when you're strategizing, and when you're trying to reach your goals, what kind of management tools are you really putting into play to help Red Top Jerseys reach their goals?
Chris Terra
So yeah, that's a good question. I kind of take a little, little different approach than what a lot of other guys do. I know when the beef thing first started, and we ran the OGP with, with Brad Barham back when he was still in our area, and now I'm working with Brian Nelson with Select on the OGP and looking at what percentage of the herd needs to be bred to beef and trying to meet our goals from an inventory standpoint. I think the original OGP told me, when we weren't breeding any beef at all, said we had to breed like 40 or 50 percent of the herd to beef semen and I just had a fit. I said, there's no way I'm gonna breed 40 or 50 percent of my herd to beef semen, it's just not going happen. And so we kind of dabbled...
Leslie Maurice
Herby's dying laughing. I'm guessing he got a phone call after that, probably.
Chris Terra
So we got it, I got it. And not only that, I really didn't have any history on conception rates with beef, you know, I really didn't know what to expect. I wanted to see firsthand what those conception rates were going to be like on those beef sires. So I kind of got my feet wet and I'm not one to just jump in with both feet and wish I hadn't. So I kind of stepped in and realized, you know, the conception rates were good and finally gained some more confidence in the OGP and what that was telling me. Fast forward till now I'm breeding about 30 to 40 percent of my herd to Jersey and 70 percent of the lactating herd's getting bred to beef semen.
Leslie Maurice
Now, I know why Herby's laughing, we all do.
Chris Terra
Back to your question. When I'm sitting there looking at lactating animals that are going to be assigned to Jersey semen, obviously, the majority of those animals are first, and then second, and then some thirds and fourths. And, you know, I remember guys saying, mate your firsts, some of your seconds, don't even look at third, fourth, or anything above that. Well, I'm still a cow guy, I still like good cows. And those third, fourth lactation animals that have been, you know, over 110 percent of the herd, the first one, two, three lactations, those are good cows. And so I guess to answer your question, first lactation is predominantly on paper, whatever their genetics say, on paper, those are, I'll breed 70 to 80 percent of those will get mated to Jersey, depending on what percentage I need, based off the OGP numbers. The second, I'll look at how they did as two-year-olds in combination with their genetics on paper. And then third plus, those are just handpicked based off of performance in the herd. I'll look at the high JPI, the high PTA milk animals. If that correlates with production in the herd, then so be it. But there'll be some cows, you know, those older cows, that they won't have anything on paper, but you know, she's an 80 plus point cow, good cow, good solid udder, and no genetics, but she's been 110, 120 percent of the herd her first few lactations and she's putting 30,000 plus pounds of milk in the tank. You know, I want another heifer out of her if I can get it. And then back to what I said earlier about PTA Milk, JPI, I think needs a little bit more milk in their formula.
Herby Lutz
It's a negative right now.
Chris Terra
Yeah, so JPI is still one of my prime indicators, but it's not as big of an indicator or selection tool that I had once used. It's still there because your higher JPI animals are still going to be your better animals, but I'll dab into that PTA Milk and select some of those animals for Jersey matings regardless of her JPI and some of those will be animals that historically may not have been I would have bred to Jersey because of their JPIs. But when I look at production within the herd, based on quartiles, JPI versus PTA Milk, JPI there's not a big difference when it comes to production, but PTA Milk, just like DPR and reproduction, they ride the line together.
Leslie Maurice
You actually just gave me the perfect segway so let's talk about DPR. And you mentioned in 2007, you weren't necessarily looking at health traits, and now DPR is a big focus for you. Let's talk about the repro program at Red Top just a little bit, and how you became to be a believer, and I'm using these quotes here, right, I don't want to put words into your mouth, but how you became a believer of DPR, and how that has evolved your selection criteria and your pregnancy rates at Red Top.
Chris Terra
Yeah, it's became a big tool in our program, but going back, prior to DPR, obviously, we didn't have it, and then DPR came around. I think with Red Top where we were at then, I was still in that let's build consistent animals, and, you know, I've been involved over the years prior to Red Top with the philosophy of a lot of individual matings for individual traits, that result in 20 bulls in the tank, and doesn't result in consistency within the herd level. So I wasn't, it really didn't catch my attention to add another trait to my selection criteria. But as I began to gain more confidence within the genomic program, and the consistency within the herd, you know, I started looking at, like you said, ways to improve, what's the future? DPR wasn't one of the early ones, but it became one of my main ones when selecting for bulls. Not saying that if there was a good bull that had a minus DPR, I wasn't going to use him, but if there was another bull, similar type traits that I was looking for that had a positive DPR, between the two, I would have picked the positive DPR bull.
