Semex’s Reproductive Link WINTER 2012
In this issue: ai24™ HR-Tag® At Golden Oaks: Focusing On Cows That Need It Udder Health & Reproductive Consequences Minimize Cold Shock When Handling Semen Semex... Genetics For Life
ai24™ HR-Tag® At Golden Oaks: Focusing On Cows That Need It
Chris Sheahan, ai24™ Program Manager
In the Chicago suburbs, it’s not surprising to see large, beautiful homes, parks and picturesque lakes. But, also found in these suburbs is a long driveway lined with oak trees, leading to one of the nation’s superior dairy operations, Golden Oaks Farm. Golden Oaks Farm of Wauconda, Illinois was originally established in 1948 by Chicago’s Crown Family. At the time, this location was an influential dairy production area. Over 60 years later, urban sprawl surrounds the dairy, but the focus of this now 700-cow, 1600-acre dairy remains… Breed and develop superior Holstein genetics with an annual goal to produce 18,700,000 pounds of milk with solid components each year. This is accomplished through careful genetic selection and by utilizing an extensive embryo transfer program.
efficiency, the Golden Oaks management team also committed to capitalizing on a cow’s natural heat before intervening with other methods.
involvement in reproduction. “We like to help develop our staff’s skills and empower them to make more cow side decisions, and ai24™ helps us do that.”
“We did our research and evaluated the return on investment on the systems,” says Ethan Heinzmann, Golden Oaks Herdsman. “We knew the areas we wanted to improve on and we realized we weren’t taking advantage of enough repeat heats. We chose ai24™’s HRTags® because we felt it was the best system for our milking herd and heifer operation. Also, we
Golden Oaks chose ai24™ as their solution, putting the new HR-Tags® on the milking herd and the H-Tags® on the heifers. The advanced ai24™ HR-Tag® was developed by researchers at SCR® to do two things. First, like the traditional H-Tag®, it takes the guesswork out of A.I. and is based on its unique, 24-hour, easy to use, electronic heat detection
However, being located just 45 minutes from the O’Hare International Airport, Golden Oaks has to make sure that positive public perception is calculated into each management decision. A positive public perception is important to Golden Oaks, and led them to establish Midwest Organics Recycling (MOR), a composting business in 2004. MOR provided Golden Oaks with a solution to sustaining its large dairy on the outskirts of Chicago while providing its urban neighbors with a valuable commodity. Its Organimix® brand compost is made from materials including leaves, grass, woodchips and cow manure, and can be used as a soil amendment, lawn dressing, potting soil component or mulch.
liked the long term warranty and battery life of the ai24™ system.”
This concern for sustainability and public perception is part of every aspect of their business, including herd reproduction. As they searched for ways to improve reproductive
With 14 fulltime, several part-time employees and two college students working on the farm, Nate Janssen, Dairy Operations Manager was also concerned about labor issues and the staff
Nate Janssen, Golden Oaks Dairy Operations Manger and Semex Representives Gale Shelbourn
system that has a 95% tag read rate and an 85-90% true heat detection rate. Second, the HR-Tag® was created as a broader herd management tool. It has a builtin microphone to record and analyze each cow’s rumination… Giving you greater insight into what is happening inside your cow. This CONTINUED on pg. 3
Just like on the dairy, every dose counts at Semex. We work hard to ensure that each and every dose stamped with the 200 stud code is the very best product available, from the bull to the farm tank. Semex’s focused and dedicated staff prides itself on exceeding industry standards for sire care, laboratory, warehouse and transportation services. This commitment to excellence and belief that every dose counts, guarantees that Semex sires are the most reliable, fertile and profitable choice for dairymen everywhere.
Focus on Fertility Call (877) 545-ai24 or visit www.semex.com
Udder Health & Reproductive Consequences
Successful udder health involves managing the parlor, environment and dry-off in details and protocols. When thinking about udder health, remember the role genetics will play in your herd. Picking AI sires with lower SCS will help your herd produce higher quality milk and more profitable cows.
Mark Carson, MSc. BSc. (Agr)., EastGen Reproductive Specialist
As the dairy industry continues to push for higher standards for the product leaving the farm gate, milk quality continues to receive a lot of attention. The only ways to improve this quality is through better udder health and lowered Somatic Cell Counts (SCC). Improving udder health will not only help to lower SCC, but it will also put more milk in your bulk tank and money in your pocket. This extra production on a 100-cow dairy with an estimated milk price of $16.00 per CWT could mean an extra $6,400 in revenue annually. Additionally, elevated SCC has been shown to have an additional cost on the dairy by reducing reproductive performance.
