By Debbie James

Strategies to improve heat detection have reduced average days to conception by 34 days at a Carmarthenshire dairy farm – worth £20,200 a year to the business.

At Tyreglwys Farm, a Farming Connect Demonstration Farm at Llangennech near Llanelli, Geraint Thomas and his family run a mixed herd of 160 Holstein and Ayrshire cows.

By implementing a programme to monitor when cows are on heat and being more timely with artificial insemination, he has increased the conception rate in the Holsteins to 31% from 20% in a single year and in the Ayrshires to 33% from 22%.

Mr Thomas said poor heat detection and its impact on the number of cows he was serving had been a financial drain on the business.

Cows had been fitted with collars to detect heat but these were several years old and needed updating.

He now pays £30/cow for an expert technician to check the cows daily and to inseminate at the optimum time. The technician chalks the cows’ tails and cross-checks heats against detailed computer records.

“You can’t beat a pair of eyes, someone coming in 365 days of the year,’’ said Mr Thomas.

He pays between £15-£20 a straw for semen in addition to the £30/year fee. He uses an average of 2.3 straws per cow compared to the 3.4 before improving heat detection.

The number of pregnancies in Mr Thomas’s Holsteins has increased from 47 to 73 and from 36 to 49 in the Ayrshires.

He calculates that for every day he reduces the days to conception figure it is worth £25 to the business – £150/cow or £25,000 across his herd. The net value to the business after deducting the cost of the breeding service is £20,200, he said.

“Every 1% increase in pregnancy rate is equivalent to £25 a cow a year because we are getting a higher pregnancy rate which means that we are milking a higher proportion of fresh cows.’’

This in turn increases yields and feed efficiency, he added.

During a Farming Connect open day at Tyreglwys, farmers were told that a goal for dairy farmers must be to get cows in calf in the first breeding window.

NMR figures show that the average heat detection rate in UK dairy herds is 35% and the pregnancy rate 11%, said Nick Thomas, of Genus.

There are several factors that influence a cow’s ability to express heat, including their environment and health.

For housed herds, stocking density and cubicle design are important. He recommends a vaccination programme for diseases detrimental to pregnancy, including IBR, BVD and leptospirosis.

Poor transition management will have negative repercussions on fertility. Seventy-five per cent of conditions that affect fertility, including retained placentas, mastitis and milk fever, occur in the first 30 days in milk.

“It is important to work out what is causing these,’’ said Emyr James, of Genus.

Running a fresh cow group is the ideal scenario as it allows for closer monitoring.

Jamie McCoy, dairy technical officer at Farming Connect, said fertility is a key driver of profitability and however good a farmer is at fertility management, they can always do better.

“It doesn’t matter what your protocols are or what works on your farm, focus on heat detection and you will have gains,’’ she said.

“If you are not doing it successfully because you can’t dedicate the time to it then look at other ways, whether that’s employing extra labour, using technology or getting someone to come to the farm to do it for you.’’