We are now well into the breeding season for many farmers, which means that heat detection and maximising submission rates is taking up the majority of the farmer's time.

Farmers need to closely monitor submission rates to date to make sure that they are on target as, for the majority of herds -depending on calving patterns, of course - will be aiming to have 90% of the herd calving in the first six weeks of the calving season.

However, this target is often not met by farmers as it requires a lot of work and monitoring and obviously a very high six-week in calf rate.

Heat detection and submission rates go hand-in-hand as missing too many heats will lead to poor submission rates in the first three weeks and will roll into the second three weeks, meaning you have only one more chance to get that cow within the first six weeks of breeding.

Efficient heat detection is he next part of the puzzle - while submission rates may be high, presenting and serving cows that are not actually in heat will lead to reduced conception rate.

The target is to have 90% of your cows submitted for breeding in the first three weeks of the breeding season, which means that you need to be breeding, on average, 4.3% of the herd each day in the first 21 days.

For your typical 100-cow herd in Ireland, this means you would have to be serving a little more than four cows each day and not all of these are not going to hold to the first serve.

The cows that did not hold to the first serve should come bulling again in the next 21 days, which means that they will have two opportunities to go in calf within the first six weeks.

Some cows may have been submitted that were not actually cycling or had already been bred in recent days, so cows that have actually been bred should only be included in your figure for submission rate.

After the first three weeks, you need to then start looking at the cows that have not been bred yet.

If these cows have not cycled – and they should have done so by now – they need to be checked by the vet as quickly as possible.

The most effective and efficient way of detecting cow's heat is to identify when a cow has been in standing heat and aids like tail paint, scratch cards, or crayons can be useful for this.

However, in order for these aids to be effective, there has to be a good amount of activity, as they are dependent on cows or heifers in standing heat to be mounted enough times to rub them off.

It is crucial that the number of cows served in the first three weeks is maximised as, once we get into the second three weeks, mounting activity decreases.

How many mounts a cow will receive is dependent on how many cows are in heat that day. As the breeding season goes on, the activity dies down, which means the effectiveness of pinpointing the standing heat decreases.

After six weeks, in your typical 100-cow herd, the amount of activity completely dies down, and so scratch cards may be more effective.

Tail paint should be topped up twice a week and when a cow is served, there should be some sort of indication of this, like putting a band of tail paint on the cow's back that cannot be rubbed off.

Farmers should clip the hair off the rump prior to the application of tail paint to ensure that the tail paint comes off with ease and to stop different colours layering up towards the end of breeding.