Survivability and trends in the Australian dairy herd

Australia’s dairy sector is rich in performance data, and herd recording remains a key source of insights for on-farm decision-making and tracking national herd trends. In this episode, host Sheena Carter is joined by Michelle Axford (DataGene) to explore key takeaways from DataGene’s latest Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Report, including emerging trends in herd performance and how genetics and new research are shaping herd improvement.

Resources:

Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Report 2025

DataGene website

DataConnect

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Transcript here

Produced by Liam Driver

The information discussed in this podcast are for informative and educational purposes only and do not constitute advice. 

Transcript

The Business of Dairy 

Podcast 59 – “Survivability and trends in the Australian dairy herd”

Sheena Carter:

[0:02] Welcome to the Business of Dairy podcast. I'm your host, Sheena Carter. The Australian dairy industry is fortunate in that it is rich with data that provides us with valuable insights into its performance over time. Herd Recording has and continues to provide farmers and industry with very useful information for both on-farm management purposes and insights into trends in our national herd performance. DataGene, an initiative of Dairy Australia and the dairy industry, which focuses on improving herd development through genetics, produces an annual report that provides us with insights into herd performance and updates on newly applied research. Today, I am joined by Michelle Axford, Technical Services Manager with DataGene, to discuss some aspects of the latest report. It is a great pleasure to have you join me to talk about some of the insights, trends and research in Australian dairy herd performance. Welcome, Michelle.

Michelle Axford:

[1:05] Thank you, Sheena. It's lovely to be with you today. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Sheena Carter:

[1:10] You have been working in the Australian dairy herd improvement area for many years now and will be known to many of our listeners. Can you share your dairy career and journey with us? Where did it all start and how has it evolved?

Michelle Axford:

[1:25] One of my first memories as a child was actually riding around in the silage cart in our farm in Canada, where my parents knocked cows for all of their career. In those days, the silage cart was really a glorified wheelbarrow. It was just a big carton on a pulley system that went around the barn, and that's where the silage was forked from, and probably is the reason why I love the smell of corn silage so much. So working around the barn, milking cows, you know, feeding calves, that was part of my upbringing and something that I have very fond memories about. My brothers and I are, I think, our fifth generation dairy farmers. They still run a dairy business and cropping enterprise in Canada. And my husband and I, we have a dairy farm in South Gippsland that we've been running for about 30 years now and have recently welcomed our son into the business as part of the sort of next generation.

Michelle Axford:

[2:24] I had the chance to go to the University of Guelph, and that's one of the main agricultural universities in Canada, and was really a place where I was able to kind of grow and develop that passion for producing food and for the power of agriculture and what it does for the world in terms of feeding people. From there, I spent some time at Massey University in New Zealand doing some extra research, and then finally made my way to Australia, where I later married my husband and started the dairy farm here. Along the way, there are some people that took a punt on this Canadian girl that turned up unexpectedly. So Rod Brasher and Peter Williams first employed me at Riverina Artificial Breeders, R.I.B. in the day. And that's where I started my career in dairy in Australia. Then moved to the University of Melbourne, doing some teaching under the guidance of Sylvia Bagg, who was a great mentor. And that led me then to work at the Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Scheme. ADHIS was the precursor to what we now know as DataGene and was lucky enough to work with the likes of Daniel Abernathy, Pauline Breitling, and most recently under the leadership of Matt Schaefer as the DataGene organisation was built now just over 10 years ago.

Sheena Carter:

[3:46] Many of our listeners will be familiar with a lot of the industry names you've mentioned and worked with, and you certainly bring a lot of experience and knowledge to your role, both from a practical perspective and from the opportunities and mentors you have had over the years.

Michelle Axford:

[4:02] Thank you, Sheena. Thank you.

Sheena Carter:

[4:05] Could you give our listeners a quick history on the evolution of DataGene, its origins and its role today?

