Dumfries and Galloway: Improving fertility in the dairy herd

Join us and vet, Dave Gilbert, of Dairy Insight, to look at how to maximise fertility, including how to prepare your cows for breeding and achieving targets within your herd.

Fertility is one of the leading factors affecting the efficiency of any dairy herd.  It can account for one of the major costs of production and represents an area where significant improvements can be made.

We will review real farm data from Millands Farm, who have been working closely with Dave Gilbert for 18 months and have achieved an increase in calving in the first six weeks from 71% to 82%. We will also demonstrate the value of reviewing data and how to approach it. 

While Millands Farm run a Spring Block calving system, this meeting will be relevant and valuable for all systems.

During the discussion, we will cover: 

• Setting and hitting ambitious targets
• Pre-mating checks – when and what to look for?
• Heat detection techniques & tools
• Semen handling and AI protocols
• What to do with non-cyclers
• Management factors to increase herd fertility performance
• Analyse the data from strategic dairy farm, Millands Farm

About the speaker : Dave Gilbert, Dairy Insight 

Dave qualified from the Royal Vet College in 2005 and has been in dairy practice ever since, barring a stint as a technical manager at a major pharmaceutical company. Dave provides consultancy services to a variety of businesses, and is a lecturer at Harper Adams University. 

About Millands Farm 

Millands Farm is a 345 hectare, all grass farm owned by Wallace and James Hendrie.  They employ two full-time and three part-time employees to work alongside them including a Herd Manager and a Calf Manager. 

They operate a spring block calving system comprising of 600 cows, producing 5400 l/cow.  Calving starts early March and lasts 12 weeks with 82% calving in the first 6 weeks.  Cows are fed on a bunkered silage system with cake in the parlour and rotational grazing measured and allocated with the ambition to improve their milk from forage.

Follow their story by visiting www.ahdb.org.uk/farm-excellence/millands-farm or get the latest updates by searching for #SDFMillands on Twitter.

About Strategic Dairy Farms

Strategic dairy farms aim to help farmers learn from each other through regular on-farm meetings where key performance data is shared and what the best farmers are doing is showcased.

They form part of the Optimal Dairy Systems programme which aims to help dairy farmers reduce costs and increase efficiency by focusing on either a tight block or all-year-round calving system.

The growing network of strategic dairy farms have calculated KPIs for their enterprises which are shared at meetings and published online. These are physical and financial performance measures that are critical to success. Farmers can benchmark their businesses against these KPIs to help identify areas for improvement.

Follow the programme and find other local SDFs at www.ahdb.org.uk/farm-excellence