“I installed an automated heat detection system, but it is flagging cows that are not in heat. I’m so frustrated.” This is a very common complaint from dairy farmers. They are told an activity system will find the cows in heat better than their personnel, which is true, but they are never told what to do with the extra cows on the list. 

Raising heifers today is about having the right ones, not keeping every one. Do you need an inventory of heifers to maintain your milking herd? Of course. But are you confident your heifer inventory contains the type of females you need to sustain your herd and help you reach your herd’s productivity and profitability goals?

Meet cow 8968. She lives on a 1,500-cow dairy farm in Wisconsin, where she’s milked three times per day through a double-20 parallel parlor. She’s fed a well-balanced ration and spends her time resting in sand-bedded freestalls.

An opportunity for capturing higher profits may be hiding in a herd’s voluntary waiting period (VWP). “With better control of when cows get pregnant, you can then control the timing of the pregnancies to when cows make you the most money.”

The onset of estrus in dairy cattle is accompanied by changes in physiological activity, rumination and feeding behavior. These alterations can be monitored via direct observation or through the use of automatic sensors to identify deviations associated with estrus, subclinical illness or lameness.

Can you believe up to 60 percent of embryos don’t “make it” in the lactating dairy cow? That’s right. In addition to poor estrus expression and low conception rate, embryonic loss is another significant contributor to poor reproductive efficiency, with combined pre- and post-fertilization losses exceeding 70 percent.

Pregnancy losses are extensive in lactating dairy cattle. In fact, in many cases these losses are underestimated because of the challenges that exist on-farm to accurately determine conception early after insemination.

One of the major factors determining dairy herd efficiency is the amount milk sold per cow per day of life. Several factors contribute to pounds of milk sold per day of life, but reproductive performance is a major contributor. The two main reproduction influences on lifetime milk production are age at first calving and percentage of time a cow spends in the first months of lactation.