Breeds other than Holstein account for a small percentage of dairy farming in the UK, but work is always ongoing by DairyCo Breeding+ to improve the quality of figures available to all dairy breeders.
The latest enhancement affects the Brown Swiss breed, which this month joins the Interbull rankings, allowing UK breeders to compare Brown Swiss bulls from around the world directly on a UK scale.
"This will make decision-making for Brown Swiss breeders far easier and more accurate, as until now, they would only have had foreign figures to refer to in making their choices," says Marco Winters, head of genetics for DairyCo.
"Making an accurate comparison between different countries’ bulls would have been extremely difficult, but the new figures will allow them all to be compared – whatever their origin - on the same UK scale."
And in this month’s proofs, published this week (Tuesday 17 August), the inaugural number one Brown Swiss bull is Hilltop Acres H Driver. This bull has a very good daughter Fertility Index (FI) combined with good Lifespan Index (LS) and solid production figures with gives him a PLI (Profitable Lifetime Index) of £154.
In second place is Prossli, who excels in lifespan (LS +0.6) and SCC (-17). Sun Made Vigor rounds off the top three, transmitting even better lifespan to his daughters (LS +0.7) as well as excellent cell counts (SCC -23). However, his lower daughter fertility (FI -5.1) sees him yield to third place.
"Although the new system will be a great help for within-breed comparisons, it’s very important to remember that these figures cannot be compared with any other breed," says Mr Winters.
"Each breed is published against its own breed average, meaning that a £100 PLI for a Brown Swiss is very different from £100 for, say, a Holstein, a Friesian, or any other breed for that matter.
"This means that anyone considering a variety of breed options will need to apply a conversion formula – available from DairyCo - to make across-breed comparisons."