Cycling cows are the product of good management. Happy, healthy, well-fed cows will cycle and will conceive. Anestrous cows are a symptom of a management shortcoming, in either health, comfort and/or nutrition. Cows don’t suddenly decide to stop cycling for no reason. About 80% of cows will naturally cycle before 60 DIM in a well-managed […]
Cow Pregnancies and Profitable Milk
Much of the discussion in the dairy industry revolves around getting cows pregnant in a “timely manner.” The consensus is focused on time to first service and, hopefully, conception early in the lactation (or in other words, attaining a high pregnancy rate). But does a high pregnancy rate go hand in hand with profitability? Let’s […]
How Many Times Do You Touch Your Cows in a Lactation?
In a conventionally managed herd, a healthy cow that conceives at first service is handled 10 times when she is subjected to a fresh cow protocol, five times as she goes through a presynch-ovesynch program, one time when she’s bred and two times during pregnancy checks. A total of eighteen times! In an advanced electronically […]
When Cows Are Left Alone
Conventional fresh cow programs require the “touching” of every fresh cow every day for the first ten days of the lactation. Every cow is checked, every day. Why? Because it is extremely difficult to know which cow needs veterinary intervention and which one does not. Thus, we play it safe and check them all. Once […]
4 Ways Animal Monitoring Reduces Involuntary Culling
Typically, the implementation of an animal monitoring system will help reduce involuntary culling by over 50%. Knowing an individual cow’s status through the measurement and tracking of behaviors and changes of behaviors is the key to decision making flexibility. Culling is defined as the departure of cows from the herd due to sale, slaughter, or […]
Accurate Heat Detection is at the Core of Maximizing the Economic Value of Heifers
Upon deployment of a monitoring system, the immediate goal is building trust in the accuracy of the heat detection function. As heifers start appearing on the list, they are bred within the optimal time window recommended by the software. As heifers are bred, get pregnant, and management’s confidence level increases, the goal evolves from just […]
Are We Maximizing Pregnant Heifer’s Economic Value?
Heifers are a farm’s future producers of revenue. As such, in pure financial terminology, heifers should be classified as assets and their management should be focused on maximizing their future revenue potential relative to the total investment made. A heifer can generate incremental revenue in three different areas: Potential for milk production. Giving birth to […]
Are Your Protocols Helping or Hurting Your Bottom Line?
With 25%-30% of cows calving early and displaying retained fetal membranes, this Western US dairy was experiencing a significant financial hit. Cows with retained fetal membranes are more susceptible to suffer ketosis, displaced abomasum and being culled earlier. The cost per incident is estimated at over $300. For this 800-cow herd, the total cost of […]
What Are Non-Cycling Cows Telling Us?
Cows don’t consciously decide not to cycle. But when cows don’t cycle, they are certainly trying to tell us something. One can have a quick evaluation of the effectiveness or a farm’s transition program by looking at the percent of cows cycling before 60 DIM. About 80% of the cows in a well run farm […]
Don’t Rush Getting Some Cows Pregnant
In the 1950’s, the standardized lactation length was set at 305 days when average herd size was six cows and average milk production was 5,314lbs. We’ve come a long way to the current situation of average milk production of over 22,000 lbs and an average herd size of 223 cows in 2016. Where in the […]