{"id":2851,"date":"2017-11-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/actualite\/making-a-breeding-more-profitable-by-working-on-the-morphology-of-heifers\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T14:50:42","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T12:50:42","slug":"making-a-breeding-more-profitable-by-working-on-the-morphology-of-heifers","status":"publish","type":"actualite","link":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/news\/making-a-breeding-more-profitable-by-working-on-the-morphology-of-heifers\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a breeding more profitable by working on the morphology of heifers"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/div>\n<div id=\"block-hero-block_8fc9435172b92e69bf6e5bad2d173f33\" class=\"container-fluid page_header_banner_part  block-hero\"  style=\"background: url(https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fond-blog.png) no-repeat center \/ cover;\" >\n    <div class=\"container\">\n        <div class=\"row\">\n            <div class=\"col-12\">\n                <nav aria-label=\"breadcrumbs\" class=\"rank-math-breadcrumb\"><p><span class=\"last\">Home<\/span><\/p><\/nav>            <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"row justify-content-center\">\n            <div class=\"col-12 col-md-8 text-center\">\n                \n                <h1>Making a breeding more profitable by working on the morphology of heifers<\/h1>\n                            <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"container\">\n<p>There are three main ways of improving production per day in cows:<\/p>\n<h2> <\/h2>\n<h2>Reducing unproductive lifespan &#8211; and therefore lower the age at first calving.<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Why?<\/strong><br \/>Reducing the cull rate by 5% saves \u20ac3.2 \/ 1,000 l (Cog\u00e9dis).<\/p>\n<p><strong>How?<\/strong><br \/>40% of heifers weighing more than 200 kg at 6 months reach their third lactation, compared with 27% of heifers weighing less than 165 kg (Bovins Croissance 53).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: revert; font-size: 52px; font-weight: 900;\">Increasing milk production over an animal&#8217;s career<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Why?<\/strong><br \/>Reducing the cull rate by 5% saves \u20ac3.2 \/ 1,000 l (Cog\u00e9dis).<\/p>\n<p><strong>How?<\/strong><br \/>Increasing milk production from 18,000 to 25,000 litres\/daity cow results in a \u20ac165 margin gain per cow (Cog\u00e9dis).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: revert; font-size: 52px; font-weight: 900;\">Increasing milk production over an animal&#8217;s career<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Why?<\/strong><br \/>Increasing milk production from 18,000 to 25,000 litres\/daity cow results in a \u20ac165 margin gain per cow (Cog\u00e9dis).<\/p>\n<p><strong>How?<\/strong><br \/>Increasing the average daily gain by 200g before weaning can boost milk production by 500kg\/dairy cow over the first 3 lactations (Soberon et al., 2012), and increasing height at withers by 10cm at first calving can boost production by 560kg\/dairy cow over the first lactation (Markusfeld et al, JDS, 1993).<\/p>\n<p>However, after 6 months, growth must be slowed down to optimise milk production (see graph 1). In fact, too little growth will damage the udder&#8217;s secretory tissue, while too much growth, combined with a very energy-rich diet, will make the udder greasy and impair future lactations.<\/p>\n<h2> <\/h2>\n<h2>Increasing of 2 to 4 kg of milk<\/h2>\n<p>The Galascorus software, developed by CCPA, can be used to audit the growth and morphology of heifers. <br \/>In terms of morphology, heifers are classified into 5 categories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OK: in line with weight and height targets<\/li>\n<li>Adipose: insufficient height for a correct weight or above targets<\/li>\n<li>Skeletal: underweight with height above targets<\/li>\n<li>Insufficient: weight and height below targets<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>&gt;Target: weight and height above targets.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 2012, CCPA carried out a survey on 125 heifers (see graph 2) by scoring their morphology with Galascorus and monitoring their production in first lactation. his survey showed that heifers with a morphology that met or exceeded targets (30.1 kg\/d) had better milk production than heifers with an adipose morphology (28.3 kg\/d, i.e. +2 kg\/d) or insufficient morphology (26.1 kg\/d, i.e. +4 kg\/d).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are three main ways of improving production per day in cows: Reducing unproductive lifespan &#8211; and therefore lower the age at first calving. Why?Reducing the cull rate by 5% saves \u20ac3.2 \/ 1,000 l (Cog\u00e9dis). How?40% of heifers weighing more than 200 kg at 6 months reach their third lactation, compared with 27% of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3353,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"besoin":[62],"enjeux":[],"espece":[110],"news_type":[171],"class_list":["post-2851","actualite","type-actualite","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","besoin-reproduction-and-lactation","espece-ruminants-en","news_type-technical-advice"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualite\/2851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualite"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/actualite"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualite\/2851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2852,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualite\/2851\/revisions\/2852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"besoin","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/besoin?post=2851"},{"taxonomy":"enjeux","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/enjeux?post=2851"},{"taxonomy":"espece","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/espece?post=2851"},{"taxonomy":"news_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltavit.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_type?post=2851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}