A.I. & Breeding

In addition to the information that will be available from the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding later this year, several dairy companies have already taken the lead in providing options for dairy producers to improve herd health through genetic selection.

Dairy farmers could lower costs associated with heifer rearing by making improvements in their herd reproductive management, based on research being conducted by Ph.D. candidate Magdalena Masello and Cornell University’s Dairy Cattle Biology and Management Laboratory.

Gandhi seemed to have known what he was talking about when it came to breeding a profitable herd of cows when he said, “The future depends on what you do today.”

What are your choices when mating A.I. sires to the dairy cattle in your herd? Do you use one of the mating services? Focus on Net Merit Dollars (NM$)? Or simply want to get the cow pregnant because you know that nine months from now she will drop a calf and start all over again on the lactation curve?

The simple solution to boosting dairy cattle conception rates (CR) is to improve reproductive management and cow environment, as these two general categories account for 96 percent of CR variation.

Historically, dairy cattle breeders had limited tools to work with. Genetic selection was based only on what could be seen. Decisions were handicapped to visible and subjective conformation traits.