Increase profit. Reduce management inputs. Design a cow that eats less, doesn’t know what a hospital pen is and rarely gets the “open” diagnosis at pregnancy check. This can be accomplished in a single generation with a $100 increase or more in profit per cow per year.

Pregnancy rate is a standard measure of the success of a dairy reproductive program. It is the percentage of females eligible to become pregnant in a 21-day period that actually become pregnant. The good news is that average pregnancy rate (PR) has been increasing again over the last decade.

One of the things I like about my job as sales and marketing manager for Simplot Animal Sciences is the variety of activities I can be involved in. My office is located on a 400-acre Idaho ranch stocked with 350 cows we use as recipients for our in vitro fertilization (IVF) research and other assisted reproductive technologies.

We’ve all heard the statement, “Genetics don’t matter without first creating a pregnancy.” This insightful truth has shifted our global breeding strategy to a stronger focus on fertility.

“I now say that the world has the technology – either available or well advanced in the research pipeline – to feed on a sustainable basis a population of 10 billion people.

Metritis is among the most common and important diseases that strike the dairy farm. While there are many effective treatment options available, cows with even mild cases pay a considerable price during their lactation period through decreased milk production and reproductive efficiency.

With more herds achieving outstanding milk yields, more questions are raised about how these high yields impact reproductive performance. If your herd is achieving a high milk yield average per cow, do you need to change the way you manage your cows reproductively?

Reproduction is a fascinating story. The story begins with the supply of oocytes that are present from before birth on both ovaries.

Over the past five years, genomics has received a lot of publicity as a tool to help manage your herd’s genetics. Whether it is determining an overall breeding strategy for your herd or trying to find that high-end outlier that brings tens of thousands of dollars at a cattle sale, there is no doubt genomics has revolutionized the way producers look at dairy genetics.

Nearly 300 dairy cattle reproduction enthusiasts gathered Nov. 10-11, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio, for the 11th Dairy Cattle Reproduction Council (DCRC) annual meeting.