Jersey Reproduction

I just finished paying the vet. $200 for 3 different AI services on my Jersey cow and we missed each time. That is $600 and not even a (by your leave from the vet) So I bought a bull and that seems to have done the trick. Having a bull around is an experience I could do without however. I lost a thousand dollars on the bull at the auction. So where does that leave me financially every year? I'm tired of getting a bite out of my ass every time I need my cows bred......

Ann, Generally, Jerseys are one of the most fertile of the dairy breeds. Before moving back to the US in 2004 I spent 15yrs in New Zealand share milking my own herd of 200 mostly registered Jerseys. Because dairying in New Zealand is mostly seasonal and cows are all dried off at once, a very tight calving pattern was required. My cows were completely calved in 6 weeks with no hormone assistance....all were bred on natural heats. Out of 200 cows bred we ended up with 6-8% open after 42 days of AI. So....the comment made about Jerseys not breeding back in the year they calved is totally incorrect. There are three critically important factors that are necessary for successful reproduction....no matter how big or small your operation is. First, and most important, is nutrition. It is essential that lactating dairy cows be fed an adequate balanced blend of protein and carbohydrate feed and forage. If she's allowed to graze grass and other forages, they also need to be highly digestible and of high quality. If you're not sure how much to feed her, a good rule of thumb in pounds of dry matter is to feed her daily 3.5% of her body weight as a minimum.Good nutrition not only keeps the cow lactating at a desired level but also keeps her metabolically sound. If all this is happening and she's still not breeding, you need to get a vet to check her breeding tract.....it may be something as simple as a corpus luteum on the ovary which is causing her to not come into heat or catch. Second on the list is heat detection. You can't breed 'em if you can't see 'em!! Dairy cows will come on true heat as early as 30 days after calving. I wouldn't breed them on this heat as it compromises the days she'll have in milk. Personally I wouldn't breed the cow until she's been lactating for at least 50 days. Now....I'm assuming you have another cow or steer that will ride your cow when she comes into standing heat. Glue a heat detection strip or K-Mar heat detector in front of her tail head. If you can't do that I suggest using regular marking crayon as a strip on the tail head. If it's rubbed off or the colored fluid in the K-Mar has been moved into the front chamber, your cow has been on heat. and should be bred immediately to AI or put to the bull. keep your cow marked with chalk for the next 42 days. Take particular notice of days 18-21 after breeding. It will be these days shes most likely to return on heat if she didn't catch the last time. Last but not least.......make sure your AI technician knows what he/she is doing and is providing quality, high motility semen. This is just my own opinion....but I think having bulls running with cows on a small dairy is dangerous. Bulls are bulls and you never know what's going on with them. Iv'e seen 'pet' bulls become violently aggressive in a heartbeat when there's cows on heat! It's the way God made them. NEVER turn your back to a bull. To Mike Hoover.....either your cow wasn't on heat, your vet wasn't competent or the semen he/you provided was bad. I ran several AI schools in New Zealand and stage of heat (oestrus) and semen quality placement can make or break the effort. Hope this helps you Ann and Mike

