Jennie Macky practices as a large animal veterinarian and farmer with her partner James in the district of Te Awamutu. She practices what she preaches!
This Winter, Jennie was one among a number of speakers presenting to clientele of The Veterinary Centre, a talk focused on lifting dairy herd reproductive performance.
She hit a chord when she related the reproductive challenges she and her partner James faced in their second season of sharemilking, on a new farm at Pirongia.
On a 64 Ha farm calving 210 cows, with moderate supplementary feed inputs of 300KgDM/cow, they had three simple aims in the first year:
1. Compact calving- less than 8 weeks (plan on allowing three years to achieve this)
2. Low empty rate
3. Maximise production
The reason for a compact calving was the extra 31.5 MS/cow for every cow calving three weeks earlier. With James the only full time person on the farm, and Jennie working at The Veterinary Centre- they want to have a concerted effort of focusing on calving for a short time. It allows for a gap between calving and when mating begins- which to them is the most critical part of the year.
The costs of empty cows are expensive, when some of the best genetics are walking out the gate.
What did they achieve last year?
1. A planned start of calving to a mid point was only 9 days!
2. Calving was completed by 5th September
3. Three week submission rate 95%
4. Empty rate 6%
How was this achieved?
1. Heifer mating: Calved heifers 10d prior to main herd and heifers mated for only 6 weeks
2. Inductions: Initially heavy induction to tighten calving pattern, and this projected to be 8%. Maximise the tool by bringing cows as far forward as possible to calve at the planned start of calving. Will cull if they are induced a third time
3. Dirty cows: Whole herd was Metrichecked mid-September and treated
4. Anoestrous cows: Premate tailpaint and the use of teaser bulls called “Beacon” and “Kamar”. The cows are treated with progesterone devices one week before planned start of mating. The first service conception rate was 34%, and by second service 71% were in- calf.
5. Heat detection: Focus on submitting cows with visual aids such as Kamars, followed by tailpaint and teaser bulls during AI.
6. Bull power: Bulls are checked for fertility, infectious disease and their desire and ability to mount. They purchase extra bulls to allow for injuries and lameness. They run at the ratio 1:30 empty cows.
7. Early pregnancy testing: Six weeks after AI has finished they are scanned and AI cows identified. Any “phantom cows” are treated with progesterone devices
8. Repeat breeders: Any cow that returned to service a third time was reexamined for infection or pathology- and treated
Future goals are to reduce interventions once the targets are met. One of which is herd condition score.
After all the years of telling farmers what they “should” be doing there are no excuses at Pirongia. Jennie has been practicing what she preaches. She has seen the benefits of the veterinary interventions- if they are used correctly at the appropriate time! They do make you money!
