Could the condition score of your cow affect reproductive performance?

Whilst it is perfectly normal for cows to mobilise body fat and lose condition after calving, cows with a BCS above 3.5 before calving are more likely to lose more condition after calving. Cows like this have less chance of getting pregnant at the first insemination. In fact, a study form Colorado State University found that the lowest pregnancy rates at first insemination were in cows that lost over 0.4 body condition scores.

The highest pregnancy rates and shortest days to conception were found in cows whose BCS increased from calving to insemination. 

Cows in good condition, those above 3.15 (but not above 3.5 – see above) not only have a better chance of getting pregnant, they also have a better chance of staying pregnant. Condition score losses after calving of more than 0.25 increase the chance of early pregnancy loss.*

Picture 1. Schematic overview of BCS effects on reproduction management

And this creates another problem. If we don’t not get them pregnant on time, or if they lose the pregnancy, the calving interval increase and longer calving intervals mean that we are more likely to dry off cows that have a high BCS.

To avoid that, tracking the BCS changes through lactation is really useful and the table below show some important BCS milestones to think about.

Tabel 1. BCS Loss effect on reproduction results (Source: Butler 2000; Garnsworthy en Webb 2002; Guthrie and West 2003)

Monitoring cows daily with automatic BCS scoring provides valuable information to help improve general reproductive performance by:

• Drying cows off at the right condition
• Inseminating when cows have a positive BCS trend to increase sucess
• Avoiding early pregnancy losses.

How does DelPro support help?

The default reports in DelPro provides insights on both individual cow and herd BSC values and changes over time.

The information from the DeLaval Body condition score System BCS can be used to decide when to start inseminating cows, by adding the BCS trend and value to the Cows to Breed reports, so only cows with increased body condition or where the drop in body condition has stop are inseminated.

And an SOP could be used to manage body condition at dry off, so cows enter the dry period with the correct body condition and the risk for metabolism disorders in the next lactation can be minimised.

You can read more about how DelPro FarmManager works DeLaval Body condition score System BCS here

 

*J.E.P. Santos et al. Animal Reproduction Science 110 (2009) 207–221