Six Dairies Take Platinum in DCRC's 2024 Reproduction Awards

The Dairy Cattle Reproduction Council (DCRC) honored 24 dairies for exceptional reproductive performance at its annual meeting, held November 10–12 in Columbus, Ohio, with six operations earning the program's highest Platinum designation.

The Platinum winners span two countries and four U.S. states: Allevimento Dellarossa of Centallo, Italy; Southland Dairy of Dublin, Texas; Davis Family Farm of Darlington, Wisconsin; Felling Dairy LLC of Sauk Centre, Minnesota; North Creek Dairy LLC of Chatfield, Minnesota; and Vale Wood Farms of Loretto, Pennsylvania.

How the field was judged

The awards drew 99 nominations from five countries, 13 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces. Veterinarians, extension specialists, and artificial insemination and pharmaceutical company representatives nominated the herds they serve — meaning the program reflects the judgment of the consultants who see these farms' reproduction data firsthand.

DCRC's Excellence in Dairy Cattle Reproduction judges evaluated finalists on a defined set of metrics:

• Pregnancy rate
• Voluntary waiting period
• Interbreeding intervals
• Heat detection
• Conception rate
• Value of reproduction
• Culling rate

That criteria list matters at the herd level. Pregnancy rate and conception rate measure how efficiently cows settle; voluntary waiting period and interbreeding intervals reveal how tightly a farm controls its breeding calendar; culling rate signals whether reproductive pressure is being bought through cow turnover. A herd that scores across all seven measures is not merely getting cows pregnant — it is doing so while holding animals in the milking string longer.

Who else placed

Beyond the six Platinum herds, DCRC awarded six Gold, six Silver and six Bronze designations.

Gold: Cottonwood Dairy LLC, South Wayne, Wisconsin; Full Circle Dairy, Lee, Florida; Mar-Bec Dairy LLC, Mondovi, Wisconsin; Nagelhaven Farms Ltd., Springfield, Ontario; Schumacher Farms of Elgin Inc., Elgin, Minnesota; and Pieter and Julia Willig, Arva, Ontario.

Silver: Elk Creek Dairy, Tulare, California; Emerald Spring Dairy Inc., Plainview, Minnesota; Evergreen Dairy Resort, Antigo, Wisconsin; Newmont Farm, Fairlee, Vermont; Pleasant View Farms, Martinsburg, Pennsylvania; and Sonneberg Farms Ltd., Otterville, Ontario.

Bronze: Boadwine Farms Inc., Baltic, South Dakota; Copses Farms, Valley Falls, New York; Darlington Ridge Farms, Darlington, Wisconsin; Kutz Dairy LLC, Jefferson, Wisconsin; Maple Ridge Business LLC, Stratford, Wisconsin; and McAllister Dairy, New Vienna, Iowa.

Wisconsin alone placed seven herds across the four tiers, and Ontario farms claimed three of the eighteen Gold-through-Bronze spots, a geographic spread that reaches from Tulare, California, to Centallo, Italy.

What the program rewards

The awards program — sponsored by Parnell, Progressive Dairy Solutions, STgenetics, Hoard's Dairyman and DCRC — recognizes producers whose herds excel at getting cows safe in calf. The sponsoring list pairs a pharmaceutical manufacturer with genetics and consulting firms, reflecting the range of inputs that converge on a strong reproductive program: synchronization products, sire selection and day-to-day breeding management.

DCRC describes its mission as bringing together all sectors of the dairy industry — producers, consultants, academia and allied industry professionals — for improved reproductive performance, an opportunity the organization says lets all groups work together to push dairy cattle reproduction to the next level.

For veterinarians and reproduction consultants, the annual winners list doubles as a benchmark: these 24 herds represent the upper bound of what the judged metrics can look like when heat detection, breeding intervals and culling decisions are managed as one system. Nominations for next year's cycle will again come from the professionals who work inside these herds.