To achieve a compact calving in spring 2024, submission rates for the first three weeks need to be high. The target for these weeks is to have 90% of cows submitted for breeding.
This target is not easy to achieve and requires a lot of work and for a number of things to go right. Most importantly, for it to be possible, all cows need to be cycling prior to the start of breeding.
This means that any cows that require treatment need to be detected and treated before mating gets underway.
Submission rates
To be achieving the target of 90% in the first three weeks, you need to be serving on average 4.3 cows/day in a 100-cow herd.
The most effective way to achieve this target is to ensure that all cows are cycling before breeding starts.
For this to happen, all heats need to be recorded for at least three weeks before the planned start of mating.
Any cows that are not seen cycling should then be checked by the vet, along with any cows that had issues around calving.
At 30 days post-calving, cows should be cycling again. If they are not, it’s possible they could have an issue.
You could scan all cows prior to the start of breeding, but if you have been monitoring heats in the weeks leading up the start of breeding that should not be necessary.
Issues
The two most likely issues that may be affecting cows ahead of breeding are cysts and dirty cows.
Cysts disrupt the natural cycling of cows and make it almost impossible for them to go in calf without treatment.
There are two main types of cysts, the first being a luteal cyst, which results in progesterone levels rising and not dropping. Meanwhile, follicular cysts cause the progesterone levels to drop, but never come back up.
A dirty cows refers to a cow that has obtained an infection from the calving process.
Generally, this occurs in the cows that were handled during calving and the infection was introduced by whoever handled the cow.