Empty heifers

Borney92

Member
How do you define late as possible? Your never going to know when the first standing heat was or when the oestrus cycle first begun??
Generally when I start to ai the heifers I watch before hand record dates so I know when there on again, have cameras in the shed and be checking them haven't missed a standing heat in a while, and by late if I seen a heifer standing this morning at 8or9am I would bull her the following morning before milking. Suits me as I can do it, not everyone would want to due to time constraints or labour. But I would be getting 80-90% first conception to sexed. Only working with batches of 10-15 heifers
 

dinderleat

Member
Location
Wells
If a see a cow bulling at morning milking I serve her then same with afternoons, heifers are stickered and are served ASAP to a stronger heat or scratched Esterotec getting good results with both
 
We have stumbled across some interesting data on our heifer syncro, in 2014 our vets switched from using estrumate and receptal to using pre-lim and acegon, apparently it’s the same drug and better value.

That exact same year coincides with when we started seeing a decline in conceptions rates to our synchro service, this then has had a knock on affect in the main milking herd fertility as we haven’t been front loading with as many heifers as we should have been.

Needless to say we are switching back to the old drugs this year.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
We have stumbled across some interesting data on our heifer syncro, in 2014 our vets switched from using estrumate and receptal to using pre-lim and acegon, apparently it’s the same drug and better value.

That exact same year coincides with when we started seeing a decline in conceptions rates to our synchro service, this then has had a knock on affect in the main milking herd fertility as we haven’t been front loading with as many heifers as we should have been.

Needless to say we are switching back to the old drugs this year.
our vets use pre-lim and acegon, and we haven't noticed any anomolies
 

Rossymons

Member
Location
Cornwall
We have stumbled across some interesting data on our heifer syncro, in 2014 our vets switched from using estrumate and receptal to using pre-lim and acegon, apparently it’s the same drug and better value.

That exact same year coincides with when we started seeing a decline in conceptions rates to our synchro service, this then has had a knock on affect in the main milking herd fertility as we haven’t been front loading with as many heifers as we should have been.

Needless to say we are switching back to the old drugs this year.

We know more about greater space than we do about our oceans. I'd like to think that would extend to cows.

There's no reason changing the bottles should work...but you know what? Being cows, it probably will.
 

Bald Rick

Moderator
Livestock Farmer
Location
Anglesey
Whilst synchronisation can give some impressive results, does anyone have any concerns they may be breeding cows that need a vet to get pregnant.

If I have a cow that needs sync, she gets bred to beef.
While I can't claim chart topping results but I do feel it may be a more robust approach.

TBF we only synced these because they were for sale but time started to creep. Generally don’t touch sync as don’t need to with our sexy girls
 

Cowski

Member
Location
South West
Whilst synchronisation can give some impressive results, does anyone have any concerns they may be breeding cows that need a vet to get pregnant.

If I have a cow that needs sync, she gets bred to beef.
While I can't claim chart topping results but I do feel it may be a more robust approach.
Totally agree, I think every prid should come with a free straw of beef semen
 

Scholsey

Member
Location
Herefordshire
Took 23 Holstein and Hereford x bulls through to fat on meal (£240/t) and straw due to TB and being unable to sell them as calf’s. Cost 11k just in meal, sold them for 13k (8 went as AFU stores) straw, labour, milk, first 4 months of cake, tags etc all to come out of it, couldn’t have timed it any worse. :cry:
 
Took 23 Holstein and Hereford x bulls through to fat on meal (£240/t) and straw due to TB and being unable to sell them as calf’s. Cost 11k just in meal, sold them for 13k (8 went as AFU stores) straw, labour, milk, first 4 months of cake, tags etc all to come out of it, couldn’t have timed it any worse. :cry:
calves from a holstein cow put to hereford bull? why didnt you cross to a limousine? and why £249/t for meal?
 

Scholsey

Member
Location
Herefordshire
calves from a holstein cow put to hereford bull? why didnt you cross to a limousine? and why £249/t for meal?

Because I want easy calving, usually sell as calf’s, were shut down with TB, bought a grower mix from a merchant who fattens 1500 cattle of his own on the same stuff, picked up 6t at a time in tonne bags.
 
PD’d 180 heifers today, 9 empty so 5% empty rate, really pleased with that, our best for the spring herd so far.

Heifers were split into 2 groups of 80 and CiDR synced, the 20 smallest were put straight to the bulls. The others were served blind to the sync program and then bulls joined them 2 days after
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 77 43.3%
  • Up to 25%

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    Votes: 29 16.3%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.2%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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