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Infertility – What’s the cost?
Infertility in dairy and beef cattle is often quoted as being one
of the biggest financial drains on the industry. Dick Esslemont
from Reading University is recognised as the guru of calculating
the cost of disease in the dairy industry.
He has calculated that, for every day the calving index is over
365 days, it costs the unit between £2 and £3 per cow.
I know that these figures are disbelieved by many farmers. They
refuse to recognise that their time should have a cost and often
say that modern Holsteins just carry on milking so milk loss is
not great when the lactation is extended.
I was recently asked to examine a 110 cow autumn calving herd which
had a fertility problem in the winter of 05-06. Copper deficiency
was identified as a possible cause of poor conceptions. Treatment
was implemented quickly and fertility did improve.
One year on, and we can now look at the outcome of the problem.
When we compare twelve month rolling averages for November 06 to
those of November 05, we can see a few trends.
First, lactation yields of about 8500 litres remained the same,
therefore so much for infertility affecting yields you might say!
But lactation length increased by twenty days, dry period length
increased by a further ten days and so the calving index increased
by thirty days from 420 to 450 days.
Milk yield per cow per year (i.e. the annual milk sold per head)
dropped by 500 litres. If we say margin over concentrates was about
13 ppl , then the loss of income per year for the herd was over
£7000 or £2.17 per day of increase in calving index.
This figure does not include extra costs such as extra semen used
etc.
This is a real life case on a local farm which I hope makes the
figures more believable. If you have any concerns regarding your
herd’s fertility, please contact the surgery for our advice.
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