ThIs year’s 11th annual Dairy Cattle Reproduction Council (DCRC) award winners prove that constant improvement is a must

Dairy cattle, like other cattle breeds, are a monotocous species. In other words, they usually ovulate only one egg per heat cycle

“The 1960’s Holsteins here are basically a herd frozen in time,” said Brad Heins, an associate professor and manager of the University of Minnesota’s Organic Dairy Research and...

Every dairy farmer is striving for the same thing: the prefect cow. She milks better than any other cow and her components are 5 percent fat and 4 percent protein. She’s obviously pretty

Is there something in blackberries that really improves the reproductive performance of dairy cows?

John Wooden, a highly successful basketball coach for the UCLA Bruins, is quoted to have said: “It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”

I discussed the introduction of national health evaluations for Holsteins by the CDCB (Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding) in the December 2017 article “National health evaluations coming for Holstein

The CDCB (Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding) announced during this year’s World Dairy Expo that they will conduct genetic evaluations for six disease resistance traits

What are the most important metrics that the nation’s top herds use to monitor reproduction?

Veterinarian Cesar Narciso pointed to some advantages of IVF (in vitro fertilization), including accelerated genetic gain by using genomically superior donors, strategic reproduction management (like crossbreeding...

“For us, the Pocket Cow Card on the phone and tablet is a great reference tool when out among the herd,” said Jake Weisenbeck when discussing how his farm tracks heats, breeding records, and...

When dairy producers think about mastitis, they likely don’t automatically connect it to reproductive problems, but the two can go hand in hand

This year's 10th annual Dairy Cattle Reproduction Council Award's competition drew the second largest set of nominations to date from 16 U.S. states, Canada, and Italy

Determining a cow’s due date is an imprecise science. We can predict the date for most cows within a day or two, but the sex of the calf, season of year, and geographic region all play a role

Our first LimFlex-sired bull calf arrived last week. It represents the beginning of another herd size management strategy we’re slowly adopting

Immunity is the next frontier in improving reproduction

Many changes we make to dairy cows through genetic selection are easy to see or quantify. Our cows are much taller, thinner, and have far better udders than cows from past eras. We’ve also doubled...

To be successful, or profitable, raising heifers to first calving includes three areas of consideration – nutrition, health, and reproduction

“There’s a learning curve in adapting our management to the technology,” shared the University of Kentucky’s Joey Clark. He serves as the university’s dairy farm manager

Since the mid-1990s when ovsynch first came on the scene, reproductive technologies have greatly expanded when it comes to cows getting safe in calf