Cattle breeding expert trains the next generation in herd management practices

The cattle artificial breeding consultant said he was keen to pass on his 33-plus years of experience, to sure-up the numbers of professionally trained livestock breeding technicians.

Mr Kenny has spent much of his career on the road, semen testing up to 6000 bulls for six months of the year as well as muscle scanning and morphology testing.

"There is not many people in the world who can collect semen from bulls, process semen on farm and conduct morphology and muscle scanning all in one package," he said.

"I have continued to improve my skills and knowledge and have my Cert IV training and assessment."

Having noticed a shortage of technicians in the industry Mr Kenny became a trainer with Brisbane based Orion Training, which offers accredited livestock breeding courses, including semen collection.

Orion Training CEO Suzanne Manwill said the focus of their courses was to fill skill shortages in the agriculture sector.

"There is a shortage of even vets who can provide these services," she said.

"We started the livestock breeding training during the Covid pandemic. Farmers were left on their own with no technicians able to travel interstate and support them in breeding.

"These courses have now supported a lot of our farmers in being independent, being able to inseminate their own cattle, preg test their own cattle and collect their bull's semen...farmers have more skills for breeding, more farm hands and more people they are able to draw on.

"The difficulty has been that farmers don't want young people to be doing a whole qualification, they just want different farmhands in different areas on their farm with proper skill sets.

"We focus on short sharp skills in targeted areas that farmers want...they are able to control their breeding practices, genetics, nutrition planning and even their biosecurity planning."

One of the skills that is offered as part of Orion's Livestock Breeding course, is semen collection, analysis and morphology.

"We have an accredited course that teaches people how to use a microscope and analyse semen for any abnormalities, looking at the density and the rating...this is particularly important for breeders," she said.

"Stud breeders need to know if their bulls are going to perform or if they are going to sell them, so that they can sell them with a performance review in terms of their semen."

Artificial insemination courses are also proving popular.

Since joining Orion as a trainer, Mr Kenny said he has seen a lot more young people interested in the livestock breeding courses. He works closely with Dairy Australia staff in the regions to organise host farms and engage participants.

"I have led 35 AI courses with Orion in the last 14 months. We work in collaboration with NHIA (National Herd Improvement Association) and Dairy Australia and are developing a beef arm for training through MLA and Orion," Mr Kenny said.

"It's like a herd improvement learning hub. NHIA has got a learning management system they are putting together, so if you want to do an ag course you go through NHIA to find out where you can take accredited ag courses through a TAFE or RTO."

Following completion of the Orion training or TAFE accredited AI course, trainees are required to AI 500 cows and complete a log book where they document the number of cows and detailed notes in a log book with comments on how the process went for each cow and any observations they made.

Once they have completed 500 cows, and a best practice AI accreditation, the trainees can get in touch with NHIA, who can facilitate employment with a herd improvement company.

Assessment of the technicians has also become a part of Mr Kenny's work. Technicians accredited under NHIA can be promoted as national artificial insemination Technician best practice.

"It means they have done the best practice of the whole AI course, workplace health and safety, respect around the cows, hygiene and biosecurity. They do the assessment. We travel with them and watch them AI 40 to 50 cows," he said.

"It gives confidence to that farmer that they have been ticked off as an accredited AI technician through NHIA."

Mr Kenny said the extra AI technicians would be particularly helpful for the dairy industry.

"Dairy Australia and National Herd Improvement Association are trying to get people into the industry and education is part of NHIA's mantra, training young people to young people in industry to stay in industry," he said.

"They are bringing technicians in from overseas to AI cows, Irish technicians, English technicians and American technicians. So the whole thought process in the dairy industry is to get people involved so they do the courses and stay in the industry."

"Along came Covid and all of the technicians that they get form overseas couldn't come and it highlighted how important it was to have Australian, professionally trained technicians."

Mr Kenny said he could see that the pieces of the puzzle had finally come together.

"It has taken probably four years for NHIA and DA to write this new curriculum and get it out there so they can have professional AI technicians," he said.