Feed efficiency

More milk with less feed

  • World leading in feed efficiency
  • Select the most efficient animals
  • High reliability

Improve your profitability by breeding with Feed Efficiency

Cows that produce more milk using less feed could help dairy farmers around the world combat rising feed costs, which show no sign of easing.

Breeding towards better feed efficiency gives you higher revenues. In addition, efficient utilisation of feed also has a positive impact on the environment as it reduces greenhouse gas emissions and the use of scarce resources.

Feed costs represent about 60 percent of all variable costs involved in milk production. Breeding with CRV Feed Efficiency can help you produce 2 to 4 percent more milk from the same amount of feed (based on a cow’s lifetime production).

More milk with less feed and less emissions

Take control

  • Breeding towards better feed efficiency helps lower feed costs as well as greenhouse gas emissions. CRV organized a webinar on feed efficiency together with Trouw Nutrition. Fill in the contact form to get access to this webinar.
  • Take control and partner with us to start breeding a more feed efficient herd today. Are you also wondering what your revenues can be? Get in touch with us.
Half of our total costs are for feed. Saving 5 to 10% with breeding adds up to considerable gains
Wilco Vroege, dairy farmer in Dalen, the Netherlands

Proven feed efficient genetics

CRV is the global leader in proven feed efficient genetics. We are the only company in the world to base our unique Feed Efficiency breeding value on real feed intake data. We collect feed intake data from over 2,000 lactating cows across five commercial dairy farms every day. This gives us 4 million feed intake records each year. We combine this information with data collected from 9,000 Dutch and Flemish cows to give us the most reliable breeding value in the industry and we have the largest reference population. Our research shows the reliability of our feed efficiency breeding value with CRV daughters proven bulls is 85-90%.


Higher revenues with feed efficiency

Breeding efficient and sustainable dairy herds

Efficient and sustainable cows benefit both dairy farmers and the environment. Cows bred with CRV Feed Efficiency will convert any type of feed more efficiently into milk.

Cows who use feed more efficiently also positively impact the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and using less scarce resources.

Being economical with feed has never been so important, especially right now with all the pressing issues like nitrogen emissions.
Gerard Meerkerk, dairy farmer in Emmer-Compascuum, the Netherlands

Increase your farm’s profitability using genetics: select the most efficient animals

Daughters of CRV bulls that currently score best on Feed Efficiency will produce more milk with the same amount of feed. The daughters of a bull with a breeding value of 108 will produce 4% more milk with the same amount of feed. You can optimise your revenues even more by selecting the most feed efficient calves with the genomic testing program HerdOptimizer GO.

As feed costs continue to rise, you can protect the profitability of your business by breeding a herd that converts feed more efficiently into milk.

Dairy farmer Willem Alders has been conducting feed trials for CRV for several years. He has seen huge differences in the feed efficiency, even between similar cows. Read Willem Alders’ story here.

Feed efficiency explained

"We use 10% less concentrate than before and the production has remained the same"
Thijs van Gastel, dairy farmer, the Netherlands

More information

If you are interested in feed efficient genetics and would you like more information, fill in our contact form. You can also view our extensive portfolio of feed efficient sires in our catalogue via the button below. You can filter based on different breeding values.

Also interesting for you:

Feed efficiency reveals huge differences

CRV introduced the feed efficiency breeding value. Willem Alders has been conducting feed trials for CRV for several years and sees huge differences.

Breeding for feed efficiency increases utilisation of roughage intake

Background article on the relationship between feed efficiency and roughage intake utilisation.

Feed efficiency in SireMatch

CRV collects feed intake data from over 2,000 lactating cows on a daily basis using bins. And we also measure daily milk production, body weight, water intake, health traits etc. This is combined with data collected from 8,000 Dutch and Flemish cows. In the proof run of August 2021 we see bulls that score high on feed efficiency. Genomic bulls have a reliability of 50% on feed efficiency and daughter proven 70 to 85%.