A.I. & BREEDING

For a variety of reasons, dairy heifer reproductive performance is not a primary focus on many dairies even though it is critical to future success.

But that shouldn’t be the case on your farm. There are a number of tools, including estrous synchronization and timed-A.I. protocols, that can ensure your heifers are bred on time and are ready to enter the milking herd and help you meet your herd goals.

The addition of fatty acids to dairy diets has piqued the interest of dairy producers and nutritionists in recent years.

Did you know traits like milk yield, conformation, rump and calving ability aren’t included in the LPI? Do you feel these traits are important in your sire selection and herd improvement program and should be included in the LPI formula?

Five years ago, it felt like there was a ceiling on reproductive performance in the lactating herd. Once top-performing herds got to the 24 to 26 percent annual pregnancy rate level, there was no room to grow. Higher annual pregnancy rates were not sustainable or economical for long periods of time.

The definitive goal of breeding is to select favourable traits that will prevail in the next generation, and crossbreeding could be one way to do that.

Selection indexes are great tools because they combine all significant traits into one. They get us away from setting minimum criteria for particular traits, which allows us to make progress for many different traits all at once.