Cattle Early As a baby, I could peer out of my pram and see cows in the field adjoining our garden. Was it brainwashing?! If so, I’m most grateful! I relish contemplating cattle. As a toddler, as soon as I could stand up, I was to be found leaning on a small gate that ran from our Derbyshire garden into the adjoining field full of cows. I spent hours watching them and apparently described them w...

I would like to thank the British Cattle Breeders Club for asking me to give you a presentation. Metcalfe farms is a partnership consisting of retired parents John and Thora with three sons, David, Brian and Philip, we farm 2,700 acres in the heart of Wensleydale. Alongside a haulage and contracting businesses we have 900 pedigree Holsteins expanding to 1,300 later on this year depending on milk...

Introduction With a rapidly growing world population, it is estimated that protein production will have to double by 2050 with half of the available resources. Furthermore, it is predicted that rising wealth shall increase the demand for high quality food with optimal nutritional value. Meanwhile, consumers are becoming more involved in food production, and the demand for high quality food is pre...

Bridgwater College started life in 1921 as the Somerset Farm Institute, like many agricultural colleges it was formed following the First World War with the intention of increasing the self sufficiency of food produced in the UK. With Somerset being a strong agricultural county it grew and became nationally renowned particularly for dairying, cheese production and commercial horticulture. Later i...

Introduction Lameness is a common affliction of dairy cows that causes pain, decreases production and increases likelihood of culling. Many diseases cause lameness, and can be grouped as either infectious (e.g. digital dermatitis) or the noninfectious: the claw horn lesions (most commonly, sole ulcer, sole haemorrhage and white line disease). However, the mechanisms by which the claw horn lesions...

Introduction At the age of 34, my passion for cows and dairy farming is as strong now as it was when I was a young boy. In 2010, it was this passion that drove the relocation of our dairy business and the Cherwell herd of pedigree Holsteins from Oxford to Longmoor Farm in Dorset, a move which allowed us to reassess our business and future goals. As many of you will know, moving a dairy farm is n...

Introduction Cattle fertility continues to fall worldwide, and the global human population is rising, accompanied by an ever-increasing need for sustainable protein production. There is therefore a requirement to amplify and exploit existing genetics, and improve cattle production efficiencies. Background Embryo transfer was first documented by Walter Heape who, in 1890, introduced two Angora r...

I am a partner in a family dairy farming partnership that farms on the edge of the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire with my brother and our wives. The partnership was started by my brother and I’s Grandfather and Father when they purchased the farm in 1952, although my Grandfather had been a farmer in his own right on a smaller farm 10 miles away which he had paid for by working in a factory at nig...

We live in challenging times and no real recovery in sight for the dairy market until supply and demand align and stocks are used up. Price is the best ‘fertilizer’ and we are now paying for the high returns which encouraged investment and increased production over the past few years around the world and a period of sluggish commodity prices seems set to last for some time. We must therefore adap...

Cattle TB history Tuberculosis of cattle in the UK was relatively rapidly controlled following the decision to become officially TB free (99.8% of herds and 99.9% of cattle testing free of disease) in the middle of the last century, which saw the introduction of attestation. This involved testing, culling and restricting movement of infected cattle herds, which is the model across the entire deve...

Summary The important contribution of genetics to the long term advancement of the national dairy herd is well accepted. Improving trends, as a consequence, in a wide range of traits such as milk production, conformation and several fitness traits is further evidence of this. It would be unimaginable that as part of a national progress strategy, genetics could be ignored, despite other important ...

The biggest risk facing the UK beef industry is reduced per capita consumption due to competition from cheaper, more efficiently produced meats like chicken and pork. To counteract this, as an industry we must ruthlessly improve the efficiency of beef production rather than constantly demanding higher farm gate prices and subsidies. There are many useful lessons that can be learnt from our competi...

The objectives of rearing cattle for beef include producing as much meat as possible of the highest possible quality, sustainably (which includes profitably). Improving carcase quality Beef carcase quality in GB is assessed by the EUROP system, which is an indirect indicator of meat yield from the carcase. Tables 1 and 2 show that there has been some improvement in the carcase quality of beef ca...

Introduction Fasciola hepatica (the liver fluke) is a common parasite of cattle and sheep that affects animals worldwide and is the cause of the disease, fasciolosis. Recently, it has been shown that prevalence of liver fluke has been increasing significantly within the UK. This has been linked to many factors including climate change, changing farming practices (e.g. extended grazing periods), i...

Introduction The UK beef industry produced 885,000 tonnes of beef in 2012 from 2.7million head of cattle. However, the UK is not self-sufficient with nearly 20% of beef consumed needing to be imported. As an industry we are striving to increase production but at the same time improve the overall sustainability (environmentally and profitability) of the industry. Genetic improvement is a cost effe...

The basics Genomics is the study of DNA. DNA is the building blocks of genes and it is the genes that determine whether an animal has the potential, for example, to grow or be fertile –whether an animal achieves its genetic potential is dependent on the management the animal is exposed to. DNA is present in all cells and remains the same throughout an animal’s life; in other words the DNA of a ca...

In 2009 an American Hereford cow named L1 Dominette 01449, made history as the source of the first Bovine genome ever to be sequenced. That discovery has, in the intervening 6 years, revolutionised cattle breeding around the world and marked the beginning of an important new chapter in a story that is as old as human civilisation itself. Cattle breeding and the evolution of human society have bee...