FIGURE 1: INTERPRETTING FIRST SCC TEST RESULTS <200
>200
>200,000 at Dry-Off
% Cure
% Failure
<200,000 at Dry-Off
% Clean
% Sick While In Transition
A study done by Cornell University found that clinical mastitis occurring any time between 14 days before until 35 days after insemination can lower conception rates. Gram-negative type bacteria such as E. coli can be particularly harmful if infection occurs in the week following insemination, with an 80% reduction in the chance of becoming pregnant.
A good way to monitor your dry cow program performance is by comparing the SCC scores at the time of drying off versus their first test in the next lactation (See Figure 1). Using a cut-off point of 200,000 SCC, this assessment helps to show improvement opportunities for udder health within your dry cow program. Easily done within Dairy Comp 305, or other data collection program when SCC is collected, the analysis will tell you one of the following:
Parlor & Environmental Factors Parlor and environment management are the major focuses of any herd’s udder health protocol, and rightfully so. Correct milking procedures and maintenance of a cow’s environment during her lactation will have a tremendous impaction on her milk quality. Also, established milking procedures and proper working milking equipment are both critical to ensuring the best udder health possible, because cows that are not cleaned and prepped correctly can have milk let-down issues and may experience udder contamination issues.
1. I f your cows start and finish the dry period with a SCC below 200,000, then your protocol effectively stopped new infections from occurring.
There are a number of ways to monitor SCC in your parlor and environment’s performance. Many new parlors come with software packages that help you monitor factors such as milk let-down times and milking speeds. Looking at these production aspects are great aids in measuring the performance of your milking crew and parlor equipment. Reviewing your herd’s SCC pattern between milk tests can also help identify focus areas. If your SCC scores stay high from test to test, you may be looking for contagious types of mastitis in your herd such as Staphylococcus Aureus and Streptococcus Agalactiae. These types of mastitis normally develop from milking procedure issues. However, if your SCC scores spike up and then return to normal between milk tests, environmental types of mastitis, such as E. coli, may be your culprit. Plotting your bulk tank SCC figures over the course of a year will help you see these trends. When looking at the year as a whole, if you find you have a significant spike in SCC during the warmer summer months you may want to look at ways to improve your cows’ environment during those warm periods. Dry Cow Management Dry cow management is a critical point in any udder health protocol. The dry period gives the cow a chance to recover from the previous lactation, while preparing her mammary system for the next lactation. An excellent dry cow program involves an appropriate veterinarian recommended treatment protocol at the time of dry-off, clean housing and proper stocking density. These factors, combined with proper dry cow nutrition and calving management, should help reduce the mastitis cases.
2. I f your cows start the dry period with a high SCC and subsequently start their next lactation with a low SCC, your dry cow treatment protocol successfully cured mastitis cases. 3. I f your cows start the dry period with a high SCC, then also start their next lactations with an elevated SCC your dry cow protocol failed to cure mastitis cases. 4. I f your cows start a dry period with low SCC and begin their lactations with an elevated SCC, your protocol allowed cows to get sick during the transition period. A successful dry-cow udder health program will keep most of the cows clean and cured, while minimizing the percentage that will start their lactations with a high SCC. Genetics Genetics is often a forgotten part of an udder health management program. If reducing the SCC over your entire herd is a long-term priority, then you should start considering the Somatic Cell Scores (SCS) of the AI sires you’re choosing. Paying attention to SCS when picking your sires will help produce daughters that are less prone to develop high SCC. For example, a third lactation daughter from a sire with a 2.60 SCS can be expected to have a 60,000 lower cell count compared to the breed average of 3.00. Reducing SCC will help make managing your herd udder health easier, and breeding daughters that are less prone to cases of mastitis will make the management of udder health in the future even easier! Successful udder health involves managing the parlor, environment and dry-off in details and protocols. When thinking about udder health, remember the role genetics will play in your herd. Picking AI sires with lower SCS will help your entire herd produce higher quality milk and more profitable cows.
CONTINUED from pg. 1
rumination information helps to identify any potentially sick or distressed cows as well as any nutritional or management issues before they become larger, more costly matters.
Valuable Pregnancies “Getting more ET pregnancies is very important to us, especially now in the era of genomics,” says Ethan.
Using the HR-Tag® also gives the dairy an added confidence in the heat list produced each day, further demonstrating the related drop in rumination with an increase in activity.
Golden Oaks uses their heat list information as part of their embryo transfer (ET) program, breeding most heifers with eggs.
