Accurate heat detection is only a part of electronic animal monitoring.
With a heat detection accuracy of over 90%, the next level of reproductive management relies on timing insemination to maximize conception rates.
Statistically, the eight-hour window between eight and sixteen hours after the peak in activity are the ideal time to inseminate a cow or heifer for the best conception rates.
For best conception rates the ideal time to inseminate is 8-16 hour after her peak of activity.
A count-down clock imbedded in the Cows in Heat report makes the determination of the ideal breeding window easy. There’s no need to compute each cow’s individual breeding window. It is an incredible time saver and eliminates potential calculation errors.
Cows Ready for AI report. Red rectangle highlights the breeding window which counts down the hours to expected ovulation. Cells are color coded to highlight the ideal time to inseminate: green is ideal, yellow is either too early or too late and red indicates that ovulation is expected to have occurred.
Coding and recording the breeding events on the basis of the actual time remaining until expected ovulation in a herd management program can grant an even more powerful tool in determining the ideal insemination window specific for the farm once a large enough sample has been collected.
Below is a chart displaying conception rates for four farms based on insemination timing. Each farm has a different “sweet spot” for insemination.
Conception rates by farm and insemination timing relative to peak activity (red arrow)
Some farms take this practice one step further and analyze conception rates by insemination timing, lactation number and milk production level to get an even better understanding of what works best for them.
In a few cases the data indicates that younger cows achieve better conception rates when bred closer to ovulation and more mature cows conceive at higher rates when bred closer to peak activity.
Usually an AM-PM breeding schedule provides enough flexibility to maximize the effectiveness of this approach, eliminating the obligation to breed cows around the clock.
When is the best time to inseminate your cows?
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