Memories, Mentors, and Milk Records!

Very proud to share this highlight on Bomaz - our family farm!? It’s a great family story, as are almost all the dairy farms across the U.S.? We feel lucky and blessed to be in a position where we have been contributing to global breeding for over 40 years and want to thank Holstein Association USA, Inc. for highlighting Bomaz on this video!

There are many great experiences that come from growing up as a farm kid, but this story provides the seed for my passion about genetics, and set Bomaz on a defined trajectory! ?It was 1984, and I was 7 years old.? I loved helping on the farm, and I knew, by name, the 80 cows on our farm – especially the good ones.? One of those cows was “Dawn” – she was far from our nicest cow to look at, but she could really milk! ?

It was milk test day, and I always wanted to “help” milk when the tester was there! It was the night milking first, and I remember watching “Dawn” fill up the meter, at the end thinking maybe Dad could squeeze a few more drops out of her…? 64 pounds of milk from her 1st of two milkings. WOW! ?“Dawn” was on pace to have 128 lbs/day, which would have been a record for Bomaz – she just needed to "fill the meter" again the next morning as there was no such thing as averaging parlor computer weights back in those days.

I had school the next day but got up wondering how “Dawn” was going to do.? 5 minutes before the bus came my uncle knocked on the door and said I should come to the barn right away if I wanted to see Dawn break the record because she was FULL!? Cereal only half eaten, I ran to the barn, and that morning was A LOT more memorable than whatever was happening in school!?

I watched with amazement as she looked like she was still half full of milk when she hit 50 lbs on the meter.? I knew she would do it and thought “she must have slept really good last night to make this much milk”!? The final tally was 77 lbs that morning, for a daily total of 141 lbs (64 kgs)!? Remember, these were the tie-stall barn days, before sand bedding, TMR’s, or 3x/day milking, when you brought the milker to the cow instead of the cows to the milkers, so 141lbs was a lot of milk!?

I said to my Dad, “Dawn is our best cow ever”.? This is where the story gets awesome...? My Dad’s response was, “The best part is that we should already have an even better cow, because Dawn’s daughter is a pregnant heifer and she is sired by the best bull in the world (Valiant), and she will freshen later this year.” My 7-year-old self listened in amazement, wondering how Dawn's daughter could ever make more than 141 lbs (and if they would have to get a bigger milk meter for her if she did!)

Dad was right – genetics progress is real - that daughter was Bomaz Valiant Daphne, the foundation cow of the genetic program at Bomaz, and currently about 75% of the animals at Bomaz, and around 40 actively marketed AI sires trace back to her!?

About a year ago, this story came full circle for me when my daughter was looking up cows on the parlor computer with “Grandpa Bob”.? First cow: 181 lbs/day, 2nd cow: 158 lbs/day, 3rd cow: 161 lbs/day (obviously we were in the high group of older cows).? The 4th cow into the parlor had 141lbs/day and my daughter said “Grandpa, this cow isn’t very good – why do you still have her?!?”? I couldn’t believe it – exactly the same 141 lbs that Dawn made in 1983, and she didn’t think it was good enough today!?

We did some teaching about cow grouping strategies, and how 141 lbs/day is still good even in 2024!

A vivid picture of "Dawn" and her full meter of milk from 1983 was in my head when I was recently looking at our top genomic heifer.? She did indeed trace back to Daphne and Dawn, but I was curious how many generations ago?? The answer: 16 generations of genetic progress!?

Bomaz Decree 12060 is 1388 Net Merit – over $2000 higher than Dawn!? That means that side by side, in the same environment, daughters of the best genetics at Bomaz today are expected to make $2000 more in lifetime profit than the best in 1983.?

Genetic progress should be how we start every sustainability story!

Dad and I often joke that 40 years ago it was always: “Nate is Bob’s son”.? Today, for some, it's now “Bob is Nate’s Dad”.? Either way, this is how it all started for me. Meet my mentor, who I am lucky enough to call my Dad!