“We see a spike in activity and the rumination go down in pretty much every cow,” says Nate. “We line up the columns side-by-side to see that. It gives us the secondary indication that the cow is in heat.” How’s It Working On Golden Oaks? Shortly after installing, the Golden Oaks team began seeing the value ai24™ provides to a herd. “Before ai24™ we would only rely on daily milk weights to give us a cow’s status. Now, we use three different tools,” says Ethan. “We see rumination changes as the first signal… These changes come 12-18 hours before the milk weight drop. This lets us focus on those cows that definitely need the attention,” says Ethan. “We have a young man who monitors our fresh cows,” says Nate. “He looks at the rumination list every day and for those with a large decrease, he can proactively deal with those cows. This helps us identify any treatment needed for ketosis or a DA.” “We can use the rumination list to monitor any ration changes,” says Nate. “We know they have gone off feed, and those cows with the decreased rumination can be identified quickly and one of our staff can give them a closer look.”
“By utilizing the system’s heat detection we go through and write down heats and activity levels,” says Nate. “This really helps our vets find the CL and put embryos in the heifers.” Return On Investment Since installing their system at Golden Oaks Farm, the team is definitely enjoying the flexibility and costs savings from ai24™. “We are now using about half the reproductive drugs as we were before. And, we’ve become a lot more selective on which cows are getting treatments,” says Ethan. “Now, the animals that haven’t had a heat by the end of our voluntary waiting period (55 days) are definitely considered cystic or non-cycling cows.” Golden Oaks has reduced their weekly enrollment into an ovsynch program by 85%, and now boasts a 70% palpated pregnancy rate. “Trusting the system was easy,” says Nate. “The support we get from Semex has been tremendous. Our Semex Representives Gale Shelbourn and Jake Kempel are always just a phone call away.”
“Now, we are able to target these cows and examine them more closely than before.”
Minimize Cold Shock When Handling Semen Cold shock occurs when semen is thawed and then subjected to cold environmental temperatures before being deposited in the cow or heifer. It’s important to take special precautions when handling bull semen during cold weather because cold shock damages sperm cells and reduces fertility. Here are some timely reminders for minimizing cold shock from George Heersche, Jr., extension dairy specialist at the University of Kentucky: 1. M ake sure the animal to be inseminated is caught before the semen is thawed. 2. M inimize the distance between where the semen is thawed and where the animal is inseminated. 3. Thaw and handle semen in a warm room.
4. B efore the straw is placed in the insemination gun, warm the insemination gun by rubbing it briskly with a paper towel.
5. W rap the assembled insemination rod in a clean paper towel and tuck it in your clothing close to your body to keep it warm during transport to the animal. Source: January 2012 Kentucky Dairy Notes
SEMEX... GENETICS FOR LIFE “We feel this video conveys this to our customers, because in the end, we’re a farmer-driven business. We’re owned and directed by farmers for farmers. We know what is going on where it matters most, and we think about tomorrow every day.” The ‘Genetics For Life’ video details Semex’s obligation to our customer and our belief that genetics are at the heart of any operation. This commitment is evident within several aspects of the Semex organization beyond our product:
• We’re working hard to continually develop a profitable genetic product suite and solutions for cattle producers Semex’s mandate is to offer our clients the most profitable genetics available anywhere. And, we know that genetics is not just a part of the industry.... It is the industry. We invest deeply in genetic research and development in order to deliver the best possible solutions in dairy and beef cattle breeding. This focus on you, our customer, is what propels us forward and is the driving force for the Semex programs including: Genomax™, our genomic sire program; our global Jersey program; the Semex Learning Centre; our Premier™ young sire program, ai24™ and much more. These same thoughts were the catalyst for Semex’s newest video entitled, ‘Genetics For Life.’
• We’re training our staff to be the best partner in your business • We’re investing in the right research and development to ensure our product is the very best product on the market The new video can be viewed on Semex’s Youtube page: www.youtube.com/SemexAlliance. In early 2012 watch for additional versions in French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Portuguese.
“At Semex we’re working hard every day to add value to our customers’ businesses and lives,” says Paul Larmer, Semex Alliance Chief Executive Officer.
NEW HR-Tag
®
Built-in microphone records and analyzes rumination w Unprecedented insight into individual cow health status: w • E arly identification of potentially sick cows, distressed cows or nutritional problems • I dentify problem cows before milk production drops • R educe drug use Unique cow motion sensor (three-dimensional w acceleration meter) Filters head movements w Easy and secure attachment w Separate data storage in 2 hour intervals w Expected 8 year battery life with a w prorated lifetime warranty
Gives producer ability to monitor group w and whole herd rumination
2866 Agriculture Drive, Madison, WI 53718 1-877-545-ai24
99% Tag Read Rate w 85-90% True Heat Detection Rate w