Analysis of culling reasons and age at culling in Australian dairy cattle

Abstract

Context A thorough analysis of the reasons for culling was made to understand the phenotypic trend in herd life. In addition, identification of culling reasons could enable to develop a strategy for further evaluation of longevity in Australian dairy cows. Aims The aim of this study was to investigate the main causes of culling in Australian dairy herds and thereby to assess the trend of reason-specific culling over time. Methods Culling reasons in Australian dairy cattle were studied based on culling records from 1995 through 2016. A total of 2 452 124 individual cow culling observations were obtained from Datagene, Australia, of which 2 140 337 were Holstein and 311 787 were from Jersey cows. A binary logistic regression model was used to estimate effects of breed and age and the trend of a particular culling reason over time. Key results The most important culling reasons identified over the 21-year period were infertility (17.0%), mastitis (12.9%), low production (9.3%), sold for dairy purpose (6.4%) and old age (6.2%), whereas 37.4% were ‘other reasons not reported’. The average age at culling was nearly the same for Holstein (6.75 years) and Jersey (6.73 years) cows. The estimated age at culling was slightly increased for Holstein cows (by 3.7 days) and somewhat decreased for Jersey cows (by 11 days) over the last two decades. The probability of culling cows for infertility and low production was high in early parities and consistently declined as age advanced, and culling due to mastitis was higher in older cows. The trend of main culling reasons over time was evaluated, indicating that the probability of culling due to infertility has progressively increased over the years in both breeds, and culling for mastitis in Jersey cows has also increased. Culling of cows due to low production sharply decreased from 2.5 to –8% for Holstein and from 73 to 60% for Jersey cows over the 21-year period. Conclusions Culling age has changed only little in both breeds whereas culling reasons have changed over the last two decades, with low production becoming a less important reason for culling and infertility becoming more important for Holstein and Jersey breeds. Implications Due to changes of culling reasons, there could be a change in the meaning of survival over time as well. As a result, genetic correlation with survival and other traits might be changed and accuracy and bias of genetic evaluations could be affected.