Fertility monitoring

What is measured when monitoring fertility?

• Calving interval

• Preg rate

• Look for which groups within herd have poor performance

What is the role of key performance indictors (KPIs)?

• demonstrate efficiency to stay in business

• show good animal health & welfare

What are the general categories of KPIs?

• Conception

• Submission

• Overall fertility

use industry agreed measures

What are the requirements of a good KPI?

• Level

  • high level e.g. milk/cow/yr of life

  • low level e.g. preg of individual animal

• Convenience vs cost of producing data

What is the minimum data available when monitoring fertility?

• Legally required farm records

  • e.g. movement licences

• Data from product purchase

  • no. sold, dead weight, carcass grade, milk sales & composition

• Data from supplier

  • feed input —> feed rate

  • AI straw sales & med usage

  • vet cost

What are the on farm recording systems?

• Farm diary & computer packages

• Milk recording companies

• Vet computer packages

What needs to be assessed when visiting a farm?

• Animals —> BCS, type of cow, cleanliness

• Building / environ

• People —> capabilities, motivation, needs from you

What is this showing?

• Bray chart —> 1 round shows 1 lactation

• Can set targets & see if meeting

• Can get linear ones too:

  

How can you monitor fertility in terms of submission?

• Submission rate

  • No. animals served/ No. Eligible/ 3 week cycle

• 1st service submission rate

  • Eligible = All animals after earliest service date who have not yet been served

• All services submission rate

  • Eligible = All animals after earliest service date who are not pregnant

  • May have been served so do not know if were eligible until return to heat or PD results

What KPI is this graph showing

• Calving to 1st service for cows calving in a period

• Voluntary waiting period ~50d

  • Can see outliers which are not on average

What KPI can you use to monitor how long it takes to conceive?

• Calving interval for individual —> calving index for herd

  • Too historic

• Calving to conception interval —> produce predicted calving index

  • A few problem cows can affect this interval a lot —> gets worse as animals in group conceive over time

    • do not try to improve by serving all group earlier

• Calving to conception spread

  • If conception too early there will be a delay in drying off

  • If conception too late there will be delay in next peak lactation, less milk/cow/year

Explain the following graphs:

Blue line —> cows in calf over time

Red line —> cows that have had their first service

(The blue line then going up is also including other services)

What is this graph showing?

• Green area is showing % spread of calving interval under 385 across different farms

• Pink is the farm you are looking at —> can compare to other farms

What is preg rate?

No. Preg/ No. eligible to be served/ 3 week

• Combines conception (conception= pregnancy rate) w/ service) —> % preg of those served

• PD early —> detect empty cows but some loss later

Summarise the physiological events occurring after insemination in cattle —> approx timings

What is this chart showing?

Cu-Sum

• Line moves R when pregnant & L when not

If half conceive will get 50% —> higher green line, can see @ what point it is parallel w/ blue line, to see where it goes wrong

What has changed on this Cu-Sum?

• Black line gradient changes indicating a change in performace

  • Steeper = worse

  • Flatter = better

  • Can identify times where something may have changed

What is this graph showing?

• Inter service intervals

  • Ideally expect all cows to be re-served @ 18-24 days

What is this graph showing?

Reiterates some of the causes behind possible patterns of returns to service discussed

What is this table showing?

• Separated out into milk yield cf to that expected

• Can see that cows below expected yield have issue with fertility probably due to concurrent illness

• Non return at 35 days means that either PD positive or missed oestrus or not cycling

Explain this graph

Simply avg. calving interval for the cows on the farm

What are the 3 steps of proactive health planning?

1. Measure

2. Manage

3. Monitor

ongoing cycle by farmer, nutritionalist, vet, agricultural advisors

What raw fertility data contributes to KPIs

• Calving date

• Date of insemination

• Result of PD

• Dry off dates

• Culls (ID of cow)

What is this showing?

Submission & pregnancy

• % submitted = served

• Confirmed = PD +ve so conceived

What is this graph showing?

All services —> basically just pregnancy rate

So for all milking cows overall about 37% but can see changes in gradient

What is this showing?

Submission & Pregnancy by 100 & 200 days pp

• Submitted = served

• PD = +ve so conceived

If a farmer wants to seasonally calve in spring or autumn will stop at specific date so cows do not conceive outside period they want.

First graph —> It is a 100 day submission rate and 100 day in calf rate- target would be 50% (Ideally 100%)

Second graph:

• 200 days after calving is reasonable to carry on serving if calving all year round

All services for their first lactation

What is this showing?

Very good then got very poor

• Over two years so disease/ diet etc may have contributed to this? Lots of reasons —> ask the farmer what the change was between the two groups

What raw fertility data contributes to KPIs

• Calving date

• Date of insemination

• Result of PD

• Dry off dates

• Culls (ID of cow)

** See Jo's word document of KPIs

All services- 2nd lactation

What is this showing?

• Less animals so line more variable but about 40% throughout

All services- 3rd lactation

What is this showing

35% then worse but recovered to 30%

This group have a big problem November to March. So what is the difference in management between the groups- ask the farmer

NB: compare the gradient to the red line for the specific time period to interpret the percentage