Peter Hynes: Even if we sell a bull calf for €95, we are losing €100
Dairy processors need to share the burden of these losses – or at least reduce their margins on calf products
'We recently sold Friesian bull calves through the mart; all were weighed on farm to ensure they were over 55kg. One group averaged 58kg and sold for €15 each while a group averaging 72kg sold for €95/hd.'
We signed up to the National Genotyping Programme (NGP) as I feel every dairy farm should be genotyping anyway.
We started 10 years ago and with so many generations now genotyped, the information is now a lot more reliable — we don’t see huge increases or decreases in animals’ EBI. The reality, is the high-EBI animals always come from strong cow families.
