"NTM har certainly turbo charged breeding"
Bjørn Lyngholm bases his breeding work
on NTM at his farm near Gørding in Denmark. An enterprise that has now added a
bull, VJ Dandi, to its breeding programme.
Bjørn Lyngholm with his feed manager,
Ion Chiosa, who is from Moldova.
By VikingDenmark
Lyngholm puts his trust in NTM and can
see the results for himself in the heifers he has lined up as future dairy cows
for his farm. Lyngholm uses 50% beef cattle and large volumes of X-Vik, which
is why it is important for him to know which animals should have which kind of
semen:
“I aim to find the best animals, and
here I use NTM as a clear guideline. This has really turbocharged breeding, so
I view genomic tests as a sound investment in the future,” he says.
Lyngholm prefers to slaughter as few
bull calves as possible and has therefore always used a lot of sexed semen. If
it were down to him, Jersey farmers would actually use more or less nothing
else:
“Something has to happen in this area,
there's bound to be some kind of external pressure at some point, so we might
as well address it now,” he says.
For the same reason, Lyngholm owns one
of the four herds that are part of the GoBeef research project.
Focus on milk
Lyngholm is not the kind of man to
talk about different bulls and that kind of stuff. Even so, he admits it’s
pretty cool to now have a bull in the breeding programme:
“I was naturally pleased to see that
the bull was top ranked. I can’t deny that,” he says.
Milk production is his main day to day
consideration, not least optimising the various work processes on the farm.
Here, Lyngholm is delighted with Heatime, which he uses with both cows and
heifers. The latter are at two other properties, but Lyngholm simply checks his
phone for signs of heat and to get a quick update.
He and his feed manager do the
inseminating themselves, but he puts great emphasis on his consultations with
Viking breeding adviser, Pernille Hougaard Jensen:
“We have a fantastic relationship,
which is something that strengthens my links with Viking. There’s no doubt
about that.”
Bjørn Lyngholm:
Milk
producer near Gørding in West Jutland
400
Jersey cows
Production:
9,800 kg ECM
Six
employees
Genomic
testing of all heifers
Lyngholm
has sold five bulls to the Viking flushing programme – the most recent with NTM
+25
If your focus is on production, udder
health and appearance, VJ Dandi would suit you.
