Breed the milkers for the end of quotas in 2015
Unfortunately on many farms due to milk quota, nutrition, disease, fertility and management problems calving has been slipping back and the breeding season extends over many months. According to one Cork farmer the difference in profitability between a February and an April calving cow is a whopping €400.
However before you blame the cow or the breed for poor fertility you need to optimise herd health, animal nutrition and welfare. Naturally farm management needs to be first class to achieve best results. There are no short cuts or any easy way to achieving optimum fertility.
As regards the breed, fertility over the years has been falling in all dairy and beef breeds. This fall in fertility may have arisen because of an undue focus on other desirable traits in addition to problems arising from inadequate nutrition, increasing herd size etc.
There are significant differences within cow families for fertility and other traits so it’s worth checking out what your local pedigree breeder has to offer and what advice your semen supplier can give you.
According to Teagasc a missed heat can cost €250 due to loss of milk yield in subsequent lactations and later born replacements. So detecting cows in heat is a major issue as herds get bigger and farmers are under time pressure. Fortunately many innovative firms (Dairymaster, DeLaval, Progressive Genetics etc) have accurate and cost effective heat detection equipment available which is a good long term investment on a dairy farm.
