Episode 10 (Season 02) - NTM – What is the Nordic Total Merit Index?

When it comes to dairy farming in the Nordic countries, we are always talking about the NTM – the Nordic Total Merit Index. 

But what makes the NTM one of the most progressive breeding value systems in the world? How can using the index boost the health and profit of your dairy herd?

To explain the index simply and practically, we’re joined by a leading veterinarian with more than 30 years of experience and an expert Holstein cattle breeder.

Guests: 
Kaj Abrahamsen, Chief Veterinarian, at VikingGenetics
Hanna Driscoll, Product Manager for VikingHolstein, at VikingGenetics

Host: 
Hielke Wiersma

Transcript

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When it comes to dairy farming in the Nordic countries, we're always talking about the NTM - The Nordic Total Merit Index. But what makes the NTM one of the most progressive breeding value systems in the world? How can using the index boost the health and profit of your dairy herd? To explain the NTM in a simple and practical way, we've invited two experts to join us today. Kaj Abrahamsen, chief Veterinarian at VikingGenetics and Hanna Driscoll, Product Manager for VikingHolstein at VikingGenetics. This is the BreedCast produced by VikingGenetics. I'm your host Hielke Wiersma. Welcome to both of you. Thank you. Thank you. Kaj, you've been here before. It's good to have you back with us. So today we'll be talking about the NTM or the Nordic Total Merit Index. It includes all the financially and economically important traits for the breeds that we have. So it's the VikingRed. It's the Holstein and the Jersey in Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Kaj, overall, what are the important traits in the NTM? From a veterinarian perspective, it is the health traits. It has the udder health, hoof health. It's the young animal survival, but it might be some others for the breeding part as Hanna is covering. Hanna, from your perspective, what are the most important things? Of course, I agree that the health traits are very important, but also the production traits. And of course the conformation traits as well. So we have a lot of different sub indices combined into 15 main traits, and all of them are important. But maybe it is different for our different breeds Yeah, because all of these different traits, they’re weighted in differently. Tell us about that, Hanna. Their health traits have the highest weight in total, in the NTM, approximately 45% of the total index and the production and the efficiency traits have 40% weight and then the conformation traits around 15% weight in NTM. So, it is mainly health and production. Yes. Because that's what benefits financially. Exactly. Yes. So a lot of data is collected. Kaj, how is the data collected in our countries? All the data is collected in one database. So there's coming data from the farmer, all his registrations in the farm. It's milk yield, it’s easy calving. It's also coming from the veterinarian where the treatments are coming in. If it's the veterinarian who handles them. There's coming data from hoof trimmer, data from slaughterhouse. So we get all the data from different sources, and in that way we have the possibility to put them together and use them in doing the breeding values. How is that different from other countries? I think the main difference is that it is almost all data that is going in from the whole country. It's not from some nucleus herds or from especially selected farms that have good or bad health. This is all over all the different types of farms, sizes of farms and also in the three different countries in the Nordic Total Merit. So, we've been collecting that data for a lot of years. How far does this go back? I think within the Nordic countries, we've been exceptionally good in collecting data. How long have we been doing this, Hanna? A little bit more than 50 years. And I heard that the Swedish milking record system celebrates 125 years this year. So, a few traits have been recorded for much longer than 50 years as well. We have a question from one of our listeners today, Jesper from Denmark. He asked, What is it that makes NTM the balance breeding goal? We have a few traits in the NTM that has an unfavorable correlation, but we have balanced the breeding goals so it is possible to make genetic progress in both. For example udder health and fertility and longevity have a negative correlation to yield. But we have balanced the NTM so you could make genetic progress in both. What's your take on those things, Kaj? From a veterinarian point of view with the unfavorable correlations and the health. You always have to balance the indices. You cannot have it all, you cannot have a high yielding cow with no problems. There is a balance. What's the capacity of the cow and how we are trying to get the best out of her. So, as long as we can have a high production without harming the animal welfare, then it's really important to go for these traits. Kaj, you mentioned the amount of participation of our farmers in the Nordic countries that participate with registrations to one central database. We're talking a lot about that data is king. Big data. Hanna, how is this data beneficial for the farmers? The more data and registrations that we have that we can base our calculations on, the higher reliability we can have in our indices. So more information is beneficial for the future generation of cows. And that all goes into the NTM, of course. You also mentioned, Hanna, that some breeds might be a little different. What makes the different traits in different breeds different in the NTM? They have different strengths and different weaknesses and they have different things that needs to be improved within the breeds. So, for example, Holstein, which are by breed very good in production, they need to have a little bit higher weight on reproduction and