When I get onto a dairy struggling to get cows bred, fingers start pointing. Often, it’s an outside person who is blamed: the nutritionist, the breeder or the veterinarian. From my experience, I can tell you the problems are more likely to stem from within – but then again, sometimes they don’t.

A dairy cow’s immune system, along with reproduction, is an important fitness trait. It’s a trait that’s of major consideration for producers because the ability to find and identify cows with a superior immune response can reduce disease incidence and improve milk quality and farm profitability.

Everything in life is a balance; even too much of a good thing can be bad. When breeding cows, farmers often tip the balance in favor of high yields and components, but a growing number of dairymen are using aAa analysis to not only improve the structural balance of their cows but also their bank account balance.

Whether you concentrate on developing elite genetics or producing milk for the market, genomic data can be a valuable tool in achieving your goals. In this article, we will examine testing options and how both breeding herds and commercial herds might use those options differently.

Producers and industry personnel gathered May 14 in Tulare, California, and May 15 in Bakersfield, California, to discuss important factors contributing to genomic testing.

Open cows that aren't cycling normally can hamper successful reproduction. This article, the first in a series on cyclicity, defines the terms “anovulation” and “anestrus.”

The brutal fact is that heritability is often misunderstood.

BVDV can affect the reproductive, respiratory and digestive systems, with possibly the greatest loss impacting reproduction. Because PI cows are a constant source of virus shedding, infection spreads to other cows, resulting in increased days open and decreased milk production.