Maintaining momentum at breeding – practical actions for June

Much like championship season, momentum is important for a successful breeding season. Here Stuart Childs, Teagasc Dairy Specialist, shares practical actions for June that will deliver rewards next spring.

You will often hear team coaches talking about the importance of momentum to achieving success. Each win helps build momentum is a commonly used phrase in post-match interviews.

Much like championship season, momentum is important for a successful breeding season. With great effort put in to get cows submitted in the first three weeks, the momentum needs to be maintained to identify repeats and ensure anything intended for breeding gets bred as early as possible. The objective now is to maximise the number of cows that calve in March having done your best to maximise the numbers calving in February heretofore.

Practical actions for June

• Ensure all cows are bred. Any cows not bred now need to be examined by your vet; take action to ensure they are bred at the earliest opportunity.
• Depending on bull power available, continue to use AI until you have reached the potential ability of your bull or bulls to get you remaining cows in calf.
  • This is 10 empty cows for a young bull or 20-30 empty cows for a mature bull.
  • Remember, the bull or bulls don’t know which cows you intend on culling and will serve these if come in heat.
  • You also should continue to AI for at least a week after the bulls are released to allow them to get going – they are not match fit straight away.
• Every three weeks of AI reduces the bull power required by half. In many cases, this means farms should continue to AI for up to 9 weeks as they do not have sufficient bull power to deal with the numbers of cows they may be required to handle.
• If more than two cows per bull are in heat on any given day, you should AI the cows as the bulls may not be capable of putting all these cows in calf due to the numbers in heat.

Sustaining the effort from May through into June, although challenge, will help you reap the rewards next Spring with more cows calved in the February and March. This, in the long run, will simplify your breeding management.

For more tips and advice from the Teagasc Dairy Knowledge Transfer Department, view June’s Dairy Advisory newsletter here.