Rearing Your 2010 Herd -  An A to Z of Heifer Rearing

Rearing dairy heifers efficiently has the potential to improve farm profit by over £11,000 per 100 cows. It was recognised that an integrated approach in terms of research development and technology transfer was necessary in order to make progress. Thus, the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE), DARD, AgriSearch and John Thompson and Sons formed a partnership to integrate the results from research programmes, an extensive survey of NI dairy farmers and on-farm trials into a new rearing regime to improve the sustainability of dairying.

This A to Z of heifer rearing in 11 articles provides new information across a range of key areas on which to base systems for rearing young stock which will maximise performance of replacements entering the dairy herd in 2010 and beyond.

Parts 1 to 4 and 11 are in the calf section of the web site while Parts 5 to 11 are in the dairy section.