Planning for a successful joining

Improving reproductive performance is a complex challenge that requires a strategic approach to management and nutrition throughout the season. Throwing a bit of extra resource at your cows a week before joining will be ‘too little too late’.

Pip Gale
Pip Gale
Head of Nutrition and Technical Services

Improving reproductive performance is a complex challenge that requires a strategic approach to management and nutrition throughout the season. Throwing a bit of extra resource at your cows a week before joining will be ‘too little too late’.

The nutritional objective during the pre-joining period is to optimise the metabolic and endocrine functions in the cow to ensure a return to oestrus as soon as possible after calving, supported with sound follicle development and ultimately, maternal recognition of pregnancy.

The first step is to calve cows down at optimal body condition score and minimise the incidence of metabolic disease(s) at calving, such as milk fever, ketosis, mastitis, lameness, fatty liver etc. The goal is to prevent anything that drives inflammation within individual cows.

The next step is to feed your cows appropriately to minimise body condition score loss (ideally less than 0.5 BSC) after calving. International research continues to show that BSC loss is highly correlated to the length of the non-ovulatory period and in turn, the number of services per conception.

Cows are delivering peak milk solids production at the same time that we want them to conceive. It’s a big ask! As the herd moves towards joining period, rations need to provide a balance of highly metabolisable nutrients that support both milk solids production (metabolism) and reproduction (endocrine). Grazed and stored forages should be high in NDF digestibility and managed to ensure that soluble protein content is optimal relative to rumen fermentable carbohydrates (e.g. graze ryegrass plants at three-leaf stage in preference to two-leaf stage).

Cereals, both pellets and mash, provide combinations of slow and faster fermenting starch, thereby helping to optimise blood glucose production and moderate rumen pH over each 24 hour period. Individual cows may have challenges relative to insulin resistance, predisposing them to rapid BCS losses post-calving. Supplementation with key micro nutrients, such as chromium, which supports tissue insulin sensitivity, helps to optimise blood glucose production and moderate early lactation metabolic and dry matter intake challenges.

Supplementation with specific fatty acids can also be very beneficial in optimising reproductive performance. While inert or ‘bypass’ fats are often utilised to improve energy density, they can be used strategically to aid oocyte development, regulation of blood plasma progesterone levels and maternal recognition of pregnancy (Garnsworthy et al. 2008). In this study, increasing dietary fat concentration from 40 g/kg DM to about 55 g/kg DM explained 97% of the variance in blood plasma progesterone levels at Day 5 of the oestrus cycle. Pregnancy rates at 120 days of lactation showed corresponding improvements in high milk production cows.

Fatty acids are essential to the production of three of the six major hormones that are essential to reproduction. Their importance cannot be understated! However, attention to detail is critical to success. Scientific papers support a combination of palmitic acid (C16:0) and oleic acid (C18:1) before and during the joining period. Providing a source of palmitic acid alone will certainly drive milk production, but often at the cost of body condition score. The addition of oleic acid moderates this response to produce balanced metabolic and endocrine outcomes.

Antioxidants, such as zinc, selenium and Vitamin E, support oocyte development and competence by protecting them from oxidative stressors. Zinc is essential to almost every metabolic pathway and immune-mediated function in the body, including prostaglandin synthesis. Sound levels of all essential micro nutrients should be supplemented throughout lactation and the dry period. Follicle development actually occurs 70–80 days before the first ovulation event, so please don’t forget your dry cows!

At CopRice, we are adamant that high production cows can also be highly reproductive with the application of the latest scientific principles, sound management and ration formulation.

For more information about how CopRice can help to drive the productivity and profitability of your dairy business, please contact your local CopRice advisor or contact us.

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