Breeding

delaval

How are ye getting on at breeding. Is everyone starting at the same time as last year?
Interested to see are some people on the heavier ground breeding later to match growth ............of a normal year that is

We have all heifers bred to ai and bulls in now, we are breeding cows since ay 1st haven't counted what's done but herd turning blue by the day

Sam Kade

Did you bull your heifers in the shed?

delaval

Sam Kade wrote: »

Did you bull your heifers in the shed?

No all done outside. The heifer land is dry as a bone we are able to out winter on grass. Smaller heifs get 2 kg meal and big ones none for winter. i posted pics on photo thread last Jan
Did you do them inside or had you them out. It must be handy in the shed or is it a pain?

1chippy

Breeding
um
You dairy lads shouldnt be allowed use that word.:D

Sam Kade

delaval wrote: »

No all done outside. The heifer land is dry as a bone we are able to out winter on grass. Smaller heifs get 2 kg meal and big ones none for winter. i posted pics on photo thread last Jan
Did you do them inside or had you them out. It must be handy in the shed or is it a pain?

No we always do them outside. I must check out the photo thread to see yours. I kept all the yearlings grazing through the winter but ran out of grass in march so I fed them silage and ration for six weeks in a sacrifice paddock until I had grass again.

delaval

1chippy wrote: »

Breeding
um
You dairy lads shouldnt be allowed use that word.:D

:):):):P:P:P

Sam Kade

delaval wrote: »

No all done outside. The heifer land is dry as a bone we are able to out winter on grass. Smaller heifs get 2 kg meal and big ones none for winter. i posted pics on photo thread last Jan
Did you do them inside or had you them out. It must be handy in the shed or is it a pain?

Can't find that photo thread could you post a link for it?

delaval

Sam Kade wrote: »

Can't find that photo thread could you post a link for it?

page 223 I am a bit thick techno wise

Timmaay

Had 38 cows picked out back on April 18th when I started AI again, everything over 30days calved, alot of dec/Jan calvers in that bunch. 30 done now, just over 3wks later, and 2 repeats. Happy enough with that, have 3cows that calved back in dec, but never came bulling, time for some estrumate now I think!

Heifers are slight more tricky, there were alot of autumn born heifers that I didn't want to calve down for next oct (too many winter milkers as is), but didn't want to leave them until now as they were getting big as is, so we served them indoors as we spotted them in heat over the last few months. On hindsight, its alittle messy as its all too strung out now. Bringing the younger feb/mar 2012 heifers that were alittle shy of the target weight till now back home over the next few days, definitely will be less tolerance with these, 2wks of natural heats then injection the rest.

delaval

Timmaay wrote: »

Had 38 cows picked out back on April 18th when I started AI again, everything over 30days calved, alot of dec/Jan calvers in that bunch. 30 done now, just over 3wks later, and 2 repeats. Happy enough with that, have 3cows that calved back in dec, but never came bulling, time for some estrumate now I think!

Heifers are slight more tricky, there were alot of autumn born heifers that I didn't want to calve down for next oct (too many winter milkers as is), but didn't want to leave them until now as they were getting big as is, so we served them indoors as we spotted them in heat over the last few months. On hindsight, its alittle messy as its all too strung out now. Bringing the younger feb/mar 2012 heifers that were alittle shy of the target weight till now back home over the next few days, definitely will be less tolerance with these, 2wks of natural heats then injection the rest.

You will have a reduced success rate with 2 weeks nat then inject. A better way wiuld be 1 week and then inject

Timmaay

On a more general topic, I read that AI rates were 17% down on the 1st wk of may over last yr, I wounder is this purely down to the late spring, or is much to lads pushing off mating for a wk or so. Its hard to know however if it will have much effect next year yet, if the AI rates catch back up, then probably not a major effect, but could help the country avoid a superlevy if we are over come next jan/feb.

keep going

its going ok with 39 out of the 73 calved(8 more to go:mad:) gone to dairy in 2 weeks and happy enough considering i bought forward starting date by 10 days and have a good few lateish calvers in the herd.fr stock bull with the heifers and he seems to be bulling something every day

delaval

keep going wrote: »

its going ok with 39 out of the 73 calved(8 more to go:mad:) gone to dairy in 2 weeks and happy enough considering i bought forward starting date by 10 days and have a good few lateish calvers in the herd.fr stock bull with the heifers and he seems to be bulling something every day

Do you not ai?

loveta

This is going of the topic a bit but wondering does many/any of you guys do a pre breeding scan

delaval

loveta wrote: »

This is going of the topic a bit but wondering does many/any of you guys do a pre breeding scan

Gave it up no good info nd too much money spent on treatments. I find front loading heifers to be a much more cost effictive method

loveta

delaval wrote: »

Gave it up no good info nd too much money spent on treatments. I find front loading heifers to be a much more cost effictive method

"front loading" does that mean breeding them before the main herd?

delaval

loveta wrote: »

"front loading" does that mean breeding them before the main herd?