Michelle Axford:

[4:13] We celebrated a decade of DataGene just recently. It is an independent and industry-owned organisation that's responsible for driving genetic gain and herd improvement in the Australian dairy industry. It's the initiative of Dairy Australia. And one of the things that gets me excited is for every dollar that's invested in DataGene, it's been able to turn around about $16 in return, which is really realised by having more productive cows, you know, in our Australian environment. And I think that's pretty exciting to think about the change that's happened. It happens a little bit every year. The change is permanent and it's cumulative, but over time it makes a real difference to the productivity and profitability of dairy herd.

Sheena Carter:

[5:03] So what are some of the specific activities and roles of DataGene from an industry perspective?

Michelle Axford:

[5:10] We contribute in a few ways through genetic improvement and delivering Australian breeding values and the indices that make those Australian breeding values pretty easy to use. That's one of the main areas. We also work in the data space. So we support the back end of the herd test centres and work with other partners and clients to help with their database solutions that they're wanting to build. And these are clients both in Australia and internationally as well. We want to be able to make those data connections work so that there's information moving back and forth for the benefit of farmers. We are led by a farmer-facing board, our chair, Tim Jelbart, and his colleagues that represent a number of areas of our industry, but also have strong connections to farm. They're very important in terms of leading the future direction of DataGene. And we've most recently got to know our brand new CEO, Dr. Emily Piper, who has joined us in the business just over a couple of months ago. And we're stoked that she's with us, bringing a strong background in genomic services and genetic evaluation. And it's just been wonderful to get to know her as she's taken her first few steps leading the data gene organisation.

Sheena Carter:

[6:38] Yes, I have read recently of the appointment of Dr. Piper and her strong background in genetics, both in Australia and overseas. So it is certainly exciting times for data gene. Now, every year you release an excellent report, as I've mentioned. This is called the Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Report, which I and many others often refer to as a resource. We're going to discuss some of the features of this report, but before we jump in, how long has this report been produced for and what is the source of data used in the reporting?

Michelle Axford:

[7:13] The report itself is decades old. You know, ADHIS started in about 1983. And really the idea of kind of summarizing statistics through those years has just been bread and butter in terms of that organization. And so the report has a very long history. But really, the report couldn't be put together if we didn't have the commitment of farmers who are herd recording on a routine basis. That's been the foundation for the report and also for the genetic evaluation and other services that ADHIS supplies. So those farmers, because they commit to herd recording on a routine basis, means that we have this really powerful, longstanding data set that gives us a picture, a little window into what's happening in terms of herd performance each year. And we try to kind of pull that together into the herd improvement report for the benefit of farmers, but also researchers and industry people. There's the report itself that has a few stories and things in it, but also has some Excel versions of the report that people can dig into if they want to do some extra investigation on their own.

Sheena Carter:

[8:26] Thanks, Michelle. And for the benefit of our listeners, I'll put a link to the report in our show notes so it can be accessed easily. And I'll also put a link to the DataGene website, which has lots of other useful information and resources on it. Now, in recent years, we have seen a decline in the number of herds enrolled in herd recording, in part due to the advent of milk monitoring technology being adopted on farm. And the report indicates there are currently about 35% of farms enrolled in herd recording nationally. How is this impacting the amount and quality of data you're able to access?

Michelle Axford:

[9:05] It's a really good question, Sheena, and a very important point as we think about our industry in 2026, because we are in transition. As new technology becomes available, farmers are going to use that to take their next step that's important to them. And it's, you know, one of the reasons why that data connection piece is so important at DataGene to both build on the farmers', data that, you know, is coming in through traditional herd recording, but also improve that with the connections to new, more modern sort of systems. And that's something that we've been putting quite a lot of effort to at DataGene and something that will continue as we integrate data from multiple sources.

