On a farm visit in Kerry

Visited a farm where a client presented a sucker herd, that had an autumn calving programme for suckler cows, and a spring calving programme for dairy cows. Reproductive performance of the suckler herd of 20 cows and 2 heifers was excellent, while that in the dairy herd was very poor. The client informed me that he had only 1 cow that repeated on 3 occasions. We aged and sexed the remaining pregnancies established after insemination. The client informed me that the pregnancy rate on his dairy herd was 30% on a repeated basis for 5 years. In my opinion, the management of a dairy herd is inadequate to meet the demands of the genetic potential of the dairy herd.

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