Over time the dairy industry has encountered the challenge of declining trends for fertility and overall health, across diverse production systems. A number of reasons may explain this performance slope, including changes in cow physiology related to greater milk production, challenges in nutritional management, housing, increased herd size, reduced estrous expression and changes in the genetic makeup

Holstein breeders making sire selection and breeding strategy decisions will have genetic information directly related to herd health beginning in April 2018.

Five dairy producers discussed if and how new genetic evaluations for health traits might be incorporated into their herd management during the Council for Dairy Cattle Breeding (CDCB) annual meeting, held Oct. 3 in conjunction with World Dairy Expo.

Through technology and other tools, the amount of information available to make dairy management decisions continues to grow. That includes reproduction and genetics, where official evaluations will feature six new health traits beginning in April 2018.

More than five years ago, Heller Farms increased their pregnancy rate from 10 to 18 percent by switching from a breeding synchronization program to activity monitoring.

Genetic progress waits for nothing, making time one of the herdsman’s most valuable assets in being competitive and profitable. The good news is: Today’s reproductive technology makes all that possible – all you need to do is make the right decisions.

Dairy farmers could lower costs associated with heifer rearing by making improvements in their herd reproductive management, based on research being conducted by Ph.D. candidate Magdalena Masello and Cornell University’s Dairy Cattle Biology and Management Laboratory.

Gandhi seemed to have known what he was talking about when it came to breeding a profitable herd of cows when he said, “The future depends on what you do today.”

What are your choices when mating A.I. sires to the dairy cattle in your herd? Do you use one of the mating services? Focus on Net Merit Dollars (NM$)? Or simply want to get the cow pregnant because you know that nine months from now she will drop a calf and start all over again on the lactation curve?

The simple solution to boosting dairy cattle conception rates (CR) is to improve reproductive management and cow environment, as these two general categories account for 96 percent of CR variation.