healthy traits instead. And for the Reds it is a little bit opposite. They have a very good health for example, and VikingJerseys have very good fertility and calving traits. So, for the Reds and the Jerseys, it's more weight on the production instead. Now that we understand better what the NTM is, let's dive into some of the specifics of health and performance. Like you mentioned, Hanna, the Nordic farmers have been making all of these registrations since the eighties and breeding towards cows that are healthier and perform better in the dairy herds. How do the Nordic farmers look at these different health traits compared to maybe in other countries? Hanna, what's your experience on that? In my opinion, the health traits are very important for the Nordic farmers because it is of economic importance to have a healthy cow in your barn. Maybe one of the reasons why the health traits are so important in the Nordic countries - maybe it is because our strict regulations when it comes to treatments of animals, for example. So you would like to have a high genetic level for health traits in you herd from the beginning to avoid diseases. Kaj, what's your veterinarian take on the cost of treating animals and the importance of that to breed for a healthier cow? It is a of very high economic costs to treat in the Nordic countries because most of the treatment is done by a veterinarian. So there is a direct cost, but there's also a much higher indirect costs where you have milk withdraw because of antibiotics. You have a lower milking yield in the next lactation. You risk that you have abortion, you have the metabolic diseases that is of a very, very high impact on your economic output from the individual cow and also for the whole herd in that respect. And we talk a lot about udder health and mastitis resistance, somatic cell counts. Kaj, can you explain to us what is the difference between those things? The udder health is a combined index where we look at the three lactations from the cows. How many mastitis cases have there been? And for the same for the somatic cell count, it is also into the udder health. So if we look at the mastitis, it's an inflammation and it often requires antibiotics. We don't like to use that much antibiotics because we are looking into a growing resistance to antibiotics and it also causes problems in humans. So, a reduction is needed also in the future. The somatic cell count is often a reaction to mastitis where we have the white blood cells in the milk and it's a reaction showing that there is an inflammation level and it will reduce the milk yield in the next lactation. It is also giving the cow pain when you have mastitis. It requires extra treatment. So, there's a lot of both direct and indirect cause and animal welfare in lowering the number of mastitis and having a better udder health in general. Another thing that we include in the NTM and which is very important is the hoof health. Hanna, we get real life data out there. So in commercial herds, hoof health is recorded. Yes. Tell us how that works. The hoof health data is recorded by hoof trimmers and they make one mark for every hoof. So, we have four registrations per cow and they also register if there is no problems with hoofs, we get the registrations for both the healthy cows and cows with different types of problems, both mild hoof diseases and severe diseases. Kaj, what's the impact for a cow with hoof disorder? It is painful. That's the first one. And when a cow is in pain, it just doesn't move around as much. It doesn't eat enough, is resting more. It has all the bad impacts on having a high milk yield. It often leads to metabolic diseases because the intake of calories is too low. If you have an automatic milking system, she is not so willing to go to the automatic milker, and in that way she will also lose milk. One of the other things that I'd like to cover is the general health. It’s a general thing. Couldn't we just say that we're just breeding for one index called general health? Kaj, what do you think about that? That would be nice, but it's like all the other traits. There's not a single bull that ranks high on all traits. So, it's always a compromise. So you can go for health, but you have to choose three or four general traits that you are going for in your herd. And then you can go more specific on the individual cow with a mating plan. Suggesting three different bulls. So we can improve both on herd level and on an individual level. But we do have an index, Hanna, that's called general health. What covers that then? It is the metabolic diseases, reproductive diseases and also feet and leg diseases? And we make the calculations from registrations from veterinarians. Okay. So every time a veterinarian comes in and does a registration on some of these things, then that goes into that index? Yeah. So, to summarize, what is the relationship between health and profitability? Kaj, what's your veterinarian take on that? You could have a cow with very high indexes, but if she is sick or lame, she's not able to perform even if she has the potential. So in that way, if the cow is not in the best shape, she would not perform in the way that we expect and it will have the impact here now, but we will also have the impact on her ability to give her genes to the next generation, because if she's not getting into heat or getting pregnant, you can have the best cow in the world. But with no offspring, it's a short term solution. She will die in a few years. So you lose a lot of genetic progress if you have a high incidence of the disease in your farm. Hanna, any comments to that? A healthy cow can live for a longer time and be more efficient and have a longer productive life. So it is profitable for the farmers to have healthy cows that can perform their best for as long time as possible. And there's an ethical aspect in this as well, Kaj? We have to look at the