MAINTAINING BODY CONDITION FOR OPTIMAL FERTILITY
Are you managing body condition for optimal fertility this season? It’s all about energy intakes, believes Advanced Nutrition’s vet nutritionist, Debby Brown
Figure 1: Grazed grass value Month May June July
August September Source: Milk from Grass
eeding sufficient energy is critical to maintain cow condition and in turn increases production of the key fertility hormone progesterone and improves egg quality for fertilisation. However, as we’re approaching mid-summer, grazed grass quality and subsequent grass DM intakes continue to vary according to ley type and quality, the weather and available residual swards. Feed budgets have been kept tight since turn out as farmers all try to make more milk from forage. One thing is for certain, the quality and quantity of grazing will start to deteriorate fast from now on. Figure 1 provides a rough idea of the production levels alone you can expect to achieve from grazed grass, never mind sufficient energy to exploit yield potential, minimise body condition loss and achieve optimal fertility. Consequently, introducing energy supplements is going to be
F
M + litres 15.0 18.0 16.0 9.0 4.5
essential, but how much? First off, you need to continually assess sward value, that means getting out with the plate metre or measuring with your marked boots on at least a weekly basis to determine just how much dry matter is available.
Once you’ve established the dry matter figure then buffer feeding is one sound option to plug the energy deficit and enable the herd to still graze at least part of the day. Figure 2 provides an indication of how much buffer will be required at critical stages of the reproduction cycle, this is somewhat dependant on breed and
42 THE JOURNAL APRIL 2015
grazing management as well. The buffer can either be parlour or trough fed and is usually a diet based on wheat, maize, sugar beet, soya hulls, soya bean meal and forage which is not grass based depending on the time of year and grazing conditions.
Body condition scoring
Body condition scoring is a reliable management tool that is easy to implement and will determine if you really are getting the energy level right. Figure 3 states the targets at different stages of lactation.
It is best to condition score milking cows individually at least fortnightly and the dry cows at least weekly. The important thing is to make sure every single animal within the herd never changes more than 0.5 body condition score throughout lactation.
Newly calved and early lactation cows are under the most pressure. About 5% of the energy a high-producing cow requires to make milk comes from her body fat reserves. Many herds will average a 0.5 body condition score loss in the first 30 days, but a good goal is not to exceed this. It is absolutely vital that cows do not exceed a loss of one body condition score
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