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World-Wide Sires Mating Programme (WMS)

The World-Wide Sires mating programme was established by Select Sires in 1973. In its first year WMS mated 5,800 cows in the USA. Its primary goal was to provide dairy farmers with a system that enabled them to develop herds with the correct type to sustain high levels of production over many lactations.

Since 1973 the WMS programme has become the world's most comprehensive and internationally recognised mating programme in the world today. In 2003, 4 million cows were mated in 41 countries with WMS.

Many companies have now introduced mating programmes, but how many are actually proven?

WMS has been operating in the UK for over 14 years, and in that time, hundreds of UK dairy farmers have come to rely on WMS to correctively mate their herds. Testament to this is the fact that the first UK dairy farmers to be introduced to WMS are still to this day converted enthusiasts. Few would argue that correctively mated cows will result in offspring with longer herd life which equates to higher profitability and ultimately high customer satisfaction.

In today's climate, time is precious with farmers milking larger numbers of cows with minimum labour, WMS disseminates the minefield of information thrown at you and ultimately saves you time.

How does WMS work?

undefinedCows to be mated are scored on 17 linear traits which build up a picture of the strengths and weaknesses of each cow, at the same time WMS takes into account the parentage of the animal for inbreeding purposes. Remember inbreeding has a negative effect on production, fertility and herd health which all equate to reduced profit margin.

WMS also screens for genetic recessives such as C.V.M and Blad which is becoming a major problem in many herds today. C.V.M is responsible for embryonic death and reduced fertility in many herds at present. You may be surprised at the number of bloodlines within you herd that carry the C.V.M recessive. WMS will screen all matings and eliminate any potential matings to carriers of recessives.

The next step is to look at the herd on a whole herd basis and identify the strengths and weaknesses and prioritise those traits most in need of improvement. Having done this, the evaluator will select bulls to run within the programme that fit within the farmer's criteria such as required levels of production and type, price etc. The programme will also run non-World Wide Sires UK bulls alongside our own. (In many cases, evaluators are in a better position to assess those bulls than the competitors themselves and their honest views are greatly appreciated by the customer.) At this stage the program will then select a sire for each member of the herd on an individual basis, giving a much improved mating option for every cow. The reports generated are then left on farm for the customer to correctively mate straight away.

Having selected the group of bulls the customer wishes to use, the WMS programme will then screen the bulls for use in the herd with the aim of ensuring that each cow is bred to the best corrective mating.

No other mating programme has obtained such a strong and proven track record over a long period of time. There can only be 1 reason that the WMS now mates over 3.5 million cows annually. The answer is simple - Customer Satisfaction!

WMS Evaluators

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