New Breed UK Introduces Dairy Fertility Programme
UK - North west based animal nutrition company, New Breed UK, is taking advantage of the latest research findings in dairy cow fertility and utilising a new programme to assist in its diet formulation and advisory work with producers.
21 March 2007
2 minute read
“The UK continues to see a year on year decline in dairy cow fertility at the expense of increased production,” says New Breed’s director Mark Borthwick. “Often this increase in production is in the 305 day lactation yields, yet milk sold per cow per year is declining. This drop in annual milk production and losses associated with poor fertility is costing producers dearly.”
New Breed is adopting a new fertility programme called the Future Fertility Index that has been developed with specialist animal nutrition company SCA NuTec who work closely with the company. SCA NuTec was one of the sponsors of a recent industry and Defra funded fertility research project at the University of Nottingham and it has used these results, plus its own research, to develop the new fertility programme.
The Future Fertility Index has been embraced by New Breed’s team of nutrition advisers. It uses individual cow data and production records to help identify the ‘weakest link’ in the herd’s fertility. The programme provides three key fertility indexes for each herd; a cycling index, embryo quality index and implantation index.
“These indexes are like benchmarks,” says SCA NuTec ruminant manager Sion Richards. “If a cow doesn’t come bulling she will have a low cycling index – if she doesn’t conceive then embryo quality might be below par or if she doesn’t hold to service then perhaps implantation isn’t good.”