Michelle Axford:

[9:53] Over time, we see a decline of about 4% each year in terms of traditional herd recording. So we're, you know, at a point where we've got about 35% of Australian herds have information included in this report. There are another group of farmers who will herd test more irregularly, and their data isn't included in this report because we want to, you know, make sure that the quality of data that's going into this report is as high as we can make it. So people that are doing kind of spot tests or once-off, that information isn't included in the statistics that we're talking about today. But it's certainly an area globally, you know, we see this in Australia, but other countries around the world also see this. And so globally, we're all grappling with this idea of how we take information from multiple different sources and use it for the purpose that it's best able to be used for, for the benefit of farmers, to help them make better decisions in the herds that they're working with. Thank you.

Sheena Carter:

[10:50] Obviously, farmers find value in the milk monitoring machines as it gives them real-time data about what's happening in the milking herd production-wise, and we are seeing many farms invest in this technology. With these farms generally no longer using herd recording, is there a way to integrate data from this technology into your database?

Michelle Axford:

[11:11] There is, yeah. So there's a project called Data Connect, which we can share some information if people are looking for that, for people to be able to make connections between DataGene and the milk and software that they have. So we have some farms that are already connected in this way that might have inline milk meters, and that information is flowing now every day into DataGene. And this is an area that I think is in a growth phase. We are members of the International Dairy Data Exchange Network, IDEN, and it's working at a global level in making connections between organizations like DataGene and equipment manufacturers so that we can more easily move information as long as farmers give authority to share that information. So those opportunities, they're there now, but they're also going to grow, I think, over the next kind of couple of years as those systems become bedded down.

Sheena Carter:

[12:05] We are certainly in very interesting and exciting times with the advent of new and developing technology and the data that it generates that is accessible in real time to help with decision-making and understanding of our herd's performance?

Michelle Axford:

[12:20] The interesting point in there, it's important to have a farmer-focused organisation that's helping to make those connections sensibly and to think about making sure that these connections are benefiting farmers. And I see that as being one of the, that's one of the benefits or one of the strong values of having an organisation like DataGene that's farmer-led, and being in the middle of those conversations. As a farmer, that makes me feel better.

Sheena Carter:

[12:50] Absolutely. And data governance is something that needs to be managed well. And it is great to have data gene on the forefront in this area. Right. Well, let's dive into the report. Can you tell us about some of the key highlights in the latest report, such as how long our milkers are staying in the herd and any differences that you see between the breeds?

Michelle Axford:

[13:11] Yeah, lovely. And this is something that we do report on. So the report itself, it gives us information about, you know, the production statistics on various groups of animals, how long animals last.

Michelle Axford:

[13:23] What the average age of the start of first lactation for a cow, lots of pieces of information. It includes genetic trends as well in terms of what's changing genetically over time. There are quite a number of pieces in the report. And this year, we've also added a summary from information that was analysed and prepared by Majid Khansefid, one of the scientists with the Dairy Bio team at Agriculture Victoria. His research was also included in this report because we thought it linked really nicely. So if we go back to the kind of production statistics, one of the things that we notice is that the productive herd life, if we think about, you know, the average age of cows in herds in Australia, at the moment, it's about 55 months, so about four and a half years old. So if we said, what's the average age of all the cows in Australia? You know, it's roughly four and a half years. It does vary a little bit by breed, but not much. You know, it might be a month or two here or there. Adding to that, though, the research from Dr. Khansefid, he answered a really important question, which is, how long do cows last?

Michelle Axford:

[14:29] So how long do they stay in the herd? And that's a different question than the earlier one that I mentioned. And what he found is that, you know, Holsteins and Jerseys are lasting about 4.1 lactations in the herd. So to have a productive herd life of 4.1 lactations, that's seen as, you know, a pretty good measure. In other countries, they might see a much shorter productive herd life.

Michelle Axford:

[14:56] And we think there are benefits to having cows last a little bit longer. You know, the older cows, they produce a little bit more milk compared to a young cow. And, you know, it takes quite a lot of investment in money and time and labour and feed and effort to raise heifers. So to have an extra little bit of productive herd life is a really influences the profitability of the dairy business, but also has some environmental sustainability benefits as well.

