Focus on Cow Health and Welfare from New Dairy Daughters Bull Catalogue 2010-08-23

Dairy cow welfare is high on the agenda in the autumn catalogue from Dairy Daughters in which three of the company’s new headline bulls will transmit big improvements in their daughters’ lifespans, robustness and their general health and fitness.

A Durable daughter, Ronelee SS Durable Trydale

The three headline bulls – Bronco, Durable and Palermo - each transmit extra chest width and depth; low somatic cell counts; long lifespans; and good daughter fertility. They each combine this with profitable milk production and hence score well for Profitable Lifetime Index (PLI).

End-Road O-Man Bronco has the edge on PLI of the three, with an index of £201 placing him 12th on the official DairyCo ranking. He features many of the traits for which his famous sire (Oman) is known, but with extra weight of milk (746kg) and considerably higher type (Type Merit +1.23).

His linear type profile is without fault and without extreme. It shows daughters to be robust-framed cows with good leg set and udder conformation. But his outstanding traits are for daughter fertility (Fertility Index +4.9) and Lifespan (LS +0.4).

Bronco price is £25; sexed (to order only) is £40.

Ronelee SS Durable is the newly launched son of Storm and has become one of the highest ranking red factor carriers in the world. And while his high type (TM +1.9); solid production and outstanding fitness (SCC -16; Lifespan +0.2; Fertility Index +4.4) will be a great attraction to milk producers, it is his dam – Ronelee Outside Dabble - who is beginning to attract world-wide attention as a bull mother. An exceptional production cow based in Washington State, she is said to be ‘sturdy and rugged’, and has produced some outstanding young bulls with exceptionally high indexes based on their genomic assessment. Meanwhile, a granddaughter from Dabble recently sold for $34,000.

Durable price is £18.50; sexed £29.50.

Glenn-Ann Palermo is the final leading fitness bull, whose PLI of £169 puts him high in the newly launched rankings. Already the leading PLI Goldwyn son available to British breeders, Palermo is also one of the highest type (TM +2.26) bulls in this ranking and at +2.46, has one of the highest scores for udders. With rock solid milk production and – like his sire - positive components, it is his superb fitness traits which make him the complete package. His proof features long lifespans (LS +0.2); low cell counts (-22) and exceptional daughter fertility (FI +6.2).

Palermo price is £28.

“We have made a priority this autumn of bringing British breeders a team of bulls that will improve the health and fitness of their herds,” says Alison Lovell from Dairy Daughters. “And these three bulls in particular stood out to us as having the health and fitness traits breeders demand, but without any compromise on type or production.

“They are very much the complete package, and I’d urge British breeders to order what they need early as there’s a strong international demand for these bulls, including as sires of sons.”

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