A2O-Lancastar Farming, Saturday, March 14,1957
Wis. Vet Details Program To Improve Reproduction
t.
BY SALLY BAIR
Lancaster Co. Correspondent
LANCASTER - With family
dairy farms facing difficult
economic times, the need for in
creased profitability becomes
critical. Austin Belschner, D.V.M.,
a partner in the Cumberland
Veterinary Clinic in Barron
County, Wisconsin, has developed
a controlled breeding program to
increase reproductive efficiency.
Speaking to dairymen at Lan
caster County Dairy Days, spon
sored by the Penn State
Cooperative Extension Service,
Belschner said that getting cows
bred is the single most important
concern in the breeding program.
He said that most causes of
anestus, or non-cycling, are
management deficiencies, and
heat detection is the primary
reason for breeding failures in
herds using AI.
Emphasis in Belschner’s two
week program is on regularly
scheduled two-week fertility
examinations, excellent nutrition,
prostaglandin shots for most
animals and breeding only on
standing heat. He said, “The
program is designed to take the
failures out of the program. It
takes less management time
rather than more.”
While prostaglandin is a drug
that has been available for a long
time, its effectiveness on dairy
animals has not been proven,
Belschner said. The primary
reason it hasn’t been used ex
tensively on dairy animals is that it
was tested first on dairy heifers
and beef, two groups in which
artificial insemination had not
been routinely used, and two
groups which suffer from poor
nutrition.
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Belschner’s program consists of
herd health visits every 14 days,
with all cows examined post
freshening, at about 14 days. At 45
days fresh the cow becomes a
candidate for re-breeding.
Animals are palpated and injected
if a functional corpus luteum is
present. Heat detection begins 24
hours after the prostaglandin
injection.
The two week schedule called for
under the program allows a con
centrated heat detection schedule
which minimizes the actual time
dairymen spend observing heats.
It is concentrated in two four-day
periods per month. Belschner
insists that cows be let out of the
bam a minimum of once a day
during the four-day period for
observation, and suggests twice a
day during day three and four.
Breeding is done only following
standing heat.
When the whole herd is involved
in the project, more cows are
active at the same time, allowing
easier detection. If a cow is not
observed in standing heat, she will
be re-examined on subsequent
visits and re-treated with
prostaglandin. Again, she will be
bred only on standing heat. If a
third injection is required, she will
be bred at 80 hours post-injection.
Belschner told the dairymen that
each day a cow is open costs him
$5. In Wisconsin the average
calving interval is 13 months.
For his original study, Belschner
used six family farms that
averaged 45 milking head, and
used only those with adequate
records to allow comparison. One
herd was dropped because the
cows were not let out in the winter
months, and one because some
breeding had been done by a clean
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up bull and records were not ac
curate.
The herds in the study had a
history of being open for 107.9 days
on average. This interval was
reduced to 91.1 days during the
study. In the first two years of the
study, the herds also averaged 1.5
services per conception, an im
provement of .6, and averaged 64
percent first service conceptions.
The results of his study showed a
return of four to one on the money
invested, and the cull rate
decreased by 50 percent. Belsch
ner said dairymen are now able to
cull from the low end, and
the program has decreased the
need to cull high-producing cows
which were problem breeders.
A side benefit of the controlled
breeding program is that the whole
herd health program benefits
because problems are dealt with
more quickly since the visits are
every two weeks rather than the
traditional monthly visits. Cystic
cows are diagnosed and treated
earlier and forced culls are
decreased.
Belschner stressed that the
program works only if there is a
team approach to dairying. He
said the dairymen, the feed mill,
nutritionist and veterinarian must
all work together for the good of
the herd. Belschner added, “There
is only one nutrition goal. That is
improved profits through im
proved health and reproduction,
decreased feed costs and increased
production.”
He encouraged dairymen to try
the program to ssee if it’s a
workable program for them.
Belschner said, “Family
dairying is going through difficult
times. In Northwestern Wisconsin,
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Austin Belschner, a Wisconsin veterinarian detailed a
controlled breeding program which decreased services per
conception in Wisconsin by emphasizing regular two-week
fertility examinations.
we are in danger of losing our town
as well.” He called the family
dairy farm “amazingly efficient
and powerful” and said the talk of
getting bigger is a “bunch of
nonsense.”
He urged farmers to keep their
resources in balance, using land,
feed, labor and people resources
wisely while living within the
limiis of technology.
Because of the decreasing
numbers of dairy cows in their
clinical practice he said he and his
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partners decided to work on client
profitability through unproved
breeding, good nutrition and
somatic cell counts. “If we can
deal preventably, we can minimize
problem calls. We are putting
clinical emphasis on helping you
be profitable.”
In addition to the controlled
breeding program, Belschner
discussed nurition for first-calf
heifers whose reproduction falls
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