Yes or starting them at the same time. Givees them a lot more time to find their feet in the herd before breeding starts.
It must be very stressful on a heifer to be thrust into a larger herd with a lot more competition

keep going

delaval wrote: »

Do you not ai?

ai cows for 1 month while fr bull(ebi274) runs with heifers,then bring home fr bull to the cows and put beef(aa) bull with heifers for 3weeks. then put fr bull back to the heifers and put beef bull with cows for 3 weeks and finally bring home fr bull and run one bull by night and the other by day with the cows for 3 weeks.the idea behind this is to have a good few fr heifer calves by paddys day and also to some extent cover the risk of a bull not working and minimise the late heifers.the cows get 13 weeks and the heifers get 10 weeks breeding.must say not ai ing the heifers is sparing a pile of hassle and time

delaval

keep going wrote: »

ai cows for 1 month while fr bull(ebi274) runs with heifers,then bring home fr bull to the cows and put beef(aa) bull with heifers for 3weeks. then put fr bull back to the heifers and put beef bull with cows for 3 weeks and finally bring home fr bull and run one bull by night and the other by day with the cows for 3 weeks.the idea behind this is to have a good few fr heifer calves by paddys day and also to some extent cover the risk of a bull not working and minimise the late heifers.the cows get 13 weeks and the heifers get 10 weeks breeding.must say not ai ing the heifers is sparing a pile of hassle and time

Good plan and all cows heifers are by ai and born erly

delaval

Did a quick tally this am 40% of cows served in 9 days and if we count heifers served that would make 75% of next springs animals ai'd once after 2 weeks.
Here's hoping for a conception rate of 55%+ and we should have a busy Feb with loads of grass of course?????

jaymla627

Have 40 0ut of 55 of the cows served so far 17 days into ai happy enough since 40 are first calvers all ten heifers are served as of today....the big thing this years going to be submission rate the next two weeks will tell a lot.....

keep going

what sort of conception rates do you get with a bull.as in would you get 60%of the total heifers in 3 weeks or just 60% of what he bulled or would it be higher, assuming all animals fit for bulling

dar31

21 day submission rate, is it calculated on the no. Of cows eligible for service or on all cows for that breeding period

delaval

dar31 wrote: »

21 day submission rate, is it calculated on the no. Of cows eligible for service or on all cows for that breeding period

All cows even ones not calved yet:eek::eek:

mahoney_j

As of today have 61 out of 72 cows served and 26 out of 28 heifers bulled.started ai on 28 April.well happy with those figures

mikeoh

keep going wrote: »

what sort of conception rates do you get with a bull.as in would you get 60%of the total heifers in 3 weeks or just 60% of what he bulled or would it be higher, assuming all animals fit for bulling

As dairy farmers when do ye AI yer cows is it at milking time only , as a suckler farmer my heart was broke with repeats..last yer. If I saw a cow bulling in the morning she was Ai that evening but this year I'm inclined to leave them till next day and I haven't as many repeats (so far)....just wondering what ye find most success with

keep going

mikeoh wrote: »

As dairy farmers when do ye AI yer cows is it at milking time only , as a suckler farmer my heart was broke with repeats..last yer. If I saw a cow bulling in the morning she was Ai that evening but this year I'm inclined to leave them till next day and I haven't as many repeats (so far)....just wondering what ye find most success with

what sort of figures were you at ,as a rule 2 out of 5 repeat

mikeoh

keep going wrote: »

what sort of figures were you at ,as a rule 2 out of 5 repeat

2 out of 5 seems to be where I'm at this year.....last year it was 4 out of 5 with one or two going to a 3rd insemination .....I changed Ai man this year also cows fat score lower this year !!! But need to get timing right

redzerologhlen

mikeoh wrote: »

2 out of 5 seems to be where I'm at this year.....last year it was 4 out of 5 with one or two going to a 3rd insemination .....I changed Ai man this year also cows fat score lower this year !!! But need to get timing right

Ai'ing at standing heat and ai'ing 10 hours after the onset of standing heat has only about a 2% difference in conception rate or so they told us when doing diy training. A lot of it could be down to operator error last year, some cows can be a b1tch to do if they start forcing etc.

delaval

mikeoh wrote: »

As dairy farmers when do ye AI yer cows is it at milking time only , as a suckler farmer my heart was broke with repeats..last yer. If I saw a cow bulling in the morning she was Ai that evening but this year I'm inclined to leave them till next day and I haven't as many repeats (so far)....just wondering what ye find most success with

We Ai at milking time am only. If we spot one after milking going to paddock for exape she is left 'till next morning

pakalasa

Here ya go. This graph shows how timing of AI is important.

mikeoh

pakalasa wrote: »

Here ya go. This graph shows how timing of AI is important.

So better to bull them as soon as they are standing rather than waiting??

mikeoh

delaval wrote: »

We Ai at milking time am only. If we spot one after milking going to paddock for exape she is left 'till next morning

Ai says he like to do them when they going off........my grandfather used to tell a story ...back in the day when not everyone had a phone he had a cow bulling of a Saturday but met Ai man in pub Sunday nite and he did her Monday and was fine !!!!

dar31

done up 21 day submission rates for cows this eve
cows 81%
heifers 79%
a bit disappointed with heifers

only AI'd for the 3 weeks and bull went in then

PMU

are you going to examine the 19% of cows to see why they didnt show ,before they see the bull