Leslie Maurice
It became a big deciding factor, right?
Chris Terra
It did, absolutely. It did. So with our repro at Red Top, I guess the best motivation, I don't know what the correct quote is, but something about the best motivation to succeed is failure. So we've been one of the better herds around for repro the last five years, but that hasn't always been the case. 2016, 2017 we were getting our butts kicked, and I had to look at the way we were doing things and ways to improve and so cow comfort became a big focus. We were washing cows. Sprinkler pens, which was eliminated because of heat stress in the summertime. Focused on time audits getting cows in and out of the parlor, as quickly as possible. Lockup times were focused. And along with that came DPR, you know, so I started putting a big emphasis on DPR, just because I wanted to get better reproductively. And within a year, picking some heifers that, you know, if she wasn't elite, and unless she was elite and had a negative DPR, she may have been getting bred to beef, just because I didn't want to propagate those genetics, and I knew that my chances of getting her pregnant were lowered already. And I knew that by just running standard bred sum based off of DPR, and, you know, when you got 10 points, or 20 points on conception rates from your bottom quartile to your top quartile, that's when I started becoming a huge believer in DPR, just because I could see the effect it had within our herd. So from '17 up until now, especially '17, through '19, '20. For those three years, I put a huge emphasis on DPR. Now I've kind of backed off, because not that I don't look at it as much, you know, we've been running 40 plus preg rates for five years, so I've maybe taken a little more chances than what I was then. But when you're running 25 preg rates, and you go to 40 and you maintain that, when I first jumped to 40, I was like there's no way we're going to be able to hold this. This is just a fluke thing and you know, now here we are five years later, and we're still talking about 40 preg rates. I guess with those numbers, I've been able to not look at DPR as closely and within these last five years, I picked bulls that are at least neutral, try to be neutral DPR. So I've got better offspring as a result. So it's not as big a focus as it once was, but I still look at it.
Leslie Maurice
So DPR is obviously contributing to that huge preg rate, but you talked a little bit about cow comfort and some other management things that you kind of put into play to help escalate that and keep it to that level. But anything else, you know, that you can attribute to that.
Chris Terra
Reproductively?
Leslie Maurice
Yes.
Chris Terra
The same guys that were getting 25 preg rates are the same guys that are now getting 40 preg rates. So we had to re-establish our culture. And one of the big things I do take pride in is that every one of my outside guys at Red Top, breeders, feeders, all except for one, a mechanic, everybody's been trained from within. They've been either trained by myself or now within my system. They all started mostly as milkers, and so these guys have been with me for a while, and I've developed them and I take a lot of pride in that. But I had now around 2000, early 2000's, I had hired an outside herdsman, foreman type of guy. Well he brought some bad habits with him, just like a lot of them do. And it established a culture within my breeders that they were basically being too aggressive. And to try to change a culture with breeders and say that you're being too aggressive, that's kind of walking the line. But they were using a boatload of GnRH, they were re-breeding a bunch of animals, and lockup times were just inconsistent. So I just went through in 2017, and I just revamped the whole thing, and I pulled the GnRH and they had a fit, oh my God, we're going to have all these cystic cows. No more re-breeds guys, don't re-breed anything, oh my God, we're not going to get anything pregnant. And it wasn't until we started getting cows pregnant, things started improving, then guys kind of fell into the culture. And I got rid of that outside guy that it just wasn't working and, and we kind of got back from within and, and then within six months, preg checks are, you know, 80 percent pregnant. Preg rates are climbing, you know, we're getting to upper 20s, 30s. And then after we continue doing that month after month, guys finally bought in to our program where we're at now. And then I haven't had to fight with them since or convince them about change since. Now it's a lot easier. I go in if we need to tweak something here, tweak something there. They've got the confidence of our results and the history, they know that change isn't always a bad thing. And we've been able to maintain this consistency. Now if we drop below 40 or we have a 75 percent preg check, they're having a fit. What's wrong?
