Introducing Prospective℠ : A Semen Comparison Tool from GENEX

Today dairy producers have more options than ever when it comes to making decisions on semen products. With the addition of GenChoice™ 4M sexed semen to the marketplace and other sexed semen products in the works, it is important to have a tool for producers to be able to compare the impact of these different products on their bottom line. This is where the new GENEX Prospective℠ program can offer a helping hand.

The Prospective℠ program is a semen comparison tool that calculates the return on investment from different semen products used on cows or heifers. It utilizes a dairy’s inputs for projected conception rates, heifer ratios, calf value, and product pricing and delivers a simple, easy to understand report summarizing the dollars lost or gained from a particular semen choice by service number compared to conventional semen.

For example, a farm is wondering if introducing sexed semen on cows makes financial sense. The Prospective℠ program will take values for expected conception, semen prices and calf values and will show the farm an output similar to below. Here we can see the added asset value of producing more heifers with sexed semen and that it would cost more for semen cost and days open compared to conventional. However, in the total profit/loss analysis, it does show that the farm would see a profit for using sexed semen on their first service cows.

Similarly, on heifers, the Prospective℠ program can project how utilizing sexed semen products makes the most sense by also taking into account the additional milk income expected from heifers having heifer calves. The example below is a herd that is curious to see if the added cost of GenChoice™ 4M sexed semen makes sense to use on their heifers. The Prospective℠ program uses the inputs to calculate the difference in asset value, semen investment, milk income and days open to come up with the total profit/loss impact of that semen choice vs conventional. Here it shows the added value of heifer calves produced plus the added milk income outweighs the semen investment and added days open to give the farm an expected profit on all services.

The Prospective℠ program is just another tool GENEX offers dairies to help them make the most informed and profitable strategic breeding decisions in today’s marketplace.