Cows Bulling - 'Rising plane of nutrition'

pakalasa

My AI guy was saying this to me recently, that cows need to be on a 'rising plane of nutrition' to get them to come into heat quicker after calving. By that he means they need to be getting more and more to eat every day. It natures way of trigering heat, spring grass and all that.
I started given a bit of meal at grass to a few that were slow to come bulling. It seems to work. Anyone else try this?

Buncha Fives

pakalasa wrote: »

My AI guy was saying this to me recently, that cows need to be on a 'rising plane of nutrition' to get them to come into heat quicker after calving. By that he means they need to be getting more and more to eat every day. It natures way of trigering heat, spring grass and all that.
I started given a bit of meal at grass to a few that were slow to come bulling. It seems to work. Anyone else try this?

The last discussion group meeting I was at it was one of the topics that was discussed at length and it makes sense really because the cows get into better condition when they are eating better and hence they come in heat sooner...it was also mentioned by a good few of the farmers that letting the calf drink the cow only twice a day breaks the bond between the two and hence the cow will come in heat quicker.

bob charles

long calving intervals is down mostly to poor nutrition. Some of the dairy herd are close on disgraceful in the nutrition of there animals in Ireland for some reason.

grumpyfarmer

bob charles wrote: »

long calving intervals is down mostly to poor nutrition. Some of the dairy herd are close on disgraceful in the nutrition of there animals in Ireland for some reason.

I reckon cos teagasc have everyone thinking cows can live on short grass alone... and its very hard yo have enough of that... they would soon want to learn that we all don't have land like moorepark...

49801

def something to the raising plain of nutrition but is it practicable to feed meal to sucker cows? But there is no silver bullet to get them incalf.... it'll be a combination of factors nuitrition, health, cow calf bond etc.

If you can break the cow calf bound would with twice day sucking even for only 3/4 days it'll bring the cow in heat quicker. If you can encourage the calves to creep to a field next to the year even better again.

other thing you can discuss with your vet is administering estrumate 6wks post calving to bring her in.

flatout11

im afraid the rising plane idea leading up to insemination is not accurte - feed to meet demand, a lot of the factors that infulence reproductive success are infulenced weeks and sometimes months ahead of insemination
practical advice graze them on the best available ground - which i reckon most sereious sucker producers do - so it sounds great to talk about rising plane of nutrition but in reality it aint that simple.......
as to supplementing them - if there inside on silage 1 to 2 kg outdoors it shouldnt matter once they have adaquate supply
as to body condition i read somewhere that there is an effect of bcs at calving on postpartum interal and some lads prob let them slip a bit to avoid difficult calving, i dont know if its ecomomicly justifiable to supplement at pasture - how much would you feed and what response would you expect to get?