Breeding problems are very less with Jeresy breed. Press the the skin on the Loin region of the animal if the animal rises it's tail it will be in heat, if not in heat it tucks up the tail on the vulva. In this test all animals will sink their loin region of the back bone. Please note few pregnant animal do show this symptom 4 to 14 days after insemination, between 30-45 days, in the 3rd, 5th and 7th month of pregnancy also. Identifying heat is best done at 6 am 2 pm and evening 6 pm or night 10 pm.. Early morning or night when you visit the cow byre the animal in heat/estrus gets up first or if it is standing already keep your hand in the left flank and press if it is soft the animal can be in heat examine the internal surface of the vulva it should be pink or red in color if it is in heat. If you can examine the floor where the animal has lied down, animal in heat would have expelled the clear mucus discharge which will be colourless. You may see blood mixed discharge .from the vulva in some cows it is an indication the animal had come in heat and passed off the stage. This is a natural phenomena as lot of blood flow will be there during heat and few blood cells and serum will enter the lumen of the uterus. Avoid any hormonal or other treatments. This can happen 1 to 2 days after the heat. As the cows will have heat periods once in 21 days (in heifer it can be 17 to 19 days) you can plan to look this animal in next 18 to 19th day for heat. This you can do only for handful of animals In large herds only for the problem cows this can be adopted. Requires availability of time for fallow up. Using a prostaglandin [PG] injection at 11 days interval twice by a veterinarian can help if your animal is a silent heat animal. After injection animal can come into heat between 36 hours to 5 days invariably 36 hours after the PG injection. Inseminating them the success rate of pregnancy here will be above 80%. This we fallow In India as many farmers will have 1 to 10 animals along with their agriculture. As 43 percent of animals come in to heat after midnight to 6 am we are preferring insemination between 4 to 4.30 pm in large herds where the wet average of milk yield per cow per day is about 15 to 16 liters. The Fertility rate is always above 50 per cent in any given month of the year. There is simple pregnancy test for which you have collect urine of the cow 35 days after insemination. take 2 trays which are 5 to 6 inches wide. Put into each about 100 green gram or cow pea or wheat seeds. Pour water in to one tray till the seeds are just immersed. Mix ONE part of urine with FOUR parts of water and pour in to the second tray till the seeds are just immersed. Cover both for days to prevent evaporation. All the seeds in water tray will germinate In the water and urine mixed tray if the seeds fail to germinate that cow is pregnant. If not pregnant more than 60 percent seeds do germinate but the length of the plumule is short. Test is 100 percent accurate at 35 days after AI in pregnant animal. Unfortunately in Pyometra or Mummified fetus also the seeds fail to germinate. THIS TEST is 100 percent accurate to say the cow is not pregnant. The test has to be done WITHIN FOUR HOURS AFTER COLLECTING THE URINE from the cow which you suspect to be pregnant Here few dairy farmers feed 25 leaves of Datura alba plant along with handful of green grass 15 minutes to 60 minutes after insemination and are getting 60 to 86 percent female calves instead of 50 percent female calves. with insemination. You can look for IMAGE of DATURA alba in the INTERNET . If you feed DATURA Metal plant leaves you will get Male calves. If you need the seeds of this plant i can send by post. Dr V.N.Viswanatha Reddy, Former Professor of Animal Reproduction, Veterinary College, Bangalore 560024 INDIA

I think Prof. Dr. Reddy post a very comprehensive and elaborate comments on Jersey Reproduction and how a farmer get rid-up from the problems and also suggested some practical herbal technologies usually using in different parts of INDIA to get more female calves, every farmers desire it. So, I thanks Prof. Reddy for his valuable and practical suggestions to improve the reproductive health of Jersey. Dr. N..R. Sarker Principal Scientist Animal Production Research Division Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute Savar, Dhaka-1341

Kindly see the product ROSYNCH and Remix manufactured by Shree Renuka Vetmin a perfect composition for controlling reproductive disorders of all female lactating livestock is nutritional feed supplement free from hormones, antibiotics etc. Most Successful product a recent invention. For this contact inforenukavetmin@yahoo.com Dr Hanamapure or call 9886890980 Karnataka India

The above topics are most interesting and pass invaluable information not found in text-books. The information though does not only apply to Jersey cattle. A trick used in beef cows is to take the calves away for 24hrs (stop milking for one day - loss of income for the dairy or is it!) Nutrition is of course VERY important and the animal should be on a rising plane of nutrition and be healthy and clean reproduction tract wise. I have found that an injection of "Multi-min" helps a great deal with problem animals. It must also never be forgotten that we are dealing with females and they must feel loved and definitely not mishandled in any way what-so-ever. Also there is a small percentage of females who will never settle with Artificial Insemination. Good management and records will identify these animals and if they are above average producers keep them but treat them differently when it comes to reproduction, Should they be below your herd average production then GET RID of them as they can become a liability.

