WestGen wants to recognize your Best Barn Cow! She may not be the fanciest, or even the highest producing cow in your herd, but we all love the cow that reliably breeds back every year, avoids sickness and consistently produces above herd averages. We want to recognize that faithful contributor to your bottom line! Nominate [...]
After several years of promoting the use of Immunity+ sires, data is coming in from a variety of large herd sources. The compilation of average rates of decline one can expect from the daughters of Immunity+ sires is represented in the table below. These numbers have been submitted for publication in a scientific journal – [...]
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” - John F. Kennedy As we wound up the last few days of 2016 at the WestGen offices, I could not help but look back on what an incredible year it has been. [...]
A New Trait has appeared in our genetic evaluations! Metabolic Disease Resistance On December 6, 2016, genetic evaluations for Metabolic Disease Resistance (MDR) were released by Canadian Dairy Network. Displaced Abomasum’s, Clinical and Subclinical Ketosis are all products of a cows environment, as well as her genetics. Data was collected by DHI on [...]
Progressive Dairyman, Editor Karen Lee - December 8, 2016 Gert Schrijver gets peak production with forage quality, transition cow management Gert Schrijver and his wife, Sonja, started Mars Dairy near Stettler, Alberta, in 1996 after immigrating from the Netherlands. At the time, they were milking 50 cows. Today, they have 230 cows (370 kilograms of [...]
The new WestGen office in Abbotsford has been named a finalist in the 6th Annual Fraser Valley Commercial Building Awards. This prestigious event celebrates the best of commercial and industrial construction in the Fraser Valley, from South Delta to Chilliwack. This event is sponsored by the RE/MAX Commercial and is coordinated by Invest Northwest Publishing [...]
With new bulls starting production each month, a regular feature now is to introduce new top ranking bulls as soon as we can. Two new bulls that are examples of this practice are Stantons Display and Silverridge V Allclass. Stantons Display – Silver x Day x Observer Bred from the famous Emilyann family, Display carries [...]
Mastitis - How being Proactive Pays Dividends Despite what you may have thought - all Mastitis is not equal – apart from most cases being commonly caused by one of several bacteria. Since Mastitis costs around $1050.31 per cow in Canada1 it needs to be taken seriously to stem the frustrating loss of money, time [...]
For many producers who have grown up either avoiding recessive traits (Mulefoot, BLAD, CVM and most recently HCD) or actually selecting for them (red factor), it is hard to get your head around the fact that the horned gene is actually recessive. In other words, the polled gene is dominant. It would be the equivalent [...]
The Best Breed the Best... But do they Breed Females? Boviteq West's IVF TEchnologies does!