All West/Select Sires
1-800-426-2697   |   Call Today


Company Log In

Main Menu
Join Our Email List

Home

Patronage

Order Semen

Newsletter

Contact Us

About Us

Silent Heats
by Earl Ingram
Select Sires Reproductive Management
& Training Specialist

By far, heat detection is the greatest challenge to an efficient A.I. program. The national heat detection rate is about 50 percent, which means that the other 50 percent of heats are not detected. This has a huge cost to dairy farmers.

Heats have been classified into four categories based on their duration (time between first and last time they stand to be mounted) and intensity (number of mounts per hour). The first three categories are fairly easily detected, either because cows spend a long time in heat or because while they are in heat they are very active. But the fourth category is not easily detected; it¡¦s classified as ¡§short duration and low intensity,¡¨ and approximately 25 percent of heats are presented this way.

In the field, I have heard many names for these heats, like hidden heats, silent heats, etc. The reason these heats are difficult to detect is because while in heat, the cows may stand only once or twice to be mounted, and that may occur in a time period of less than two hours. Most of the time, technicians choose not to breed a cow that they determine is not presenting a strong heat. That is a mistake, because silent heats are just as fertile as strong heats.

There are things you can do to confirm that a cow is really in heat:
1. Look for any secondary signs of heat that she may be presenting.
2. Check your records for heat interval, prostagladin shots, etc.
3. Arm her looking for mucus discharge and/or uterine tone.

Keep in mind that just because you are in doubt, there is a good chance she is in heat, and when in doubt, breed. If you do not breed her, you may be passing up a fertile heat and will not have another chance to breed her for three weeks. Now, if you decide not to breed her, write down her ID and the date so that in three weeks, when she puts you in doubt again, you will recognize that that is the way she presents heat, and you will then breed her.

Remember that you must do everything possible to generate the greatest number of pregnancies for our customers.


 

 

 

SELECT DETECT advanced estrus detection system


Select Detect is Coming!
If you feel like managing your reproductive program has become a confusing, full-time job, allow Select Sires to introduce you to precision reproductive management! For the professional herd manager one vital job is to recognize when a cow is in heat. With herds getting larger, labor expensive and in short supply, there is less time for the visual method of heat detection. email us for more information

After extensive investigation, field testing and consultation with dairy farmers like you, Select Sires is pleased to introduce Select Detect, the most technologically advanced activity monitoring system available today. Select Detect will not only help you increase your whole herd pregnancy rate but will help get you out of the barn and off to other pressing tasks or activities that you enjoy, like spending more time with your family!

Precision Reproductive Management Now Available Exclusively from Select Sires
- Saves time and money
- Motion-sensing nanotechnology
- Reduces the need for timed A.I programs
- No need for cows to pass through a data portal
- Unparalleled activity measurement accuracy
- Replaceable battery adds to life of the transponder

 
 

 

Key Performance Indicators for Dairies

by King Smith

Select Sires Western Manager
of Technical Service Programs

In today’s challenging dairy economy when producers are looking for any advantage they can find, wouldn’t it be great to have Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to let them know where their breeding program is heading?

We currently do an excellent job analyzing where we have been with a dairy’s reproduction program, but we are not doing an adequate job determining where the program may be heading. One way we could paint this picture is by monitoring how well the animals are doing that will be entering into our next breeding window. This would mean looking at animals whose days in milk are less than the dairy’s voluntary waiting period (i.e. less than 60 days in milk). We know that the major contributor to how animals in this particular timeframe are doing depends heavily on how they handle the transition period (three weeks prior to freshening to three weeks after freshening).

As we began to look at monitoring how well animals do in the transition period, there are several production indices that could be used as KPIs. Three of these are start milks by lactation groups, early days in milk butterfat percentages, and week four milk weights. All of these are KPIs of how animals are transitioning. First let¡¦s take a look at start milk weights. Start milk weights give us a glimpse of how animals are doing during early lactation and the period in which we are concerned. The client’s dairy software program is a good source for this information. The command in DairyComp 305 for this report is as follows: GRAPH MILK BY DIM BY LCTGP DOWNBY FDAT FOR FDAT>-150\B.

This command will give you a scatter graph where you can isolate animals in the first 50 days in milk. Depending upon the production level of the herd, first lactation animals below 50 pounds and second and greater lactation animals less than 60 pounds could be considered ¡§broken¡¨ animals. The appearance of many broken animals may be the result of poor transition and indicate breeding problems down the road. A variation of start milk levels between same lactation animals can also be an indicator of issues with transition.

All West/Select Sires

 

Copyright 2009 All West/Select Sires All Rights Reserved