Post Breeding Strategies Part III
Transcript of Select Sires' Reproductive Moment Program
on DairyLine Radio Which Aired Mar. 3, 2006
With Ray Nebel,
Extension Specialist and Professor of Reproductive Management,
Virginia Tech

Ray, the past couple of weeks we have been talking about post-breeding strategies. You mention there are three types: the GnRH, hCG or CIDR’s. What are you seeing when you are out on the road visiting dairy farms?

The CIDR was what a lot of people were looking for a home for the CIDR. The CIDR was really the first time we were, and the only way we could, deliver progesterone on demand. A lot of people have tried this in different strategies and it had shown some efficiencies that it does work, but now with hCG and GnRH, we can this much easier and less expensive. In my travels, I see a number of people looking at how to put this into the field

How do you incorporate this post-breeding injection?

There are two different ways we are looking at. An easy way in herds that pregnancy check once a week, in your preg-check list make a list of cows that have been bred or inseminated six, seven or eight days prior. If these cows would get the GnRH or hCG injections, normally we sort cows at preg-check time anyway. These cows would be cows that we would go ahead and give that injection.

The second method, for smaller herds, would be to daily or a few times a week, make a list that says cows that were inseminated six, seven or eight days prior. So, on large herds once-a-week pregnancy check, we can easily get that done and hit them across a group of cows. On smaller herds, we don’t have as many inseminations so we are going to have to target a few days a week where we are giving other injections such as Ovsynch®, or for preg-checks or so-forth, but to make that list up. It won’t occur on all inseminations, but we could get a pretty good coverage at certain time periods.

What animals are the best targets for this post-breeding strategy?

A lot of the original research was done on first service, but first service has a lot of normal cows, which is a good thing, but probably 70 percent of the cows that are bred on first service-or maybe 80 percent-there is no real reason that we need to supplement progesterone. What is really coming to light now is that it is probably the repeat breeder, cows that have been bred five, six or seven times prior, so the repeat breeder cow is probably the cow that is the best candidate. Again, on our preg-check list we could put in cows having four, five, or six services – bred six, seven or eight days prior would be the candidates that would be the best target for this strategy.

Really important to keep good records, isn’t it?

Oh, definitely. Without the record system where we could go to the computer and retrieve the information this kind of strategy would be impossible. Again, a record system comes back to be the cornerstone of a reproductive management program.

And, for great advice and help in post-breeding strategies a Select Sires reproductive solutions specialist can be right there to help.

That’s right.

Thank you Ray. That is  Ray Nebel, Select Sires’ reproductive solution specialist