Sheena Carter:

[15:24] Yes, and the environmental sustainability factor encompasses a few things, but obviously we're seeing a focus on reducing our farm greenhouse gas emissions intensity, which can be managed in a number of ways, including through breeding, which is an interesting and developing area for the industry. Now, a graph I found very interesting was one that shows the milk production of two-year-olds as a percentage of mature cow milk production. So the industry target is 85%. So the two-year-old should produce 85% of the milk produced by a mature cow. And we use this as a proxy to determine how well our heifers are being grown out. The graph shows that compared to the 2016 financial year, in the 2025 financial year, so nearly 10 years later, there has been a reduction in this percentage. And heifers are now averaging less than 85% of mature cow milk production. Can you talk to this and perhaps provide some insights into why there's been a decline and what should we be doing to improve it?

Michelle Axford:

[16:36] I think it's an interesting graph and relates to, I suppose, Dairy Australia's reproductive management resources. And they highlight the importance of having that good ratio between the yield of mature cows compared to two-year-olds. To give us that kind of an indicator if our ever-rearing strategies are working well enough. And it was probably a bit disappointing to see that it's not reaching the 85% target that's set and probably suggests that maybe there's still some work to do in terms of improving the growth and development of heifers to put them in a really good spot to thrive in their first lactation and then getting calf so that they can be part of the second lactation group as well. It's hard to know exactly why that's happened over time. So the report tells us that it's happened, but it doesn't really say why it's happened. But I think it's just a good reminder, you know, from a farm perspective to kind of think through our heifer rearing and think about any opportunities that might be there for us to improve the growth and development of those heifers so that they are in a really good spot to have a great first lactation.

Sheena Carter:

[17:53] Yes, it is interesting and certainly an area that we need to get right if we want to have fertile and productive heifers coming into the herd that last and produce to their potential. And I guess it is important to highlight that Dairy Australia and the industry more broadly have some excellent resources and events that focus on good heifer rearing management, which listeners might find useful. Now, improving productive herd life is obviously a key focus of the industry, dairy bio and other research programs, including that in the New South Wales Dairy Up body of research. The report indicates that more than 20% of cows are in their fifth lactation. So bearing in mind that this will be linked to replacement rates, heifer replacement rates in a herd, is there a target number that we should look to achieve for optimal sustainability in our farm systems?

Michelle Axford:

[18:49] There are probably a few conversations you might have at a pub sometime about your favourite footy team or the best brand of ute to purchase, the best breed of animal to, you know, farm and replacement right might actually fit into one of those topics of conversation because it is hotly contested. And the important bit is to think carefully about what is the correct replacement right for your own business, because there is a balance to achieve here. When I say replacement rate, I'm meaning the percentage of the herd that's being replaced each year. So the percentage of the herd that has to come in as a new group of heifers. And our typical replacement rate is probably 25%. Some people might be able to get that lower than 25%, meaning we're bringing in fewer replacements into the herd, keeping cows a little bit longer in order to maintain a stable herd size.

Michelle Axford:

[19:48] And what that does is it means that we know that those heifers, they cost a lot to rear. And if we can save a little bit of money, essentially, through heifer rearing because we're needing less replacements, that's a good thing for the overall business. And it's easy to make heifers these days, and we can find opportunities to market those heifers elsewhere, especially if we've got some genomic testing results to be able to move the heifers that don't meet our needs onto some other market prior to entering the herd. At the other end of the scale, though, if we don't have enough heifers entering the herd and our replacement rate is too low, then we may be keeping older cows that are starting to break down and have more problems later in life. And that also becomes expensive. So we're in this sort of tricky little situation about not having a replacement rate that's either too high or too low. In order for us to have a better replacement rate, though, we need to have cows that are able to last. And that's where the research that helps us to improve the longevity of cows across research organizations, I think, is quite important.

