Rusmolco opened the first center of the reproduction of the herd for 5.2 thousand heads

On August 21, 2015, the Russian dairy company inaugurated the first, out of two, site of its own breeding center for 5.2 thousand heads in the Kuznetsk area of the Penza region. Such important people as Ivan Belozertsev, Governor of the Penza region, Ms. Lim Kheng Hua, Ambassador of the Republic of Singapore in the Russian Federation, Sunny Verghese, Co-Founder of Olam International Limited Company, took part in the ceremony of a grand opening. The event was also attended by representatives of the regional authorities and banks, leaders of the agricultural unions, top management and employees of Rusmolco.

A decision to build a center for rearing young stock was taken a few years ago.  At that time

all Holstein-Friesian heifers was imported either from the Netherlands or from the USA.  The delivery took from several days to several months (it depended on the importer country). After that, the animals were kept under the quarantine for one month. Therefore, in total it took up to 3 months to get heifers, fully adopted to the Russian conditions. Additionally, it is necessary to take into consideration such a factor as price and costs plus a high dependence on the epizootic situation in countries - suppliers.

In view of that, one day Rusmolco’s experts came to the conclusion that is a right moment to invest in the creation of its own reproduction center. In this case, the adaptation period will be reduced dramatically and will be rather painless for animals. Furthermore, rearing own heifers is 35% cheaper than the supply from abroad.

A heifer village in Pioneer is a unique project showing a specialized approach to solve a breeding  problem. The Pioneer facility is aimed at raising heifers between 6 to 12 months old. The capacity of this farm is 2 100  heads. It will be interesting to know that this heifer village is one of the stages of a larger technological chain. The entire cycle is comprised of 4 sites: Arshinovka, Narovchat, Pioneer and Megafarm. The special feature of this system is its narrow specialization that ensures very accurate weight gains, health and reproduction management. Usually, in a milk-producing farm, these activities do not get a required focus and hence replacement heifers coming into a dairy suffers. The Pioneer enterprise will raise only pedigree Holstein young stock in well-equipped barns where all the conditions for such calves will be maintained. Feed for the heifers is produced from own nearby fields of Rusmolco.  Such advanced facilities allow to grow heifers in perfect health and inseminate with a sexed semen / genomic semen that will give a much higher percentage of heifer births (which is normally 50:50), and speed up the genetic potential development of the herd.

It is expected that, in future, this center will not only produce heifers for Rusmolco’s needs but will also supply pedigree heifers to other dairies of the Russian Federation. The total capacity of the heifer raising cycle will  be 5 200 heifers making it one of the largest and most modern facility not only in Russia but in the world.

As a final result, with own heifers which will be in better health, with better genetics, less stress, and more acclimatized to Penza conditions (than imported ),  Rusmolco will be able to produce more high quality milk for all of us!

The cost of the project is 1.2 billion rubles.