Herd of the Year 2022 Finland

The Herd of the Year award in Finland was given to Iskola Farm this autumn. The farm has a long history of cooperation in terms of breeding with VikingGenetics. The farm does systematic genomic tests on all heifers, uses VikingGenetics’ sires and undertakes embryo flushing as well.

Joint venture

Iskola farm is owned by Jari Luukkonen and Pertti Savolainen from Sonkajärvi and Neliapila farm from Vierema. This joint venture project was started when they calculated that by combining the herds, the price per litre of milk produced could be reduced and efficiency increased. The managing director is Tuomo Kauppinen, and the board meets a few times a year to decide on the farm's most important policies.

The new barn for 550 dairy cows was completed in 2011 and is one of the largest barns in Finland. The heifers have 130 hectares of biotope pasture, with about 900 hectares of other arable land. There are eight milking robots in use.

Herd of the Year Finland 2022 – Iskola Farm VikingRed VikingHolstein

Heifers from VikingGenetics

When they started to plan the new barn, they also put a lot of thought into how to increase the number of animals to ensure the best genetics in the herd. New animals were procured from a few select farms.

They also made an agreement with VikingGenetics for the procurement of heifers. Iskola farm bought in total 156 heifers from VikingGenetics from 2012-2019. The heifers are donors from the VikingEmbryo programme. They have started buying heifers again this year.

"The animal acquisitions have been good, all the heifers have learned to use the robots well," Jari says.

At the moment, new animals are only bought from VikingGenetics. Surplus heifers are not sold to other farms, as the number of heifers is optimised for their own needs.

The new consolidated barn is for calves and cows in production. The heifers are kept in the old smaller barns of Iskola's partners. The young heifer calves are moved from the main barn to the heifer barns when they are three months old and return to the production barn two months before calving.

Longevity as a breeding goal

The average yield of the herd is now 11,088 kg of milk (11,786kg ECM). Roughly half of the cows in the herd are VikingRed and half are VikingHolstein. The goal is to reach 12,000kg average production in the near future.

The farm has had cows in the herd with a lifetime production of over 100,000 kg. They now have 70 cows in the herd with a lifetime production of over 50,000 kg and one cow that has reached 100,000 kg. They also have one amazing cow with a lifetime production of a whopping 150,000 kg of milk.

The ultimate breeding goal for the herd is longevity, and in addition to yield, this is achieved by paying attention to health and fertility traits. The breeding plan is drawn up in cooperation with Faba breeding advisors (Finnish coop owner of VikingGenetics) and is updated regularly. The AI team from Faba takes care of the daily inseminations and ensures they use the best sires from VikingGenetics.

Iskola farm has always used VikingGenetics’ sires. "The breeding goes so smoothly. We inform the breeding specialists of the goals of our herd, and they order the right bulls. We are satisfied with the results of the VikingGenetics’ bulls in our cows. The sire selection is very good," states Jari.

Selling sires and Finnish traditions

Over the years, VikingGenetics has done dozens of genomic tests on bull calves born at Iskola. Several bulls have been bought for the breeding programmes and used in semen production. The VikingHolstein bulls include VH Panthon, VH Harrods, VH Siesta and VH Dime RC and the VikingRed sires VR Vimpeli, VR Fiddler and VR Bomba.

The Iskola barn is bright and clean, and the cows are fantastic. Although there are hundreds of cows, they all have a name by which they are known.

There is a Finnish quirk in the barn too. There’s a sauna. You can enjoy the heat of the sauna with a view overlooking the calves in the barn.