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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #332298
Title: Economic considerations of breeding for polled dairy cows versus dehorning in the United States

Author
item THOMPSON, NATHANAEL - Purdue University
item WIDMAR, NICOLE - Purdue University
item SCHUTZ, MICHAEL - Purdue University
item Cole, John
item WOLF, CHRISTOPHER - Michigan State University

Submitted to: Journal of Dairy Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/1/2017
Publication Date: 6/1/2017
Citation: Thompson, N.M., Widmar, N.O., Schutz, M.M., Cole, J.B., Wolf, C.A. 2017. Economic considerations of breeding for polled dairy cows versus dehorning in the United States. Journal of Dairy Science. 100(6):4941-4952.

Interpretive Summary: Increasing interest in animal welfare has placed many livestock production practices, such as dehorning, under enhanced scrutiny. If traditional dehorning practices were no longer acceptable in the U.S. marketplace, producers may seek polled dairy cattle. However, little work has been done to quantify the costs and benefits of incorporating polled genetics into a breeding program compared to conventional dehorning methods. Our results indicate that, depending on the availability, cost, and genetic merit of polled semen, breeding for polled dairy cattle may be economically advantageous.

Technical Abstract: Dairy producers today face labor, equipment, and medical costs associated with dehorning heifers. Further, complications requiring veterinary intervention occur with some probability. The objective of this work is to develop preliminary cost estimates of selecting for polled dairy heifers. Stochastic budgets were developed to analyze the expected costs (EC) associated with polled dairy genetics. Triangular distributions, commonly used to represent distributions with limited data, were used to represent costs for dehorning, added semen costs of polled genetics, the likelihood of treatment of calf, and the cost of veterinary treatment (should it be needed). The minimum, most likely, and maximum costs used for dehorning were $5.00, $7.00, and $15.00; additional polled genetics $0.00, $8.00, $20.00; probability of treatment with dehorning 0.01, 0.03, and 0.08; probability of treatment with polled 0.01, 0.02, and 0.03; and the cost of treatment, held constant across all scenarios, was parameterized by $10.00, $50.00, and $150.00. A total of 10,000 iterations were run using @Risk v 5.7. The minimum expected cost of dehorning and polled breeding, using these simplified parameters, was $5.84 and $0.47, respectively. The maximum EC of dehorning and polled breeding, using these simplified parameters, was $22.89 and $22.50, respectively. Mean EC of $11.79 and $10.73 were found for dehorning and polled genetics, respectively; given the parameters outlined here, sensitivity to individual farms’ semen and dehorning costs are likely to swamp these differences. Beyond on-farm costs, industry-wide discussion may be warranted surrounding the public acceptance and attitude towards polled genetics versus dehorning calves. The value of avoiding dehorning may be (much) larger for the industry, and perhaps some individual farms, than initially suggested if additional value is put on calf comfort, potentially decreased rates of gain if calves are stressed at dehorning, and possible worker aversion to the dehorning process.