Leslie Maurice
They're self-evaluating a little bit closer than what they were.
Chris Terra
Now we're in a good spot.
Leslie Maurice
Yeah, that's amazing. Herby, do you have anything to add on that?
Herby Lutz
He mentioned one thing earlier about the fertility on the beef bulls and the fertility on all bulls, really. You do look at that a lot. We do a lot of semen testing. Red Top participates in Repro Review, so his data flows back through the system. And now we've put in place a beef x dairy fertility trial study too that Chris is participating in. That's one of the things the Jerseyland owners as a group, and I include Chris as one of the owners, because he is basically - he takes a vested interest in it - is to provide that data back so we make sure we have the best fertility we can possibly have going forward. Because you can't tell everything under a microscope, it changes in the cow.
Leslie Maurice
Absolutely.
Herby Lutz
That's the data that he gets back to us, that helps us and it also helps him maintain those goals that he does.
Chris Terra
Yeah, absolutely. We've seen, just like, beef or dairy, you see variabilities and I don't know how many times I've had a conversation with the semen salesman from any company. Yeah, but he's great on paper, how come he's not getting cows pregnant? Well, I don't know, but he's not. And now with our history, and with our preg rate being the way it is, if there's a bull that's not performing, you know, it's pretty much going to be the bull. Back when we were inconsistent and there was, you know, we weren't doing as well as we are now then, you know, you can question what is it? But now, it's pretty easy. Within 40 or 50 services I can go through and that is one of the things, thanks for bringing that up Herby, that I look at regularly, if not weekly, after preg checks. Which bulls should I look at or maybe remove? There's not as many as there was, as we were trying to make progress. I was a lot pickier on bulls the last, through that growth period that we talked about, but you know, there are still bulls that they just won't cut it and I'll have to pull them out. And some of them, it's unfortunate because I want to use those bulls and hey, on paper their genetics look great, but if I can't get cows pregnant, they're just not going to work for me.
Leslie Maurice
Specifically, Chris, what has Select Sires done, and you work with a team out there at All West. What has Select Sires done to help with this repro and the preg rate for Red Top?
Chris Terra
Well, actually, they played a big role because back when we were struggling, I reached out, and Greg Collins, he came out and did some refresher courses with my guys. More than anything, just confirmed that it wasn't a technician error. There were some tweaks, and there's always ways we can do better, but just to have Greg go through the guys and I had gone through them and I've bred animals for a long time too, but just to have that outside opinion. He spent some time with the guys and he went through a lot of things. And he had some positive feedback, and there were definitely some places where we needed to improve upon and Greg was the one that pushed us on these re-breeds and, you know, the GnRH - just all the stuff that was just costing us money and for no reason. I think the re-breeds was one of the things that Greg was like there's no reason why you should be re-breeding 20 percent of your breedings.
Herby Lutz
And let's be clear, that's a semen company telling you not to use more semen.
Leslie Maurice
Counterproductive. Yes, I'm sure Greg will still have a job after this. Names have been changed for protection of the innocent.
Chris Terra
I forgot who I was talking to there for a second.
Leslie Maurice
That's okay. I think that that is a great point. And you're sitting here talking, right, Greg was a part of your team. He was going out and he's making sure that Red Top Dairy is creating more profit for their bottom line and doing everything that's right. And, you know, that was an area that he saw could be more efficient.
Chris Terra
So yeah, he was definitely, Select was definitely part of our growth from just average repro to where we're at now. And then now moving forward, we've got Brian Nelson and Dennis Curtin that I work with on the sales side and Brian's involved with working with me now that Barham left us. So I work with Brian on the OGP, and we'll sit down quarterly and look at it. I just met with him here about a month ago, and the OGP says we need to bump up our Jersey matings on our lactating side because the beef is finally having its impact. We've kind of reduced our inventory to where we want to, so now we're having to breed a few more of our milk cows to that. And that's an ongoing relationship, and I don't see that ending.
Leslie Maurice
So let's switch gears and talk about the OGP. The Optimal Genetics Pathway calculator that Select has, and you're utilizing it and have been for several years. We talk about that right-sizing your herd and getting the inventory correct. Talk a little bit about your experience, you know, when they first brought that to you, you kind of talked about that a little bit that you laughed it off, but now you're actually like, overperforming on what it first indicated that you needed to do. Talk us through how that works, so people that are listening might not know what OGP is and how that can affect their herd.
