Overall: Our cows bred much better this year than last. Actually, to look at the numbers, this was our best year since we started dairying at this farm, which is a hopeful sign.
Here is a table which summarizes our information.
The cows that freshen in February (with the exception of 2010) are actually cows that are bred for March, but calve a little early.
Our May calvers are an unpredictable group as in one year we kept all of the May calvers, another year we kept the ones that were due in the first two weeks of May, and so on... This year we only kept the cows that are due in the first week of May in 2014.
-The low percentage of cows that bred back in 2012 is discussed here.
As for the calves-
-in 2011 we had one calf that I did not remove from the pen that she was born in right away and I let her drink off of her mother. She was in the pen for about 24 hours when I removed her. She died two days later. The vet said it was likely from poor colostrum quality and an overload of environmental toxins.
-in 2012 we took our heifers to my husband's father's farm due to a virus that the calves were contracting from the cows. I was not the one raising them this year, much to my dismay. One died from scours at about a week old and one died from bloat at two months old.
-In 2011, we raised 41 heifers and only had 34 calve in this year. 1 died (as discussed above) as a calf. 2 of our heifers left right before they calved (one involved laying on a hill with her back pointed down in trying to calve--that was discouraging, and the second tried to calve, but whether it was due to a twisted uterus or just her inability to deliver the calf, her body mummified it so we sold her instead of trying to milk her. We had poor breeding all around in 2012. We are not sure if it was due mainly to the weather or the bulls (we personally prefer to blame the bulls :) ) but we sold four heifers due to the fact that they were open after breeding season.
-We raised 43 heifers in 2012 and we only have 36 first lactation animals entering the herd next year. Two died as calves, two were open at the vet check and were sold for beef and three were killed in a freak accident at the farm where we take our heifers to be custom raised.
I am heartened by the percent of cows that bred back. We would definitely love to see that number improve, but I am encouraged that this is the highest percent since we began farming on our own. Bit by bit we will try to improve. This year we added a product called Thermal Care by ADM to the cows' ration. We do not know if that helped improve breeding or not. We didn't really see a drastic difference in the cows like we were hoping, but we did notice a reduced amount of visual heat stress on the cows (the number of cows panting, and the number of cows with tongues hanging out). I am not sure if that is enough for us to justify the cost, however.
These numbers only reflect my husband's and my herd. They are not the whole--as we also milk my father-in-law's cows at our farm as well.
Ok, I am off to bed, but I have LOADS more to share! I still need to post our cows that are for sale.
I would encourage you all to pray for our nation's leaders. There is much corruption in the government and I am disheartened by it, but God is still in control. Not only that, He commanded us to pray for our leaders. Blessings to each of you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
