With breeding season almost upon us, it is essential for farmers to pick out the problem cows in the herd and the cows that they plan on breeding their replacements off.
Heat detection in April is crucial and farmers should continue their pre-breeding heat detection right up until the start of the breeding season.
The whole herd should be tail painted to identify any cow that is not showing signs of heat or clearly not cycling and, even if collars or heat detection devices are on the herd, the farmer needs to be proactive with the data obtained from the devices.
A cow that has calved over 42 days and not showing any signs of heat should be marked and checked by the vet at least a week ahead of the breeding season.
These cows should be examined, along with any in the herd that had difficult calvings, retained cleanings, milk fever or any metabolic issues, or calved down a set of twins.
All of these cows are at higher risk of of uterine infection, which makes it hugely important for them to be checked and for your vet to decide on an appropriate treatment if necessary.
Problem cows
By carrying out these pre-breeding checks, you are increasing the problem cow’s chances of getting back in calf within the first few weeks of the breeding season.
If these cows were not checked, they would linger around for most of the breeding without showing signs of heat, resulting in them not going in calf or going in calf later in the breeding season and stretching out the calving pattern.
These problem cows should be considered for fixed time artificial insemination (AI) at the start of the breeding season to ensure a compact calving season and maximise every cow’s possibility of going in calf.
Having as many cows as possible fit for the mating start date will increase submission rates, which is key to achieving a high six-week calving rate.
Breeding season is a busy time of the year and so many farmers are of the mindset that they can deal with these non-cycling and problem cows once breeding comes around.
However, with spring calving systems, time is everything, as conception rates improve with increasing number of cycles, so interventions that kickstart the reproductive cycle early increase the number of opportunities that cows have to get back in calf.
Mating start date
The 2025 calving season on average started a bit later than usual, probably closer to the second week of February for many herds in the country.
This was put down to a couple of factors, with many blaming the harsh cold weather at the start of May 2024 accompanied with poor grass growth for hindering conception rates.
However, many herds opted to start their calving season that bit later due to the poor wet weather in the last few recent Februarys.
This was in an effort to get cows out to grass as they calve down and to match the farm’s grass growth curve.
Farmers need to analyse this again and decide when they are starting their breeding season for 2025, with the advice being for free-draining soil farms to start calving on February 1 with February 7-10 being optimal for heavier soil type farms.
Farmers should reflect on their calving start date over the last few years and decide whether it has suited their system and the gestation length of bulls used, before they finalise a mating start date.
Farmers should not just go off what the traditional mating start date is but rather focus on their stocking rate, pasture growth curve, and farm infrastructure to see if an early February planned start of calving is optimal for their system.
Stocking rates, herd maturity, and better fertility has seen a much higher spring grass demand for February in recent years and farmers should question whether their farm can match that demand or deal with a grass deficit in that period.
