A46-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 20,1990
Successful Dairy Reproduction Continues To Evade Researchers
GEORGE F.W. HAENLEIN
Extension Dairy Specialist
University of Delaware
If asked what the hardest job on
the dairy farm is, most dairy man
agers would answer reproduction,
which is not what the uninitiated
might expect.
After all, reproduction is syn
onymous with sex, and it should
be fun, even for animals, and
therefore not much problem.
In the olden days you took the
cow or heifer to a bull or you had
them running together already.
Most of the time, that settled the
matter. The bull knew what and
when and how; not much else was
needed, except to watch for the
occurrence of disease or to take
precautionary measures making
certain the bull was contained by
stronger fences.
Today, few farms keep bulls
around and for good reasons: the
best genetic improvement is avail
able only on an A.I. (artificial
insemination) basis and reproduc
tive diseases are stopped from
spreading.
Now, thawed semen from fro
zen storage can be placed into a
cow’s uterus by a trained person
any time and with relatively little
cost. It sounds like a perfect solu
tion to a complicated process. And
so it seemed 50 years ago when
the success story of AJ. in dairy
cattle breeding began.
Genetically speaking, it is still a
tremendous success story half a
century later. But reproductively
speaking, it is far from a perfect
solution to a complicated process
and far from a success.
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While we have made tremend
ous strides forward to find better
genetic bulls, proof them and use
them worldwide to increase our
cows’ milk-producing abilities to
unheard-of heights, we have made
little progress in getting our cows
settled.
The rate of conception then was
about 70%; it is still only about
70%.
Even though we have suc
ceeded in eliminating the interfer
ence of many reproductive dis
eases through A. 1., we have not
increased our conception rate sig
nificantly at all.
Why? I think it is our inability
to smell and read body language
of cows as well as bulls do.
We have tried to interpret signs
of estrus and told our employees
to observe, observe, and observe,
so we do not miss cows in estrus.
The fact is that not only our
employees but we, too, miss at
least one out of four cows.
In part it may be that they are
“bashful,” to which we give the
euphemistic excuse of “silent
heat”
Or it may be we have imposed
on our cows the need to feed so
much more because of high pro
duction that during the day when
we are around cows concentrate
more on feeding (i.e., no time for
sex!)
Or on those hot Summer days
cows wait for the cooler nighttime
to show signs of estrus when we
are not around to observe.
Whatever the reasons, and there
are many, the bottom line is that a
bull knew better than we do when
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and which cows are in estrus
By replacing A.I. for a bull in
our breeding programs we have
slowly realized that there is more
involved in obtaining good con
ception rates than just to place
semen into a cow’s uterus. And it
really ends up to be the hardest job
to do well on the dairy farm.
The monthly Journal of Dairy
Science is one of the best sources
of the latest research information
on many dairy topics, especially
reproduction. In the July 1990
issue are several very promising
new results: “Double insemina
tion and hormone treatment for
repeat breeders” from Kansas
State University and the Universi
ty of California; “Androgenized
heifers to detect estrus” from Col
orado State University; “Concep
tion rates after uterus or hom inse
minations” from University Wis
consin and Pennsylvania, etc.
And what are the promises of
science to solve the hardest job
challenge on the dairy farm?
It is not as easy as we thought to
just replace the bull.
Using androgenized heifers,
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i.e., heifers treated with male sex
hormones to make them act, smell
and read body language like bulls,
is a solution to miss fewer cows in
estrus.
In the Colorado work, signific
antly more cows were detected in
estrus this way.
It has been estimated that the
loss from faulty estrus detection
ranges from $123 to $205 per
dairy cow/year, and this times the
10 million dairy cows in the
United States underlines the
importance of more research in
this area.
However, proposing androgen
ized heifers as part of improving
our reproductive efficiency on the
dairy farm is really admitting
defeat that we are unable to
replace what an actual bull can
smell and see in estrus detection.
The work from Wisconsin and
Pennsylvania tries to get deposited
semen closer to meeting delivered
ova, i.e., the bull deposits semen
outside the .cervix, traditional A.I.
practice has been inside the cer
vix. However, 6,000 cows using
12 highly trained technicians were
y * /.
studied for alternative sites ot
semen deposits and x-ray tech
niques confirmed the actual
location.
The very interesting results pro
duced new enigmas and chal
lenges; No significant differences
existed in conception rates
between uterus (69.5%) and hom
(70.8%) inseminations; while
highly significant differences
were found between technicians
despite their intensive training and
screening to create equal insemi
nating ability between techni
cians; and finally significant dif
ferences in percent conception
were also noted between the three
months of study, June, July and
August, regardless of site of inse
mination, being 74.3, 67.4, 66.8%
(Turn to Pago A 47)
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