Select Sires

Reproductive Management Practices (Part Two)
Transcript of Select Sires' Reproductive Moment Program
on DairyLine Radio, Which Aired Oct. 21, 2004
with Dr. Jodie Pennington,
professor and extension dairy specialist,
University of Arkansas

This week, Dr. Pennington, we are talking about heat-detection. Does it make sense to have just one person responsible for heat detection on the farm?

Yes, we see this, especially on larger dairies. You need to make one person responsible for the heat detection, and then have others report to them so that everything can be synchronized. Otherwise, what we see is that someone will think that the helper, or the helper thinks that the boss is watching for heat, and no one watches for heat. It also is important to watch at least twice daily, if possible. We actually recommend that they watch three to four times. The more times that you watch during the day for a cow to be in heat, the more likely you are to catch her in heat.

It is also easy to get side-tracked. But you should watch for heat for at least twenty to thirty-minutes. Also, Dr. Pennington, there are a lot of different heat-detection devices out there today to help the farmer, aren’t there?

Oh, definitely. Too often, what happens is that dairymen are out watching the cow when they are feeding and when they are milking, which are really the worst times to watch for heat because she is less likely to show signs of heat when other activities are going on. If we have these heat-detection aids, such as pressure sensitive heat-melt patches, of which there are several varieties now, even in some cases a marking crayon, this can indicate to the dairyman that the cow has been in heat and he can more closely observe her then to see if she is in heat. In some cases he may even think she is in heat, and he may go in and palpate her and see if she feels like she is in heat.

As a last resort, you can use a chin-ball marker. How often is that used and what is that all about?

Well, the chin marker is used after the marking crayon and mount detectors are used. Of course, with the chin-ball marker we have to have a bull, so we have to feed him, or maybe some hormone treated animal. We have to feed them so they are usually a little more expensive than using, perhaps the mount detectors, or the marking crayon, so we use the chin-ball marker in cases where we are really having trouble with heat-detection. They are used as a last resort, basically.

The inexpensive way to all this might be just to go out and observe.

That is a really good point. We should point out it is cheaper if you just go out there and watch the cows two to four times a day. When you cannot catch as many as you want in heat, that is when you want to use the heat-detection aids and they can be very beneficial.

Then there are the combination of aids, with even video-recorders or other types of items like that.

Yes, on some of our larger dairies we have those that will use video recorders. Realistically it takes time to do that and of course the expense of the video recorders, most small producers don’t do that. We do also have pedometers, and actually there are computer monitored heat-mount detectors now that can actually tell you the number of times a cow has been ridden. Those are very beneficial and most of those also tell you when she is first ridden so that you are able to more aptly determine when you should breed her.

This Reproductive Moment has been with Dr. Jodie Pennington, professor and extension dairy specialist at the University of Arkansas.

Select Sires Inc., 11740 U.S. 42 North, Plain City, Ohio 43064 / Phone: (614) 873-4683 Fax: (614) 873-5751