Produce more milk and meat with less feed using the newly improved Saved Feed Index.
Feed accounts for up to 80% of a farm’s variable costs. Some cows are better at turning feed into meat and milk. Others use too much feed for maintenance and are less efficient in production.
Breeding for better feed efficiency can save up to 200kg of dry matter per lactation (10 index units or 1 standard deviation) without compromising production, health, and reproduction. This way, you breed dairy cows that produce more kilos of milk from less feed.
The advantage of breeding is that changes are cumulative and permanent, so your cows will only get more efficient over time.
With the February 2025 proof run, Nordic Cattle Genetic Evaluations (NAV) introduced a new version of the Saved Feed Index calculated using a new model. VikingGenetics is the only company in the world to use highly reliable feed efficiency data for all three major dairy breeds: Holstein, Jersey, and Red Dairy Cattle.
The Saved Feed Index 3.0 considers:
- Dry matter intake (DMI) across days 14-280 in lactation
- Production (ECM) across days 14-280 in lactation
- Weight changes across days 30-280 in lactation
This tells you how much feed a bull's daughter uses and how efficiently she will convert it into milk and meat.
