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Grootendorst Farms, located in Maryhill, Ontario, Canada, is owned and operated by brothers Henk and Ary Grootendorst. They farm 1000 acres, and milk 600 cows 3 times a day in a double 16 herringbone parlor. The immaculately kept farm produces 11,800 kg milk, with 4.33% fat, and 3.38% protein.

As a strategic and technical farm consultant, almost every day Niels Achten speaks with dairy farmers in the Netherlands and Flanders about ways of optimising their farm management. Niels works at consultancy firm Liba and, along with his parents, operates a dairy with 280 cows. He can therefore directly link the numbers on paper to his own practical experience.

The efficiency with which cows convert feed into milk is largely responsible for the profitability of dairy farming around the world. With FeedExcel, CRV has developed a breeding strategy that helps farmers breed a herd that combines high milk production and feed efficiency with an above-average longevity and good health. Part of this strategy is the use of selected FeedExcel bulls. As from this index run, these bulls can be identified throughout the world by a FeedExcel logo on the CRV bull catalogs and websites. After the index run of August 2023, CRV’s bull range has been further strengthened with several young bulls who prove that high feed efficiency is closely linked to high longevity, good health traits, and excellent functional type.

Following the index run in August 2023, CRV’s Fleckvieh portfolio has been further strengthened and broadened. Several, very good bulls, had to be withdrawn from the range because their breeding values are exceeded by those of the new generation of bulls. At the same time, the performance of the daughters of popular bulls confirms the breeding values of their sires. For farmers who want to breed for polledness, CRV has added a number of very interesting, young, heterozygous and homozygous polled bulls to the portfolio.

For Dutch dairy farmer Willem Alders, the feed balance (milk income minus feed costs) is an important economic index. The results of six years of measuring the feed intake of individual cows for CRV opened his eyes to the differences between cows. “The animals with the lowest scores make little or no contribution to the total feed balance, whilst the animals with the best scores produce even more than expected,” he concludes.

With the April proof run CRV introduces FeedExcel to make it easier for farmers to distinguish bulls with the highest feed efficiency scores. Bulls branded with this quality mark are guaranteed to sire highly productive daughters with extended longevity that efficiently convert feed into milk. Farmers that use FeedExcel bulls can expect to end up with a herd having better income/feed costs ratio and fewer emissions. The index run of April 2023 confirms the leading position in feed efficiency of bulls from CRV's breeding programmes and all the bulls mentioned in this press release are FeedExcel.