USDA’s monthly Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Outlook includes a special report on the impact of CWT and sexed semen in 2009. Authored by Rachael Patton, the report says weekly cow slaughter was above five-year averages thanks to four rounds of the CWT herd retirement program completed during the year. That program sent over 250,000 dairy cows to market. However, the report notes not all of those marketings can be credited to CWT since regular culling would have occurred with or without any program. One might argue low milk prices would have naturally forced more producers out of business and increased culling but CWT officials contend their program took those cows out of production faster and with less pain than if the market had forced the issue. USDA does project the U.S. dairy herd will slip below 9 million cows during 2010, the smallest herd in recent years. Patton concludes while the decline in milk production from the herd retirement program may not have been as significant as preferred, “the effect on prices of culled animals has also not been as depressing as some in the beef cow sector had feared.”
The report also notes that the use of sexed semen in dairy cattle had little if any effect on dairy in 2009. For starters, it takes three years from conception before the offspring is in the milking line and secondly, there would have to be an expansion of the dairy herd to actually show up in the bulk tank. Since that didn’t happen in 2009, there really was no impact of sexed semen not to say in the longer term it could become a greater factor especially since it will most likely be used on better cows.
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