Chris Terra
Yeah, when OGP was first presented to me, I didn't take it very seriously. I was pretty skeptical, because I really didn't understand exactly what it was. And when I did understand what it was, I was still a little skeptical because I was like I don't need a semen company's program telling me how to manage my dairy. I know what to do. But it wasn't until we realized that we knew we had an inventory issue, at a surplus of heifers. And with Red Top's growth, we really never paid much attention or worried about our inventory because we needed them. You know, we were growing, we were trying to make every heifer we could. And so that was never thought of. Once Red Top was full, a lot of the surplus was going to parent herds within Red Top's ownership, so it continued not to be an issue. Continued making as many as we could, until Red Top was full, the parent herds were full. Now all of sudden, we've got a surplus of heifers that isn't very cheap to raise. So it doesn't happen overnight. I mean, you can sell your way out of it, but we weren't willing to do that. Weren't just really ready to cut it and just go through the whole system and you know, cut out 1,000 animals. So we started selling springers, we started selling milk cows, but still that's a process and it took a year, year and a half to get to where we're at now. And as of today, we're about 1,000 animals under what our inventories were before and, you know, saving us hundreds of thousands per month in feed costs. So when the OGP came out, like I was saying, we looked at. It puts in all of your numbers is what I really liked about it, your death loss on calves, your conception rates, your preg rates on all parities, virgin heifers, lactation one up, and it gives you the flexibility to go through and play with it. What if I want to put sexed semen here or what if I want to put beef semen on this service? So we streamlined the program that I felt worked good for us, and like I said, we kind of got our feet wet and we haven't had to change it for a while. So all virgin heifers get three services of sexed semen. Any lactating animal that's mated to Jersey gets two services sexed, and then we follow up with beef. And then of course if not mated to Jersey, they get beef right from the get go. And we've gone from about 120 percent of our heifer inventory. We're right at 98 to 100 percent. So basically one for one, heifer per cow. I know there's numbers, and there's guys out there that are running 80 and a lot lower. I'm not willing or need to go to that extreme, because even if we do have an inventory with Red Top's name, and you know, the way we've been able to market animals, if I have a surplus, I have no problem selling them.
Leslie Maurice
And I think that right-sizing that herd and being at that 100 to 98 percent, where you say that your heifer inventory is at, makes it even more important to select on these traits to make sure that these heifers can make it into the milking herd and last for you, right? Like you're talking, you're breeding third lactation cows. I don't know what, do you know, what percentage of your herd is third lactation or greater?
Chris Terra
About 40 percent of the herd is third plus.
Leslie Maurice
That's pretty impressive, I think. I don't know, Herby, you're shaking your head yes.
Chris Terra
We're still heavy on second lactations, but the goal, bring that up, that was another from a production standpoint, that's been a goal for us. With the surplus we've had, we've historically ran about 40 percent two-year-olds and still able to get the milk we've had, that's been pretty good. But you know, I'm down to 35 percent now and trying to get that about 32 to 33. But our second lactations, because of where we're at, they're a little bit high. So we're gonna get there. We're on the right track.
Leslie Maurice
Yeah, with the emphasis on cow comfort and genetics, and I didn't mean to cut you off. I mean, those two things, plus the preg rate.
Chris Terra
Oh, no, it's yeah, like I said, we're in a good spot. But also, like you just mentioned, the fact that we don't have 20, 25 percent surplus of heifers to, “play with,” that means that every animal that we have out there just has an added value. She's worth more than she was when we had 125 percent. So that limits to what mistakes we can make. We need to focus on her genetics, we need to get her bred back, because we need her and we want her. That's what's exciting to me, because now we have our genetic population consolidated, and the genetic growth is just going to continue to go faster than what it was.
Herby Lutz
I don't find it as any surprise that both Jerseyland sires and Select Sires’ Jersey ART program both work with past winners from DCRC, that are both in the 40s, both 5,500 cow dairies that we put most of our embryos in at. We run different programs, but we have a focus of working with great people. And that's what Chris and Red Top brings to the table for Jerseyland, and you're going to see more Red Top influence through Jerseyland through the Select lineup worldwide.
