MANAGEMENT MATTERS FERTILITY - MEETING THE CHALLENGES WITH TEAMWORK
Exploiting genetic potential can be at the expense of other key performance factors including fertility. Advanced Nutrition’s Bryn Davies explores how to make better use of the tools to hand and takes a look at one high input high output herd which has reached its Calving Index (CI) goal
Bryn Davies T
he UK herd’s national CI is running at a totally unacceptable average of 430 days. If producers targeted a 390 day CI, then average 7,500 litre herds could improve yield by approximately 900 litres per lactation together with an accompanying improved income and other benefi ts including extra calves. Fertility is managed in three simple stages on farm; does the cow come a bulling? Do we see her? Have we stopped her? Two of the major infl uences on this process are nutrition and heat detection.
Nutrition
Inadequate nutrients particularly energy results in anovulation – she doesn’t cycle or come a bulling and pregnancy loss. Body condition score and anovular cows are strongly linked. High feed intake and fertility effi ciency are linked by high hormone metabolism, consequently high yielding cows need more feed. There is a clear relationship between milk production, heat detection effi ciency and double ovulation. High feed intake encourages increased blood fl ow in the digestive tract and in turn to the liver which leads to high oestrogen and progesterone breakdown together with changes in circulating concentrations of hormones.
Heat detection
Detection becomes harder as yield increases, so we need to develop improved management protocols and use all the tools available – tail chalk, pedometers and Heatime collars, notwithstanding more viewing time. Data must be monitored and recorded daily.
Case study
Calving Index has been transformed from a 434 day average to a commendable average 387 days within a high input high output 200 cow pedigree Holstein herd, thanks to teamwork which brings together the unit’s farm manager Calum McGinley, its herd manager Robin McCormick, nutritionist Bryn Davies, and vet Ross Muir from the Nithsdale Veterinary Surgeons. The four year turn around at Kirkland Farm, Terregles, Dumfries has brought savings of £4.50 per CI day per cow equating to £42,000 extra herd income. At the same time average yield has increased by 1,500 litres to a current 10,300 litres, while concentrate use has fallen from 0.5 kg to 0.4 kg per litre. Robin McCormick makes sure he knows every cow and understands her behaviour. “I’m with the cows daily between 4am and 1pm, from 3pm to 6pm and a fi nal 9pm check. Heatime head collars provide a useful
Grass silage Maize silage
WCW
Chopped straw Vitagold
Availa Dry Cow Minerals 94 THE JOURNAL OCTOBER 2010
back up tool. I’m AI trained and start serving at 42 days post calving. I allow 12 hours between standing heat and service. Record keeping is extremely important. I have a record of every cow on paper, on a Bray board and another in my head.”
Ross Muir makes bi-monthly herd fertility visits. “I make post-partum checks on all cows more than two weeks calved, which have had diffi cult calvings, twins, milk fevers or retained placentae. I examine all cows which are calved 40 days and have not been seen bulling. If a cow has a corpus luteum (CL) then she is treated with prostaglandins. If there is no CL and otherwise normal, she is given no treatment and re- examined in two weeks if not served. If there is a follicular cyst she is treated with gonadotrophin releasing hormone (GnRH) and re-examined in two weeks. All cows are pregnancy tested fi ve weeks after service and non-pregnant ones treated.”
Bryn Davies says that dry cow nutrition over the six week transition period is the main infl uence on herd performance. “Our objective is to keep her in stable condition over the six weeks, and avoid weight loss, in order to remove any risk of an energy defi cit at calving. She should be bomb proof for the next nine months if we get her coming through postnatally without any problems.
“Fresh feed in front of them every day is essential. The far offs are fed a forage diet – see Table 1, and those in the last three weeks, exactly the same far off dry cow diet plus 2.5 kg dry cow replenisher nuts per head per day and 160 g of anionic salts.”
Table 1: The far off dry cow diet Forage
Kg
freshweight 8
8 4 5
2 0.2 DM% ME Protein% Starch
28 20
70 86
34
11.5 11.0
11 6
14
12 10
9.5 4
34
27 28
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