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VikingNews Global 1-2019
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breeding value 80 90 100 110 120
mastitis
% 17.4 14.7 12 9.3 6.6 table 1: effect of bulls with different breeding values on an average daughter vikingholstein, master of
udder
health
m astitis causes direct financial losses to dairy farmers no matter where in the world you farm. it reduces milk yield, the milk can be contami- nated with antibiotics and unable to be sold, plus associ- ated veterinary and antibiotic labour costs, a higher cull- ing rate and occasional fatalities. to avoid extra charges on dairy farms, prevention of
mastitis
infection is the best approach. by breeding for higher nordic total merit (ntm), you automatically get fewer
mastitis
cases in your herd. the
udder
health
index has the third highest eco- nomic weighting in ntm; only production and fertility have a higher weighting. in the nordic countries, we use both the direct meas- ure,
mastitis
, and the indirect measure, scc, where the latter is only an indicator of
mastitis
.
mastitis
registra- tions come from veterinary and farmer records on clinical
mastitis
. in other countries where holsteins are more dominant,
mastitis
cases are usually, and if they are only by farmers, not veterinarians. choosing the right bull has a significant effect. in table 1, you can see the number of daughters with
mastitis
in relation to the bulls index for
mastitis
resistance. sustainable genetic improvement from 2002 to 2012, the nordic countries have improved
udder
health
by 13.5 index units. these results mean 3,5 cases of
mastitis
in a 100 cow herd. the graph below shows the genetic level of major hol- stein populations. vikinggenetics is on average four units higher in
udder
health
than the second best and almost ten units better on average than many of the major euro- pean countries. by claus langdahl, senior breeding and product manager, vikinggenetics vikinggenetics has more focus on improving
udder
health
than any other company in the world and is the leader when it comes to genetic level for
udder
health
. figure 1: genetic trend
mastitis
in most significant holstein populations france canada germany holland viking usa source: interbull data 2018 on proven bulls 1995 2001 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 105 100 95 90 85 24 vikingnews | may 2019
bulls-polled-index-25.html