Sheena Carter:

[20:59] Okay, so there'll be a number of ways to improve the longevity of cows, which can be addressed by management and continuing research. And this leads nicely into our next topic for discussion, which is the recently updated survival ABV. Can you explain the survival ABV or Australian breeding value to our listeners and then tell us about the Agriculture Victoria research that has been used to enhance the survival ABV and how the ABV is benefit to farmers.

Michelle Axford:

[21:33] The Survival Australian Breeding Value is a tool that farmers can use to actually genetically select animals that are likely to last longer. So cows with longer productive lifetimes. It was actually updated in December of 2025. And one of the main changes that happened is that we consider survival in two stages of an animal's career. Her survival from her first lactation to her second lactation, and we call that early survival, and then survival from the second lactation to later, and that's called late survival. And the reason we broke it into two chunks is that the drivers for whether cows succeed and make it from one lactation to the next change, depending on whether they're a young cow or an old cow. And they also change by breed. And this was really fascinating research, I thought, that Dr. Khansefid was able to share. So some examples. So milk production in Holsteins had a very strong association with early survival, but that relationship breaks down in later life. So production's really important in the early stages of a cow. But once she gets to kind of her second lactation, her production isn't really the limiting factor anymore. It's more other characteristics, such as fertility, for example. They become more relevant later in life.

Michelle Axford:

[22:56] Things like workability traits, so likability, temperament, milking speed, these are also things that are important in the early stages of an animal's career, but are less important later on. Once they pass muster and get to their second lactation, those sorts of characteristics are less linked because I think the problems have already been fixed by animals leaving during their first lactation. The same was not the case, though, for jerseys. So, you know, production traits, outer traits, likability are really important in early survival. But production's also important for late survival in jerseys. So where we saw that the contribution of production late in life for Holsteins wasn't really a very strong association, in the case of jerseys, production still was really important throughout the animal's sort of lifetime. And so I just thought that was really interesting that these things vary by breed. So by being a little bit more nuanced in how the breeding values calculated, we can improve the predictions of productive herd life with this new remodel. And so that was something that DataGene introduced in December 2025.

Sheena Carter:

[24:09] That is fascinating research. And the differences between breeds isn't something I would have expected. So it's interesting to see how the research has been able to be applied to the benefit of dairy farmers through the Survival ABV update.

Michelle Axford:

[24:24] This is really about making the best, you know, kind of evaluating the information that we've got in the most sophisticated way we can so that farmers can make the best decisions that they can when choosing the bulls that they want to put in their herd or when they're looking at the genomic testing results and choosing the replacement heifers that they want to enter the herd. And we want those breeding values to be the highest quality that we can. And these, you know, these improvements that we make to the model along the way are all about delivering, you know, a higher quality breeding value each step of the way.

Sheena Carter:

[25:00] Can I ask, how much of survivability is genetics and how much is due to management?

Michelle Axford:

[25:05] Now, that's a really good question. And in the case of survival, so less than 5% of the differences between animals will be due to genetics and the remainder is due to the animal's management and environment. So we know that it's a small percent. However, we can see clear evidence that animals that are higher for survival ABV do last longer in herds. And it's the same for cases of things like fertility and mastitis resistance. These traits, they're challenging. They have a low heritability, which means that the proportion that's related to genetics is much smaller than traits like stature or milk production that have a much higher level of heritability. But despite being small, we still can see differences between animals. And I think of it a little bit like a free kick. So let's put the odds in our favour by having a cow that's more likely to last longer, so that we want to do all the good things from a management perspective, being bolstered a little bit by that free kick that comes from better genetics.

Sheena Carter:

[26:14] National herd performance has faced some significant challenges over the decades, such as the decline we were seeing in fertility and mastitis resistance. Now, this has been turned around by good industry collaboration and research, and we've seen the advent of genomics, which has also been a game changer and probably another good podcast topic. Where do you see the future of research for herd performance heading?

