Now in her second year of NGP, and having become familiar with the process, Mella says that “it is a bit extra [work], but for me, its worth it”
Mella Briscoe runs a 360 cow dairy farm with her husband Kevin Muldoon and their two sons Jack and Naise near Portumna in County Galway. Focusing on efficiency, Mella prefers a more compact cow to keep inputs down with the ultimate goal to feed under 800Kg of meal per cow per year. Last year the herd averaged 495Kg of milk solids with 1,200Kg of meal but Mella feels this can be improved, in particular, the herds average protein percentage. With these goals in mind, Mella now prioritises the milk sub-index of her selected dairy sires with special focus on protein percentage, and tries to only select sires with a maintenance sub-index of €15.
All this comes on the back of significant effort and progress in improving the herds fertility. When deciding which 30% of cows will receive dairy AI straws, fertility is always front and centre. “Any cow that calves every year, that is calving one serve every year has to get serious consideration.” Mella explains. “She may not be not the top performer [on milk] but if you cross her to a good [milk] bull, she has the fertility to go with it.”
Tackling fertility head on has seen the herd’s six week calving percentage improve rapidly from 67% in 2021 to 89% in 2025. The impact on milk production was immediate. “Fertility drives production. That absolutely was shown to be true here.” says Mella. “When we fixed it in 2022, the burst of milk into the tank, it explained it all very easily”. Having gotten the herd to where they want in terms of fertility, Mella is now free to put more focus onto their other priorities of milk protein and maintenance.
Mella admits that she loves analysing data “more than a normal person”. Long nights during calving season provide her with the perfect opportunity to go through her HerdPlus Dairy Cow Report in forensic detail, and, once she is finished choosing which cows will get dairy AI, she will run sire advice several times to make sure she is satisfied with the balance of her chosen team of sires, before finally sending it off to her AI technician. Sexed Semen is used on the best 80% of heifers each year based on their Genomic Evaluations.
Mella puts similar care into choosing her beef sires, using the DBI and beef sub-index along with all important calving difficulty. Aubrac bulls are Mellas preference for remainder of her heifers as she says in the past they have given her a good mixed of easy calving and performance. Having tried many different breeds, Mella has settled on mostly Hereford sires for the remainder of the cows, citing a combination of easy calving, easy rearing and consistency for her decision.
Given her great use of data, genotyping and the National Genotyping Programme were a natural fit for Mella. On the back of a bumper year for milk price in 2022, Mella had considered re-investing in the herd by genotyping all their females. She held off for year, and then took the opportunity to get her whole herd genotyped through NGP instead, a decision which saved her over €7,000 in genotyping costs.
Mella loves the extra data she gets from genotyping her calves through NGP, and how much more reliable her data is knowing that any parentage errors are found and resolved and having genomic evaluations on her calves at such a young age.
Although initially sceptical, Mella even sees a great benefit in having her beef calves genotyped as it re-assures her that the correct sire is recorded, not always a simple task with multiple stock-bulls of different breeds, and allows her to assess which bulls worked the hardest over the season and which produced the best quality calves.
Now in her second year of NGP, and having become familiar with the process, Mella says that “it is a bit extra [work], but for me, its worth it”