Getting Cows Pregnant - Reproduction & Breeding
During the first 60 to 90 days of lactation dairy cows experience what is referred to as negative energy balance. Simply stated it is the period during early lactation when the cow's feed energy intake lags behind that necessary to support the energy expended to produce milk.
The regular creation of pregnancies is essential to providing the steady stream of fresh cows necessary to maintain a good milk production average along with the heifer calves that will become the future replacements for a dairy operation.
Calve...Produce high amounts of milk...Eat lots of feed...Recover from calving...Start cycling normally. We ask a lot of our cows these days. Conception rate in large commercial dairy herds stands at only 35-40% for mature cows as compared with 51% in first lactation cows and normally 65+% in virgin heifers. These differences within a herd indicate that fertility declines with each calving until cows reach maturity.
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