The first table is the conception rate for the service number.
We were pretty pleased with our first service conception rate of 53%. We only bred artificially for the first four weeks this year. The second service percent conception fell off a little bit, but it was getting hotter as we went on and more than likely, what we see is that the cows that do not settle first service tend not to be our most fertile cows, or they are cows that had quite a few problems calving in this year (twins, retained placenta, milk fever, etc.)
Then, for competition sake, we broke the conception rate down by technician. I was pretty proud of myself (I am technician #1), but Gary from Genex had me beat (granted that is his job and I think he said he breeds anywhere from 500 to 1000 cows a week!). So, he gets quite a bit more practice than I do. Tech #3 is the combination of the other technicians that come in to breed from Genex, since Gary is our main technician (and our most favorite :)) we don't have a lot of the other technicians come to make it worth separating them into their own individual numbers. The bulls were technician #00. The breedings measured were the ones that we saw. So those numbers don't even include all of the cows that came in heat if we didn't see them. What we do is after we turn the bulls in with the cows, we mark the cow as being bred by the bulls if we see her in heat. Most of the time we do see one or two of the bulls following her around anyway.
After looking at this data, I am going to be breeding the cows artificially for SIX weeks next year instead of four. I usually am pretty tired and ready to pass the work off to the bulls, but a conception rate of 11% is just pathetic. I can afford to miss a few cows in heat and still do better than this. Our nutritional consultant said that one of the main benefits of breeding artificially in the summer is that the straw of semen is not affected by the heat like the bull is. Last year the bulls didn't do that badly though, and I remember it being hotter last year than this year. I just checked our computer program and last year, during the same time frame, our bulls were at 33% conception rate, and that was with only three bulls in with the cows on 180 services! This year we had six bulls in with the cows! Needless to say, we have already sold quite a few of our bulls from this year. I kept a few, but I might trim them down some more yet. We wanted to do fertility testing on all of the bulls before breeding season began, but neither of the nearby vets offices were equipped to do so. We have since learned of two possible sources to have the bulls fertility tested. I just wish someone was a little closer.
Now, just for fun we did a graph of conception rate by day of the week. With some farms you can actually glean useful information from this if you have different employees watching for heats on different days, but for us, it is the same people, so there isn't quite as much to capture from this report.
Apparently, Wednesday, isn't a great day for us to breed cows. :)
These reports and more are just a few reasons why I think it is so invaluable to have a program by which to analyze your information. This year's analysis shows me that it is worth the time for me to breed the cows for a few more weeks before putting the bulls in for clean up. Also, we will make more of an effort to have fertility tests done on our bulls before breeding season next year to make sure we don't have any duds running around in there just taking up space and eating feed--especially if it is a bull with a more dominant personality. He may be keeping the more fertile bulls away from the cows in heat.
Next post will be on analyzing cow breeds and how they settled. We were shocked at some of the results.
Blessings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to each of you.
~Liz
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