Fertility and fertility management in thirteen well-established organic dairy herds in the UK

Abstract

This report was presented at the UK Organic Research 2002 Conference of the Colloquium of Organic Researchers (COR). Milk production and breeding records from thirteen organic dairy herds were collected between January 1997 and December 1999. Mean lactation yields in the herds ranged from 5127 kg to 7031 kg. Whilst seasonality of calving varied widely between herds, a majority of them (6/13) were autumn calving. Mean calving to first service interval was 80 days (range 68 to 97), and mean calving interval was 385 days (range 370 to 413). The mean number of services per conception was 2.3 (range 1.6 to 3.1). Overall culling rates and culling rates for fertility related problems were at 15.8% and 5.4%, respectively. A preliminary study of selected breeding periods of cows that had a subsequent calving revealed no significant differences in calving interval between high or low yielding cows or between cows with different calving month or parit