Herd fertility in your hands

What does profitable dairying mean to you? Each farm owner, manager or sharemilker will have a different answer to this question. Milk solids in the vat, cows in calf, high-value progeny, longevity, cull value, easy-to-manage cows and more may feature on your list.

The defining point to note out of this list is every farm is different and each farmer has individual goals and aspirations for their herd; one size does not fit all.

What all of these aims have in common, however, is to achieve any of them you need to get your cows in calf.

CRV AmBreed is pleased to bring you key resources and our own experience in breeding and mating management to help you and your staff improve whole-herd fertility from birth, right though their productive lives.

Genetics, in particular choosing the right sires to achieve your breeding objectives, is one of the elements contributing to getting your cows in calf. Getting the right bull for the job doesn't have to be difficult; breeding advice programmes such as CRV AmBreed's SireMatch are designed to make it easy and effective.

We recognise every farmer has different goals and needs. Our SireMatch product takes this into account, turning the farmer's breeding goals into practical sire advice, with recommendations ranging from simple inbreeding prevention through to highly customised cow-by-cow improvements.

But before you can mate your cows, you need to correctly and consistently pick those that are on heat. Quite simply, if your heat detection isn't up to scratch then you won't get your cows in calf.

DairyNZ tells us the best heat detection programmes, both before and during mating, combine planning and observation with effective heat detection aids. Tail paint has been used for many years but today, farmers have even better detection aids to make the job easy and accurate.

Our Estrotect heat detectors take a lot of the uncertainty out of heat detection, even for farms with large herds and multiple staff. Unlike tailpaint, Estrotects aren't affected by inconsistencies in application and are much clearer to read – especially from a distance or in poor light. We recommend that Estrotects are applied in time for premating heats and right through mating. As cows come on heat and are recorded, a different colour Estrotect is applied making it obvious which cows have not cycled and need to be referred to your vet for further investigation to stay within a concentrated calving pattern.

Finally, you'll want to make sure those straws hit the spot. Artificial insemination is something CRV AmBreed knows about. We inseminate close to half a million cows each year and have trained 10,000 New Zealand dairy farmers to successfully inseminate their own cows at out DIY AI training schools."

So, it becomes obvious that mating management and fertility improvement is a year-round approach that lasts the lifetime of the cow. But what seems like a tall order in a volatile season will yield measurable improvement in future seasons, leading to real improvements in the herd as culling decisions are made under production, conformation and management objectives rather than fertility and even some immediate production results; a side-effect of more active management practices.

• Angela Entwisle is product manager, herd services at CRV AmBreed.