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CRV Bulls - leaders in longevity

As usual, the index run for December does not hold many surprises. Genetic progress remains the spearhead and a consistent breeding strategy delivers results. This applies to ‘rich milk’, but equally to health and efficiency and consequently longevity. After this index run, CRV will continue offering its members and customers a highly interesting portfolio of bulls. So that farmers can look to the future with the full confidence of a healthy and efficient herd.

Bouw Rocky the undisputed number one for longevity
The names of three familiar and reliable bulls, Bouw Rocky, Delta Fun P and Delta Bookem Danno, still rank high among the daughter-proven sires. With an NVI of 302, Danno is the highest ranked, daughter-proven bull in the Netherlands and Flanders. Danno daughters achieve high production, offer outstanding legs and are persistent performers (longevity 612 days).

At the HHH-show, CRV displayed a group of daughters by the polled, red-and-white Fun P. His offspring all score high for longevity (555 days), production (€ 334 Inet) and are highly balanced, good dairy types and exceedingly attractive (aAa 153624). If your dream is a queen of the show ring, you can't afford to overlook Fun P. With more than 100 daughters on their third, or more, lactation Bouw Rocky tops the list as the undisputed number one for longevity (1149 days). His daughters are very well balanced, strong and show good dairy type (aAa 351426).

Breeding for ‘rich milk’
A consistent breeding strategy focussed on components delivers results. As a farmer, you want to breed healthy, easy to manage cows that produce component-rich milk. Higher percentages of components not only have an immediate positive effect on the milk price, higher (phosphate) efficiency is another indirect effect.

A newcomer to the index is Magister son De Leenhorst E-Profit. E-Profit certainly does his name justice and delivers profits with a capital P in the form of phenomenal component transmission (+0.52% fat and +0.40% protein) combined with super milk production (921 kg), faultless linear traits and without exception positive health and fertility traits. In the shape of Delta Builder P CRV also offers a heterozygote polled bull who passes on impressive milk production (1.306 kg) and outstanding components (+0.31% fat and +0.18% protein).

Horst Libero is the standard bearer for the red-and-white team. He offers qualities in abundance with excellent conformation (108) partnered with good components (+0.52% fat and +0.11% protein) and very decent milk production. These are bulls with a strong appeal for farmers thanks to their efficient production.

Delta Jacuzzi-Red extreme efficiency
Delta Jacuzzi-Red still tops the charts for the red-and-white segment. His daughters are extremely efficient (19% Better Life Efficiency) and have sterling udders and legs. In July 2017, CRV - as the first AI organisation in the world - started to collect feed intake data on normal, commercial dairy farms. Starting with the index run for December, CRV will include this feed intake data in the breeding value estimation.

Heading the list for the black-and-white segment, Delta Bonjour also gives great scores for efficiency (13%) and stands out for his wonderful health traits.

And in terms of efficiency (12%) the red-and-white, homozygote, polled bull Delta Elixer-Red certainly matches up to the competition. Elixer's daughters will also inherit super udders and legs. Whether your focus as a dairy farmer is on boosting the components, polled cows or feed efficiency, CRV presents another wide range of bulls that match your breeding goals

 

Delta Babetje, daughter of Titanium and grand dam of Bonjour Owner: Peeters Groep LV, Geel (Belgium) Stillewagt Fidder 59, daughter of Rocky Owner: Melkveebedrijf van der Kolk, Dalfsen
Delta Bonjour Marijke 3460, daughter of Libero
OwnerL AJ & BM vaan Dee-Voorsluis, IJzendoorn
Read more

The beginning of the year 2019 is imminent, a year with – hopefully – lots of wonderful, new opportunities and a great collaboration with our Veepro Holland members. And also a year in which you can plan ahead by means of the Veepro Holland calendar. This calendar features a dozen of Holland’s beautiful cows and heifers, and has an attractive modern design. If the calendar is not sent to you already, you can order it for a small fee via info@vee-logistiek.nl

Often, towards the end of the year the previous period is revisited. This also happened at: 

"Fighting for the Pride of Holland"

On Wednesday morning, October 31st, Henk Bleker, our chairman and former secretary of state of the ministry of LNV, and other representatives of the livestock and logistics sector campaigned for the preservation of young cows in our landscape.

Prior to the discussion about the agricultural budget in the House of Representatives, the chairman of Vee&Logistiek Nederland attended an exceptional spectacle at the Binnenhof in The Hague: young cows in a layer of straw.
The action was intended to show both politicians and public that the consequence of the phosphate regulation could be that soon there will be no more young cows grazing in the Dutch meadows.
All agricultural representatives of the political parties and other interested people were offered a brochure: ‘Fighting for the Pride of Holland: the power of the breeding heifer.'
Henk Bleker was on the spot to speak to the various MPs and media about the national and international significance of the Dutch breeding heifer, aka: Holland’s most charming pasture cow.
In the future, Veepro Holland will more and more consciously use the media to underline that quite a number of issues in the national and international cattle breeding trade are being realized from the Netherlands under modern, regulated and verifiable conditions.


