Where are your Repro Dollars Spent?
When
watching where your dollars are spent, have you taken a look into your
reproductive management program? Is there unnecessary spending? Consider
these average Minnesota dairy stats and see where your herd sits. You could
be saving money by bringing your herd to average or well above average.
Average
Days to 1st service is 96.9 days and Average Days Open is 160.3 days
Days to
first service and total days open tend to follow each other. If your days to
first service is high, your total days open will also be high. Days to first
service should be looked at as when you are breeding a cow for the first time
(your Voluntary Wait Period). If your VWP is 60 days, she should be bred at
60 days and not first deciding what to do with her at 60 days. Days open is
calculated as from calving date to conception date. One day open can cost
anywhere from $2 to $6, says Dr. John Fetrow, College of Veterinary Medicine
at the University of Minnesota, which takes into consideration the impact
additional days open have on milk production, days dry and the number of
calves born.
Average
Number of Services per Pregnancy – All Lact is 2.9 and Pregnancy Rate is
15.9%
Each
additional service per pregnancy can cost up to $96 when considering labor,
semen, and additional
days open. In order to tighten your services per pregnancy, maybe consider a
refresher course for your
technicians to remove human error from the calculation. Dr. Fetrow notes that
a one percent
improvement in pregnancy rate is worth $15 to $35 per cow per year. Part of
the value of improving
pregnancy rates comes from reducing days open so we need to assure that were
are getting a head
start on breeding cows and assure our technicians are doing the best they
can to breed those cows with
whatever tools they need.
Percent
of Cows bred to NON Proven bulls is 23.3%
Based
on an experimental trial where labor costs and pregnancy rates were assumed
equal, a cost
comparison was done between Bull bred herds and Timed AI herds. The net cost
of a Bull bred program
was $92.29 per animal per year. For the timed AI program, the net cost was
$51.61 per animal per
year. Therefore, the Bull bred program cost $40.68 per animal per year more
which included an
opportunity cost of $13.67 for less genetic progress. Without considering
genetic progress, the Bull bred
program would cost $27.02 more per animal per year. If 23% of our cows are
bull bred, a tremendous
amount of money could be saved by working with an AI rep on if an AI or Timed
AI program is suitable
for your herd.
Percent
of Cows Dry more than 70 Days is 23.6%
Dry
cows with extended dry periods of more than 70 days may cost you more than
you think. Even
though they are cheap to feed as dry cows, they could have been replaced 6
months ago with a 1st calf
heifer which would be making you more money in milk and a faster chance at getting
pregnant. This
compares to waiting 100 days to get another calf from a late lactation cow,
especially when the bull calf
market is poor. Dry periods longer than 70 days also decrease the lifetime
milk yield of that cow. Try to
establish a cut off to consider cows as “Do not breeds” after so many days in
milk as long as you have
the replacement heifer available.
Percent
of Births 4+Calving Difficulty for 1st Lact is 5.6%
Dystocia,
or difficult calvings, can cost up to $1200 per year on a 100 cow herd in
calf mortality alone.
That value can triple when you incorporate labor and veterinary fees. By
selecting calving ease bulls on
first calf heifers and smaller cows and monitoring pre fresh nutrition, you
can easily decrease the percent
of difficult births and ease the transition period.
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