The 38th Meeting of Dairy Club (Joint Venture of Alltech and UVAS) was held on Monday September 15, 2014 at Syndicate Room UVAS. Following was the agenda of meeting:
Topic |
Fertility related issues in commercial dairy farming....sharing the experience (Discussion Forum) |
Speaker |
Dr. Muhammad Ashraf, Engro Foods Pvt. Ltd
Dr. Ijaz Ali Channa, UVAS
Dr. Ibrahim, Dr. Arvanto, Umer Farms Pvt. Ltd |
Minutes of meetings are as follows:
Dr. Muhammad Zafar Ullah Khan opened the house and gave warm welcome to the participants. He introduced explained the agenda. As this was a discussion forum to discuss the real issues related to dairy cow fertility, all participants were urged to gave their inputs. First of all corporate dairy sector was requested to gave their inputs.
Dr. Aranto, Umar Farms:
Cow fertility is key factor for dairy farm profitability. The biggest issue in Pakistan is heat stress during July-August. In July-August conception rates drops to 10% as a total.
Main challenge is to get dairy cow pregnant in hot summer. Normally conception rates are highest in 1st primiparous cow then its declines in second and subsequent pregnancies.
BCS management plays an important role in fertility management too. Rest all the efforts which make the animals out of the heat stress can help to increase the fertility.
Dr. Muhammad Ashraf, Engro Foods Pvt. Ltd:
In such situation its better to plan in a way that maximum of the herd becomes dry in June-August. We have been trying this at our farm and getting good results and maintained the profitability as by this way animal remains in less stress during summer.
Dr. Ibrahim, Umar Farms:
In Pakistan, summer is hot and humid. 5-30C is a comfortable ambient temperature zone for exotic cows. In summer, decrease in feed intake is also a big challenge. High temperature also increase the cortisone secretion which is in turn related with GnRH. Ultimately animal fertility suffers a lot.
Dr. Muhammad Zafar Ullah Khan, Alltech
Feed intake can be increased by nutritional manipulations. Addition of Yea-sacc, adjustment in NDF, ADF, feed particle size, feeding frequency and feeding time can improve the situation. If intake is better, maintaining a better BCS becomes possible.
Dr. Mushtaq, UVAS, Lahore:
What % of insemination should be reduced in hot summer?
Dr. Ashraf, Engro Foods Pvt. Ltd.
This is one school of thought. Normally we expect about 12% calvings every month if there is no stress. As in Taiwan temperature doesn’t exeeds the limits which cause stress on animals fertility. You can slow down the insemination frequency according to your calving plan.
Dr. Ijaz Ali Channa, UVAS, Lahore
The key in maintaining conception rates in summer is the Cow Comfort. If cow is in comfort zone, it will perform better. In controlling heat stress we can adjust the feeding frequency. We have to adopt the strategies to decrease the cortisone secretions. We have tried many synchronization protocols which will be shared with you. These suynchronization protocols helps to a great extent in increasing the conception rates.
Dr. Usman, UVAS, Lahore:
There are many factors which increase the stress in summer. Stress includes high production, over crowding, ventilation, feed , etc. We have to consider all the factors to overcome the situation.
Dr. Waris, Millac Foods Pvt. Ltd.
There are other reasons which can decrease the fertility, e.g., high level of mycotoxins also affect the fertility. Use of good quality feed and good quality toxin binder can add the value.
Dr. Muhammad Ashraf, Engro Foods:
Other factors also include the blood parasites. For this we have to adopt good program for insects control. Daily fogging by using insecticide and insect repellents helps to keep these carriers away and decrease in spread of diseases which ultimately affect the fertility rates in commercial dairy herd.
At the end Dr. Asad Mehmood summarized the meeting and paid thanks to the speaker and participants.
Dr. Muhammad Zafar Ullah Khan
Business Development Manager
Alltech Pakistan |
