What Data Should I Collect On My Breeders?
Collecting individual animal data is an investment in the future of your farm. Knowing trends over time and having the power to make proactive decisions can save you time, money and resources. This blog post will take you through the suggested data for breeders and the KPIs it informs and the decisions that can be made.
Breeding data generally involves data focused on how to measure and optimise breeder performance. This can include weights, lactation status, pregnancy test and foetal age.
Firstly lets cover some of the basic KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that most producers want to know on their breeding herd.
Weaning weight - weaning weight is closely related to timing, age and the season and is a decent predictor of how they will perform later in life. If you are selling weaners it is also one of two measures to how much revenue you will make that year (the other being number of weaners). Weaning weight just requires a single data point - weaning weight! This is an easy place for most people to start by weighing the weaners at the point of separation from their dams.
Weaning percentage - as mentioned above cash flow in a weaner operation is based on weight of weaners and number or as a metric this can be tracked by weaning percentage. For this data we look at two data points foetal age or pregnancy status (pregnant or empty) of the breeder and a lactation status (wet or dry) of the breeder. This can be captured at a single point if pregnancy testing and weaning at the same time or can be captured on two or more occasions.
Pregnancy percentage - you cant have weaners without having breeders pregnant. This is fairly obvious but knowing who is pregnant and ideally how many months before they calve (foetal aging) provides a lot of information about breeder performance. This is best captured 6 weeks after the bull has been taken out for maximum accuracy.
Wet rebreed percentage - for Southern producers this may be a no brainer but for our Northern producers this can be an elusive number. Due to nutrition and genetics not many cattle succeed in having a calf a year and due to season or management weaning and pregnancy testing may occur separately. To understand how many breeders are getting pregnant whilst raising a calf we look at foetal age and lactation status, the timing of these allow us to determine if they were wet while conceiving.
So far that looks at the basics and only collects three pieces of data: weaning weight, foetal age and lactation status. These three basic pieces of data not only inform the above KPIs but can be used to make decisions such as:
Identifying high and low performing animals from multiple traits.
Identifying calf loss and the patterns associated with this.
Identifying the calving pattern and when management decisions should be made ie lick or mustering.
Identifying differences between contemporary groups.
If that feels like an achievable feat then there are additional data points that can drive further decision making. If you’d like to make any of the following decisions you should consider collecting the additional data:
Ideal joining weight for heifers - to optimise joining weight and increase puberty efficiency you will need to collect heifer weight at pregnancy testing.
Effect of body condition score on breeders- to look at how body condition score affects conception and weaning you will have to collect body condition score at the time of pregnancy testing or weaning.
Compare performance of breeds and genetics - most people may be in a position to record a phenotypic breed (what does the animal look like) and some producers who go the extra mile may be investing in genotyping or parental verification where they can also use information on sire or dam. This can allow you to track the performance of progeny, compare breed choices and ensure your next bull purchase is making a positive impact on your herd.
Identify early and late puberty in heifers - by collecting heifer weight at the time of pregnancy testing we can identify the likely weight at conception. This is one of the strongest indication of heifer puberty. In a nutritionally restricted area the difference between heifers falling pregnant at 300kg vs 400kg can mean a years wait.
In addition to this data which collected regularly there is some lifetime data that should stay the same this includes: sex, age and breed.
Below is a summary list that sums up all the data points and ranks them in order of most banh for your buck in terms of time and decisions:
Sex
Age
Breed
Weaner weight
Foetal Age (month or weeks)
Pregnancy Status (Pregnant or Empty)
Lactation Status (Wet or Dry)
Weight at pregnancy test
Body condition score
Sire or Dam
If you would like to know more about what data to collect and how to get started get in touch with us today.