Chris Terra
Yeah, we're just we're just getting started genetically.
Herby Lutz
There's 19 of the top 500 females with Red Top prefixes right now. And Chris, a few years ago there wouldn't have been hardly any.
Chris Terra
Probably zero.
Herby Lutz
Yeah, zero to two, on most proof runs. So that's a huge increase, and Chris is doing such a fantastic job when you go there. They provide data back to the industry. I think that's a huge thing. They do score the cows. They're the largest REAP herd Jersey has. So that Type data flows. I talked about his repro data flowing and getting fertility on bulls back, they test. Everything is getting flowing through the system to keep - genomics is a great tool, but if we don't keep populating it and getting new data to verify what we've predicted, they're not proven. And that's one of the things I commend Red Top for doing.
Leslie Maurice
You can tell that you're definitely using and focusing on genetics and I would guess in making that an investment a key investment to reach the goals of your dairy. Am I wrong in saying that?
Chris Terra
No, genetics personally is what got me continued in this business, that was an early passion of mine milking cows for my dad when I was 8, 10-years-old and hating life because I was stuck in the barn. Learned to love cows at an early age and genetics was kind of the fancy thing to open the new sire directory and pick a bull and then be able to breed that cow and see the calf nine months later. That's led me to where I'm at today.
Herby Lutz
And you'll see pictures from Red Top, in the sire directories that Chris mentioned. There's pictures being taken there because he does use all the young sires. And that really helps fuel the system.
Leslie Maurice
So you've talked about where you started, where we're at now, which is pretty impressive where we're at now. What's next? Where do you go?
Chris Terra
For Red Top, like I said, genetically, we're just, we're right there. We're marketing some animals. Again, that's not a goal. We're not here to market animals, we're not here to make bulls to go to stud, that's just a byproduct of the program. Commercial herd with registered cows and the best cow and the worst cow, they're side by side out there at Red Top and they're competing, and you know, nothing's managed any differently. And that's what makes the best cows special. But, you know, if we can put some more bulls into stud, if we can market some females, that's just a tribute to the program and where we're going, but it's not a goal. Not saying that it's not going to happen, because it is, but my goal is to be, I'm not going to say the first but, I want to see the first 30,000 pound energy corrected Jersey herd. And, again, it's a goal, but, do we do things differently to get there? No. Awards don't pay the bills. I want to make sure that's clear. But I think good management, a focus on reproduction and herd health and cow comfort. Again, back to what we started from the beginning, just letting the cows know, what they need and where we need to go because nutrition, everything, the genetic progress with genomics is so rapid, that nutritionally and other things, we need to keep up with the cow. It's not like the old days where we've got daughter proven bulls, and it takes, you know, five to six years to get some information. A good bull today, you know, that's kind of the bad thing about it, you can't get high on a bull because he may not be here in six months. But I think just to maintain the consistency from all aspects of management, and if that results in 30,000 pound energy corrected Jersey herd, if I'm part of that, that would be a proud moment.
Leslie Maurice
Do you have anything Chris, do you have anything that you would like to add? Maybe we didn't touch on that you would like to?
Chris Terra
We didn't talk about labor or people and I can't not go away without saying that, I don't do this by myself. We've got 5,700 cows, I've got over 40 employees, and I don't do the work. The guys are out there doing the work. I've got a great foreman that if I didn't have him, I don't know where I would be. I take the pride in claiming him as one of my own because he was trained from the bottom up. But you know, without those guys, this is not possible. So I've got to recognize the team that I have at Red Top the fact that a lot of my key guys have been with me now 10 plus years. I take a lot of pride in that, I take a lot of pride in them, and you know, I'm proud of what those guys do as well.
Leslie Maurice
I totally agree with you Chris. I think that having a good team surrounding you and your business on all aspects is very important and no doubt contributes to the success of any operation. With that, thank you so much Chris and Herby for the great conversation that we’ve had today and for telling us so much Chris so much about your operation and your goals and strategies to reach those goals. Definitely look forward to hearing more and the continued success of Red Top Jerseys. Well that’s a wrap on this episode of the Select Sires Podcast. I’m Leslie Maurice, thanks so much for tuning in and we’ll catch you next time.