4 Reproduction Factors with High Financial Impact that are Usually Neglected

Optimization of Reproduction at Dairy Farms

In dairy farming quantity and quality of milk are key elements of production. For farmers to be able to achieve the best milk productivity of individual animals, they have to optimize different factors, such as milking, animals’ health, and reproduction. Each of these factors can bring about a drop of turnover or additional costs, which decrease farm profits. Factors like quantity and quality of milk are easily financially evaluated. The same goes for health problems, where we can calculate costs for treatment and lost profit for the time the animal is not giving milk.
Reproduction is a third factor that influences milk production. It has not been taken into consideration, because tracking and optimization of reproduction events bring additional work and controlling, where additional profit cannot be directly evaluated. The good thing is that improvements in reproduction don’t include high costs, just accuracy and promptness of the breeder.

The Dairy Cattle Reproduction Council (DCRC) prepared an interesting paper on their web page based on the research of the University of Nebraska specialist Jeffery Keown. The author highlights four areas that are important during reproduction:

1. Too long or too short calving intervals
2. Too long or too short dry periods
3. High insemination index in artificial insemination
4. Too old heifers at freshening

The first and most important fact that the paper highlights is accurate and up-to-date herd records. Farm management information systems like PANTHEON Farming are perfect solutions that enable farmers recording reproduction events. This can be done not only at the end of the day behind a computer, but at all times directly in the barn through mobile applications, such as PANTHEON Farming Mobile. It also enables automatic calculation of the next insemination, expected calving date, the start of a new reproduction cycle, and the expected date of insemination for heifers. These dates can be calculated for different breeds. Although the function doesn’t serve as an exact timer, it can be a good estimate when individual animals require special service. Especially on larger farms, this enables better work organization work and minimizes the chance of missing an important event.

What would such accurate data bring?

Now let’s see what such accurate recording and tracking would bring to a farm. In the table below you will find the economic evaluation for the four described indicators. These were evaluated by Dr. Keown and summarized by the DCRC.

Table 1: Potential financial gains from improved reproduction

Source: (DCRC, 2006)
The table above quite clearly shows what each lost day in reproduction events brings. It would also be important to highlight that just shortening the days between events won’t bring optimal results, because it
will bring other problems. The aim of each farmer should be to achieve set goals or to get as close as possible to still have a healthy herd.

As we can see, accurate tracking of events is very important for farms. With the appropriate software and its regular use, event tracking can be simplified and automated, which would minimize unnecessary visits to the barn. This would save farmers valuable time that can now be spent elsewhere.

1 DCRC, 2006. Putting a Price on Reproductive Losses. Available at: www.dcrcouncil.org
2 Keown, J., 1986. G86-822 How to Estimate a Dairy Herd’s Reproductive Losses, Lincoln: University of Nebraska.

Gašper Petelin, Datalab, Animal Science expert

Gašper Petelin is a product manager in charge of livestock modules in PANTHEON Farming. With knowledge about animals from his bachelor studies, he is developing a comprehensive solution for livestock farms. He is also an active member of Agro IT project, co-funded by the European Commission within the CIP ICT Policy Support Programme.