animal welfare every time we are doing something, they are in our hands and we should take care of them in the best way. It's not only by how we are feeding them, it's also about how we are housing them, how we are handling if they are going to slaughter. So we have the responsibility from birth until we slaughter them in the end. So that's a huge responsibility. And you cannot just put it on the farmer. As a breeding company, you also have a responsibility in this respect. Thank you both for helping us so far. We have a few more questions and towards health traits and the benefits from our farmers doing so. One question is how can farmers make the most out of their healthy cows through genomic testing, Hanna, and by selection and genomic testing? If you do genomic selection and your goal is to improve the health traits, that's your main focus, then you should use the information from the genomic tests and choose the cows and heifers with the highest numbers for those traits and then inseminate them with the bulls with very high levels on their health indices as well. And then you in the next generation will have heifers with very high genetic potential for the health traits. And you could also do the opposite. If you find animals with lower indices on health traits. You can inseminate them with beef instead to not have heifers in the next generation with low values. So what if the farmer says, okay, I'm looking for an improved hoof health. Should one just go solely for improving hoof health, or is it better to use the NTM? Let's say that you can choose between two bulls. One bull is high NTM, higher than the other. But the one that's lower has the higher hoof health. Which one should one choose, Hanna? Maybe you should choose both of them and use both of them in your herd. Because if you take the bull with the highest NTM - or very high NTM, you will make progress in all health traits because they have a very high correlation to the NTM. And then the other bull with a very good NTM and high indices for hoof health will also help you in your herd so I would do probably a mix of both I think. But if you’re forced to choose, Hanna? Should you go for the single traits or the NTM? The NTM. Why? Because if you choose to go for NTM, you will make high progress in the health traits and you have a little bit of everything else at the same time. So in the end, you will improve both the health, the production and the conformation of your cows. Kaj, let's say you're a farmer in another country outside of our countries. What are your thoughts on the NTM there? Would it fit one on one or how do you see that? The NTM is based on data from the Nordics. So of course it fits one to one to the Nordic countries. But if you're going to other countries with different conditions, like when we were talking about the cows in Australia that are having more extensive way of feeding, more out, more heat, then you need to adapt it to where you are. It would be wrong to take a high yielding Holstein to an area where you can't get enough food for the cow. Then you have a Ferrari, but you have a gravel road to drive on and then you'll ruin your Ferrari. That's one of the ways to say it. So, in the more extensive part of the world, you should go for a more all round bull than the very top. But maybe there and - that might be a discussion for single traits in an extensive system- maybe the hoof health all of a sudden has a higher value than in our Nordic systems. Or, Hanna, what do you think about that? Yeah, of course. And of course you have to maybe think a little bit differently depending on the climate and the production system and what you're really aiming for in the end. And then you probably need to take a closer look to the specific traits. But if you look at specific traits and then the bull has a decent NTM, then you will make some progress in your herd. So over the years, many traits have been added. The NTM was first launched in 2008 as an NTM across the Nordic countries and as evolved and traits have been added. Kaj, which future traits do you see that could be added to the NTM. We are working very much on the Saved Feed index. And there has also been a podcast on that. I think they were a very big impact on the future of farming in the intensive part of the world where we are a little bit fighting between feeding the animals and feeding the people. If we can have cows, that are as efficient as today, but with 20% less feeding, then we have 20% more land for growing vegetables for people. So I think that would be a very strong tool in the future, but there might also be other regarding health where we can look into the genomics, because we have the big data and can find new traits. So only a year or two since we have the young animal survival added. And there's also, others that might be interesting, especially where we look at the metabolic diseases. Hanna, which traits are you missing in the NTM? I think traits related to climate will be next in line to have a bigger impact and be added with higher weights in the NTM. And then it is saved feed as you mentioned, Kaj, and there are also some ongoing discussions about methane emission. So that's what I think will play a bigger role next. Thanks for joining the BreedCast today where we've examined the Nordic Total Merit Index and discussed how breeding for health and performance will benefit your farm and herd. If you'd like to learn more about the NTM, please visit our dedicated NTM area at VikingGenetics.com. Thank you. Hanna Driscoll. And thank you Kaj Abrahamsen for sharing your valuable knowledge about the NTM and cattle breeding with us. Thanks to everybody out there for listening. If you have a topic that you'd like us to focus on in the next Breedcast episode, then reach out to us on Breedcast.com or message us on our VikingGenetics Facebook page. I’m Hielke Wiersma. And this is the Breedcast by VikingGenetics.