Ongoing impact of challenging summer weather, and possible nutritional shortfalls

Many herd owners are facing a difficult winter ahead, with rising feed prices and a shortage of quality forage. Clamps may be full, but grass silage has produced bulk rather than quality. And farms relying on maize could be disappointed with this years harvest as much of it spent June in a cold, wet seedbed and hasn’t seen enough sunshine hours for good cob development.

The forage situation is compounded by a shortage of some straights, notably maize gluten and brewers grains, and rapidly rising concentrate prices. Herd owners may, therefore, struggle to get high yielding cows back in-calf, says Intervet large animal vet adviser Ruth Vernon.

“Inadequate energy intakes in high yielders are more likely when poor quality forages are available. Cows that are very fat or very thin around calving are particularly at risk post partum due to their reduced dry matter intake,” she says.

One consequence of the high yielding cow’s high metabolic rate is that she may have a low concentration of progesterone in early pregnancy. Receptal is the only licensed product which can be used on day 11 after AI to allow more time for the maternal recognition of pregnancy to occur, she points out.

“The injection of Receptal at day 11 helps to increase the progesterone level by supporting the corpus luteum which allows more time for an embryo to develop and culminate in a successful pregnancy. The improvement in pregnancy rates can be variable, but is likely to be better in those herds starting off with poor conception rates.  A recent analysis of the literature shows improvements in conception rates with GnRH varying from 7% to 35%, but on average around 10% is achievable”