Currently Veepro Holland has just realized a new bilateral sheep and goat certificate for export to Sudan. We are also working on certificate adjustments for breeding cattle to Morocco and Algeria. Syria, Qatar and Israel are waiting for approval of the proposed breeding cattle  certificates from the relevant veterinary authorities.

We wish you a happy Holiday Season and a prosperous and  wonderful New Year!

Drs. Lianne van Dongen
Veterinary Director

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Ranger and Rosebud most used sires

In the AI year of 2017/2018, Dutch dairymen did use Double W Ranger (by Reflector) most often with black & white and Delta Rosebud (by Filou) with red & white. 
Both Ranger and Rosebud are young genomic sires, and also the runners-up in the list of most used bulls for R&W and B&W are young sires, namely Delta Magister (by Whatsapp) and Delta Ticket (by Colorado). However, also the proven sires occupy high places in the list of most used (R)HF sires. For example Batenburg G. Stellando, Fidelity son and leader of the list for two years, and, not to forget, good old Delta Atlantic, who once more ended up in the top five.   
In addition to the milk bulls, the Belgian Blue sires in particular are popular. Just over half of the first inseminations with dairy cows was performed with semen of a Belgian Blue bull. 
This past year, the total number of first inseminations in the Netherlands has decreased by 1.2% as a result of farmers ending their business and the phosphate rights system, which forces dairymen to keep no more animals than absolutely necessary. 
 

Most used black and white sires Most used red and white sires
Double W Ranger
Delta Magister
Batenburg G. Stellando
Delta Jupiler
Delta Atlantic

Delta Rosebud

Delta Ticket

Jotani

Kingfarm Holsteins Anreli

Broekhuizen Bart


Feed conversion gets prominent place in CRV breeding program

 

CRV will dedicate a lot of its attention to the collection of data on feed conversion and subsequently include the information in its breeding program.

'Selecting on feed efficiency becomes the next phase in dairy farming,' predicts breeding specialist Pieter van Goor.

In the past year, CRV has recorded feed-intake data at a practical farm and combined that information with feed-intake data from a number of experimental farms. There appeared to be a difference in feed balance between the progeny groups of bulls of about 1.50 Euro per cow per day. ‘The differences between cows are big,’ says Van Goor. 'The least efficient cow gets 1.2 kg of measured milk from one kg of dry matter feed, the most efficient one 1.9 kg milk.' By means of breeding, the feed conversion can be improved and the advantage for a dairy farm with one million kg milk can rise to 20,000 Euro per year. The coming year, CRV will combine the information with respect to feed intake and milk production from nine more practical farms in order to calculate the feed conversion. This can increase the reliability of the breeding value of young genomic sires to about 65%.

 

Elite dairyman breeds for contents, feeds for milk

 

At 14,865 kg milk, 3.82% fat and 3.56% protein, the Van der Mark family from Veenwouden had the highest milk yield of the Netherlands this past year. The 120 dairy cows are being milked by robots, and they can lay down in a completely open barn with sand covering the floors in the boxes. In addition, Harm, Hillie, and their sons Coenraad and Jacco are mentioning feed as an important factor to successfully obtain high production. They mix the ingredients – including grass, corn, unlocked wheat and soya – with water for a ration of about 40% dry matter, the so called compact feeding. While in the milking robot, the cows additionally get a maximum of 7 kg of pellets. This ration contains lots of starch which provides the cows with great fitness, also the dry cows.

With the high production the high percentages stand out. ‘For contents you have to breed, for kg milk you can feed,’ according to the entrepreneurs. ‘In addition we breed for a wide front end and a lot of capacity. Young heifers should be able to start giving lots of milk immediately.’ Good nutrition and diligent management match beautifully with the HF cow, is their conviction. 'On that basis you get the most liters. And when you have a good eye for the cow, you can do so without health problems.'

 

40 liters difference in water intake

The water intake of second-calver cows with a weight of 640 kg, and in the same lactation stage, can differ by 40 liters a day. This is evidenced by data from the company of the Alders family at Overloon where CRV conducts feed efficiency research and also keeps track of the intake of water.

The daily production of these cows was 35 kg of milk, the water intake varied from 76 to 116 liters. In temperate weather conditions, dairy cows seem to need an average of about 8 liters of water per 100 kg body weight for maintenance. For each kg of milk produced, 3 liters of water must be added. On hot days, the water intake for maintenance can double. Age, body weight and production level play a role in the water requirement of cows.

 

Less young stock at Dutch dairies

The share of young stock on Dutch farms has fallen sharply in the past two years. This is evident from the latest figures from the Dutch Central Statistical Office.

Since the year 2000, the number of milk cows on the Dutch dairies on average increased from 60 in 2000 to 100 in 2016. Also the number of young cattle has gone up: from 50 to almost 68 animals per farm. As a result of the phosphate legislation, the number of dairy cattle per farm remained around 100 in the period from 2016 to 2018, but the number of young stock fell sharply. This number went from 68 young animals per farm in 2016 to 56 in 2018. In absolute numbers the young stock decreased from 1.1 million to 872,000.

Number of cows and young stock per farm in the Netherlands

Source: Central Statistical Office)

 

Average number of animals on dairy farms: 125


Light blue: Young stock     
Dark blue: Dairy cows

 

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