News

Podcast: Mastitis can be a costly animal health condition and treatment often requires the use of antibiotics. With the growing demand for a reduction of antibiotic use on farms, it is increasingly important to have healthier herds with a lower incidence of mastitis. Join CRV’s Rosanna Dickson as she chats to DairyNZ Senior Scientist Jane Lacy-Hulbert and CRV Breeding Programme Manager, Aaron Parker.

Podcast: DairyNZ and AgResearch have jointly released findings from a study that shows New Zealand dairy farmers have the world’s lowest on-farm carbon footprint. In fact, their emissions are half of other international milk producers. Commissioned by DairyNZ, the study was independently produced by AgResearch and peer-reviewed by an international specialist in Ireland. CRV’s Rosanna Dickson is joined by André Mazzetto from AgResearch, who is one of the scientists behind the work. Andre talks about people’s reactions to the findings, how science could help the industry reach its targets and the role genetics could play.

Podcast: NAIT is New Zealand’s animal identification and tracing system for cattle and deer. It provides New Zealand livestock owners, processors and government with timely and quality information on the current location, movement history and other useful information associated with livestock. New legislation around the use of NAIT tags is being introduced. OSPRI manages the NAIT programme on behalf of our primary industries and the Government. In this episode, Rosanna Dickson is joined by OSPRI’s Kevin Forward to discuss the changes and what they mean for farmers. She also chats to Nicholas Crosse from FarmIQ about the process for registering tags with NAIT for farmers herd recording with myHERD.

Podcast: Forward thinking dairy farmers are breeding hornless animals to future proof their business. Breeding hornless calves saves farmers time, money and improves animal welfare. In this podcast, Okoroire farmer Floyd Smit joins CRV’s Jenna O’Sullivan and Rosanna Dickson to talk about breeding with Polled genetics. 70% of Floyd’s spring calves are bred using Polled genetics. Listen to find out why he is part of a growing trend.

Podcast: Getting cows in calf is a critical part of dairy farming. Pregnancy testing can provide you with valuable information to help you make good management decisions about what needs to happen and when. How much time do you need to allow for your dry period? How long do you need to achieve your BCS target at calving? How will you group your early and late calvers into wintering mobs? Determining the pregnancy status of your herd via milk can be done as part of your CRV herd test. Listen to DairyNZ animal and feed developer, Sam Tennent, and CRV herd testing manager Mark Redgate to find out more.

Podcast: University research has shown that the stronger the intensity of a cow’s estrous (heat), the better chance she has of holding her pregnancy. These findings could help New Zealand dairy farmers improve the fertility of their herd by having a heat detection plan in place to ensure animals are put up for AI when their estrous intensity is at its strongest. Join Rosanna Dickson as she chats with Dr Ky Pohler from Texas A&M University about his findings and how New Zealand farmers can ensure they are mating their cows at the right time.