Michelle Axford:

[26:39] There are all kinds of questions that will be lovely to answer. And that's both here in Australia and with our colleagues around the world. Some of the things that I see as being promising areas of research is one is the shift to a whole herd perspective. In the past, we've probably just focused quite a lot around the, We've seen both here in Australia, the work in calf vitality and in other countries to see how can we breed better calves that will make better heifers and better cows. So I think that's one area that taking a whole herd perspective rather than just looking at the lactating proportion of the herd is an area that's under investigation. And I think there's scope for some improvements there. The use of new data sources, I think, is a second area where I see lots of potential. So when I talk about new data sources, I'm talking about data from inline meters or from sensors or other pieces of technology. How do we share that information in a way that helps us to improve existing breeding values or create new breeding values?

Michelle Axford:

[27:50] Would make a meaningful difference on farm. And that, again, that's a global kind of effort that Australia is involved in. There's also quite a lot of work in the methane area. So, you know, ruminants, they belch. And that methane is something that our customers are, you know, paying attention to. So what can we do from a breeding perspective? We know that there's variation within animals for methane production. So can we exploit that variation to slowly, continually improve emissions intensity over time? And that comes from the methane research, such as green cow and other research activities that are happening in Australia and globally. One thing I was wondering about, though, is that I don't think all the problems that we have need a research project to solve. There are things that we know how to do already. So if we are a little bit more focused on, you know, having longer lasting cows, growing our heifers out a bit better, using data to monitor and measure and improve performance, there are probably some opportunities that we can find even just using the resources that we've got just a little bit better. So some of that's just about conversation and sharing knowledge and pushing each other to be a little better. And I think there's opportunities there as well.

Sheena Carter:

[29:15] Yes, you raise a very good point. And I think one of the strengths of the dairy industry is that it is an agricultural industry that is rich with data. And this is exciting when we can see that there's ways we can use it that we may not previously have thought about. So a final question for you, Michelle, what is the best thing about your job?

Michelle Axford:

[29:40] I find that really hard to answer. But I love it when I'm working with a team of people. And I've been very fortunate to work with some really terrific teams across different organizations in my career. That's, you know, and by working with that team, when we are able to kind of solve problems that make a difference on farm, that is a good day for me. So things like, you know, creating breeding indexes that are better connected with farmer priorities, making breeding values more accessible and, you know, understandable for people to use and presenting them in a way that, you know, is more interesting to kind of look at. So things like, you know, the Good Bulls Guide and the Good Bulls app. You know, it's really rewarding when you can take, you know, complex pieces of information, but put them in a handheld way that you can have a look at as you're bringing the cows in at night. Helping farmers to kind of make really informed choices that make a meaningful difference to their herd is quite rewarding. And I've been lucky to work with teams that have been working in that space.

Sheena Carter:

[30:49] That's a great answer, Michelle. And I think we are fortunate in the dairy industry that it has many wonderful people working in it, from the farmers, to those of us who have roles in supporting them. So thank you very much for sharing your expertise and knowledge with our listeners today.

Michelle Axford:

[31:05] Thank you, Sheena. It's been a delight to have a chat.

Sheena Carter:

[31:11] That's all for today's episode of The Business of Dairy. We hope you enjoyed diving into the fascinating world of dairy farming and industry insights. As we continue to expand and evolve, we greatly appreciate your support. Our show is thriving, attracting new listeners each week, but we believe there's always room to grow and we need your help to make it happen. If you've found value in our discussions, we kindly ask you to take a moment to rate and leave a comment about the podcast on your preferred platform. Your feedback not only lets us know what you enjoy but also helps boost our visibility to others who might benefit from our content I sincerely thank you for being part of our community and we look forward to bringing you more engaging episodes in the future with the continued funding and support of the hunt local land services until next time stay curious and keep milking those opportunities