With the majority of herds over halfway through the calving season, farmers should be looking at their milk recordings with the breeding season in mind.

Somatic cell counts (SCC) will naturally spike at this time of the year as cows go through the stress of calving, but they should return to normal relatively quickly post-calving.

In the last 10 days of February, the average SCC was sitting at 186,000 cells/mL, while 25% of herds recorded in that period had had an SCC level higher than 301,000 cells/mL, according to the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF).

12% of the herds recorded across Ireland had SCC reading above 400,000 cells/mL, which indicates there are problems within those herds that need to be dealt with.

With the breeding season trundling towards us, farmers should be carrying out a milk recording now if they have not already done one yet this season.

From there, they need to be looking back on the data from recent recordings, as well as any previous milk recordings for cows in the herd.

This will help you identify any problem cows that should not be used for breeding replacements, and help you draw up a cull cow plan, especially if there are 'millionaires' within the herd.

Milk recording

Milk recordings provide farmers with a lot of information that can be hugely beneficial when it comes to preparing yourself for the upcoming breeding season.

Not only that, but analysing the changes in milk composition or production patterns serves as an early indicator of health issues such as mastitis, nutritional deficiencies, prolonged negative energy balance, or any metabolic issues.

Farmers can use this information to identify issues and intervene early, before the situation develops and comes to the stage of antibiotics or veterinary intervention.

Milk recording will ultimately lead to improved milk quality in the bulk tank, and therefore better milk cheques.

SCC

High SCC cows are not only costing the farm money, but they are also a source of infection for healthy cows.

Farmers should be targeting to have 85% of the herd with an SCC of less than 200,000 cells/ml.

To achieve this, farmers need to breeding of cows which continuously have low SCC recordings.

To acquire this information, farmers should be carrying out at least six milk recordings throughout the lactation, the first of which should be done within 60 days of calving.

It does not matter if the whole herd has not yet calved down, getting this early recording will help identify problems in early calvers (which are quite often bred for replacements as is), as well as helping you understand how the dry-off period went.

Breeding

The reports from these recordings should be thoroughly analysed, removing cows that are consistently having SCC issues from your replacement breeding problem.

The summary report will also give an overview of the key areas of mastitis control, highlighting where this control is proving effective and where it can be improved.

The reports comprises SCC levels in consecutive recordings on each cow, which shows the spread of infection during lactation and highlights the continuously high SCC cows in the herd.

Rooting out problem cows is a very important task ahead of breeding, and is where farmers make their money back on milk recording.

The selection of cows for breeding is just as important as selecting bulls, as the genetic potential of an animal initially comes from the average of both sire and dam figures.

Obviously, milk recording is only part of the puzzle when it comes to breeding, as farmers will need to have an understanding of all aspects that need improving within the herd.