New technology assists in dairy cow reproduction – Audio
TRANSCRIPT
Getting the dairy cow pregnant. Not as simple as it sounds. We’re visiting today with Paul Fricke, department of Dairy Science, University of Wisconsin, in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Madison, Wisconsin and I’m Sevie Kenyon.
Sevie: Paul, welcome to our microphone. Now on the modern dairy farm, Paul how does the dairy farmer go about getting his cows pregnant?
Paul: So, the first key to getting a cow pregnant is we have to detect the cow in behavioral estrus. And behavioral estrus simply means the cow is receptive to mating and that’s the best indicator of when she’s going to ovulate and when we can actually do artificial insemination. We’re trying to get away from using natural service bulls, because the bulls are dangerous, those bulls are mean out there and artificial insemination has lots of advantages.
Sevie: And Paul, what kinds of things are producers doing to find that cow in heat?
Paul: there’s a new system available from several different companies that uses what are called accelerometers. Now, just to familiarize you with what these things are, if you’ve got an iPhone or you’ve got a smart phone and you know how when you turn that thing sideways it knows and the screen actually turns, so the accelerometer measures movement in three different directions. And so it can tell whether the cow is standing, whether she’s actually exhibiting “mounting behavior.” And so, we’ve been doing a lot of work here at UW and in our research labs just how effective are these accelerometers in dairy production practice.
Sevie: And Paul, what are you finding out with this research?
Paul: Well, we’re finding that about two-thirds of our cows actually show estrus and go to ovulate: for those two-thirds of the cows the accelerometers work very well. A third of our cows are not cycling and so that’s a big problem with getting cows pregnant. If the key to getting them pregnant is to catch them in heat and inseminate the cows and a third of them aren’t showing heat, we have other ways of dealing with that third of the cows.
Sevie: Maybe you could speak briefly about how that problem affects dairy production?
Paul: If the cows are not cycling and we can’t catch those cows in heat, then we just get the cows into long lactation cycles. The longer a cow is in lactation, the less milk she produces, the less efficient she is.
Sevie: What should a producer do if they need more help? More information?
Paul: Well, we’ve got a program, a new program that we’re working on. It’s called the Repro Money program. This is a self-directed, team-based approach to trying to improve reproduction on diary farms. Basically, producers will get together with their advisers, which would usually include a veterinarian, maybe a county Extension Agent, probably a nutritionist, maybe the AI technician, and we’ve put together the materials where they can go through, trouble-shoot their herd, figure out where the bottle-necks are with reproduction, try to address those problems.
Sevie: What should a producer do if they’re interested in the program?
Paul: Go to Google, put in Repro Money, and the first thing that will come up on your Google search is the Repro Money program, the website you can go to, all the information’s there.
Sevie: We’ve been visiting with Paul Fricke, department of Dairy Science, University of Wisconsin, in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Madison, Wisconsin and I’m Sevie Kenyon.