Calving

Infertility is one of the most important reasons for culling in Irish dairy and suckler herds.
In some herds infertility can represent half of all culls. This can cause a lot of bother and economic loss i.e. higher AI costs, increased cow maintenance costs, increased replacement costs, reduced milk due to shorter lactations and a greater proportion of replacement heifers required.Even when cows are served successfully,problems can still occur i.e. 10% of cows will have a difficult calving and 5% of calves will die at birth.
Health and Heat detection
The first step in breeding management is to make health checks on all cows post-calving. Most cows, but not all, recover fully given time in the post-calving period. A minority of cows have problems.
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