Dairy heifer 2000 - Completed Project

The Dairy Heifer 2000 project at Greenmount Campus was managed in partnership with J. Bibby Agriculture. The project aimed to demonstrate heifer rearing skills using the heifers born within the Campus dairy herds. The project commenced in September 1997 and ran for five years until 2003.

To demonstrate a cost effective rearing system for high production dairy heifer replacements by managing heifers to achieve the following targets:

Dairy heifers are an investment in the future. The feeding and management practices adopted during the rearing period of a heifer can have a major impact on subsequent lactation performance, cow health and the costs of milk production. Rearing heifer replacements requires a substantial financial investment.

Recent estimates at Greenmount Campus would suggest that the cost of rearing a heifer to calve at two years is £770 and that savings of up to £5000 can be made on a 100 cow unit by reducing age at first calving from three years to two years.

Further more if the resources released by reducing age at first calving could be used to keep extra dairy cows, an extra profit of £10000 could be made. Given the rapid advances which have occurred in dairy cow breeding in the last 10 years, it is important to review current heifer rearing programs.

Therefore it is essential that a system be demonstrated whereby heifers can be reared quickly and cost effectively to a level where they can express their full potential

Greenmount Campus, in partnership with J. Bibby Agriculture, have established a new project entitled "Dairy Heifer 2000". The objective of this work over a five year period is to develop the management skills required to allow high production heifers to calf down at two years of age, weighing 600 KG.

In order to reach this challenging target, the heifers should achieve specific liveweight targets at various stages. Important in this is the provision of quality forage in conjunction with specialist concentrates provided by J. Bibby Agriculture

Campus students will have a unique opportunity to gain first hand experience of the management skills involved in heifer rearing which they can put into practice at farm level in the future. Those outside the Campus will be able to monitor the program through regular updates on this page.

Heifer rearing system - Greenmount Campus booklet explaining the skills involved in successfully rearing dairy heifer replacements.

The authors wish to thank Mr S. McCann for the measurements taken and their circulation and the Campus staff for their care of the animals.

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