ROSYNCH (Dietary supplement) Copy right formulation product. International patent class: CO7D417/00 FREE FROM HORMONES AND ANTIBIOTICS Global first formulation product: US news service and news wires. FOR USE IN ANIMAL FEED ONLY / NOT FOR HUMAN USE Application: 50 gm/day/ for large and 10-15 gm for smaller animals with concentrate only orally or as directed by the practitioner. For NATURAL ESTRUS SYNCHRONIZATION daily once. Direction of Use: Take 50.00gm approximately and mix with soaked feed concentrate about 1.0kg in about 40-60% water and feed animal probably in the evening. Uterine dilation and safe Induced parturition: Daily once to thrice depending on gestation period in the last 10 days of parturition. Treatment to retained placenta, metritis, endometritis, pyometra, cleaning uterine system, dystocia and mummified fetus etc: Daily three times. Application for all ruminant buffalo, cattle, mithun, yak etc. to bring the females on heat and in repeat breeders, for cleaning infected uterus, and induce heat after parturition naturally and tuning uterus. REMIX (Dietary supplement) Copy right formulation product. International Patent class: A 23K FREE FROM HORMONES AND ANTIBIOTICS FOR USE IN ANIMAL FEED ONLY / NOT FOR HUMAN USE Application: 50 gm/ day/ male or female ruminants for large and 10-15 gm for smaller animals oral mixed with concentrate suspension or as directed by the veterinary practitioner. Direction of Use: Take 50.00 gm approximately and mix with feed concentrate about 0.5-1.0 kg in about 40-80% water and feed animal. If necessary add sweeteners. In case of FMD, debility, pica, skeletal deformities, rickets, milk fever, metabolic disorders, vaginal prolapsed, diarrhea, dysentery, coccidosis, bloat, red urine and with abnormal eating habbits (stone and soil eating, urine drinking etc) feed three times daily every 3- 4 hrs. For off feed, anorexia, health improvement, de-worming, after insemination, fat correction, milk quality and quantity improvement, cyst control, under developed uterus, regularizing uterine tuning, skin depigmentation due to light protection( in buffalo), improve rumen micro flora, control acidosis and to increase the immunity and remain stress free in all time which helps in higher productivity and lower treatment cost. Combination of ROSYNCH and REMIX CONTROLS METABOLIC & REPRODUCTIVE DISORDERS. REOLT(Skin Care Ayurvedic) For external application Copy right formulation product. Application: For Vet Use only for skin infections and massaging. FREE FROM HORMONES AND ANTIBIOTIC External application/ Skin Infections/ Hair growth /Wound healing/ Surgery All type of skin infections and wound healing including complete hair growth on infected skin in vet. Provides animal good relief due to wound healing and anesthetic property. Antiseptic, anesthetic, antimicrobial, bactericidal, antiparasitic, aperient, germicide and incredible cleansing properties to treat ring worms, herpes, eczema, acne, scabies and psoriasis and tail tip necrosis. Treatment of scalps, broken skin, itching etc and in addition it provides nourishment to hair roots improve circulation with hair root growth properties. Contact email: inforenukavetmin@yahoo.com

it is really nice formulation. if it is free of hormone to bring the animal in good reproductive frame work. it is a great achievement.... lets fond the results

I agree with the opinion of Rudra Desai and Ralph Ferreira. It is not that we should go for these supplements for the reproductive benefit. We need to be precise while supplementing these micronutrients. The specific minerals of interest (Zn, Fe, Cu, Se etc) and vitamins (beta carotene or some amount of green fodder, vitamin E) needs to be made available for the purpose. Inclusion of brans or chunni in the diet make up for these minerals. One can go for supplementing Azolla (1 kg fresh after thorough washing) to meet these vital nutrients.

Nutrition-Reproduction interaction in this line is an important topic

There is technology of proper feed supplement which we invented and that products with regular feeding you need not depend on any hormonal technology we have feed formulation that brings your Jersey on strong heat just by feed supplements with concentrate

I suggest if the body condition is optimum post calving by 55-60 days . Just start presynch programe and when the cow come to heat she may be bred. Make sure effective uterine involution free post calving infection. As rightly mentioned by Mike Jerseys are better fertile comparison to holstein fressian .

Hi there. 
I would just like to thank all of the participants in this informative discussion and ask about physical signs of heat on cattle.

Best regards,
Mostafa Badri