Progressive Times Fall 2015 MN Select Sires Volume1 | Page 4

Interested in 30:30? S By Jennifer Becker Reproductive Specialist Phone: [phone] Email: [email protected] ince Dr. Paul Fricke, University of Wisconsin-Madison spoke at the 2015 Central Plains Dairy Expo, a 30 percent pregnancy rate (PR) on a 30,000 pound dairy herd has been the topic of great interest. Fricke encouraged producers not to be happy with a 20-24% pregnancy rate, but instead strive for 30%. Herd reproductive performance is critical for profitability, and pregnancy rate affects a multitude of areas on the dairy including days in milk, culling, number of replacements born, days open, etc. Fricke stressed that producers need to focus on four key areas to achieve a 30% 21-day pregnancy rate: 1. Aggressively inseminate cows at the end of the voluntary waiting period (VWP) Above: a 300-cow herd that does not heat detect. If a cow is open at preg. check, they re-enter her in a synchronization program. By utilizing heat detection, an activity monitoring system, or Resynching with GnRH seven days prior to preg check, the herd could increase 4% PR, which could easily save them from $13,000 to $20,000 each year ($44 to $71/cow/yr * x 300 cows). * ReproMoney Program® UW-Madison, Cabrera Many dairies struggle with getting semen in cows in a timely manner after the end of the VWP. Today, a variety of tools are available that can help. Monitoring devices (such as CowManager and Heatime) and tail chalking programs increase the efficiency of estrous detection. As well, synchronization programs and timed A.I. can help you get semen in virtually all eligible animals. 2. Increase fertility of first A.I. Inseminating at the proper time so that semen reaches the healthy and viable egg is important. Some of our producers are determining the best time to inseminate by looking at the activity graphs of CowManager and Heatime. Many of our producers use synchronization programs to utilize hormones in a structured schedule to initiate ovulation and allow the implementation of timed A.I. Therefore, compliance to the protocols is critical. In a PreSynch/OvSynch protocol, even 95% compliance at each dose isn’t enough because that only translates to 77% compliance across the entire program. GnRH based synch programs are also successfully used to induce cyclicity in anovular cows. 3. Identify nonpregnant cows and aggressively reinseminate them Relying on synchronization of ovulation and timed A.I. can improve first service A.I. insemination rates. However after first service, cows that do not become pregnant too often fall through the cracks and do not get re-inseminated during their next heat cycle