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DAIRY ST R
Volume 22, No. 2
“All dairy, all the time”™
March 14, 2020
How to keep A retrot for the future up with reproduction trends
Fricke nds opportunity in optimizing pregnancy rates By Jennifer Coyne jenn@dairystar.com
NORWOOD YOUNG AMERICA, Minn. – Reproduction in the dairy cattle industry has drastically changed over the last 20 years. For dairy farmers to keep up with such changes, management is ever more important. “I think many of you have forgot how bad reproduction actually was 20 years ago,” Dr. Paul Fricke said. “Now, we’ve gone over our pie-in-the-sky goal for pregnancy rates, … and we have to take into account new management strategies available in the industry.” Fricke, a professor of dairy science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, discussed three management strategies and orthodox fertility programs that aid in the industry’s reproductive movement during his presentation, “Management Strategies in an Era of High Pregnancy Rates,” Feb. 17 at the Carver County Dairy Expo in Norwood Young America. In 2019, National Dairy Herd Improvement Association reported an average pregnancy rate of 21.6% for more than 7,000 herds across the United States that accounted for nearly 1.8 million Holsteins. Of those herds, 60% had a pregnancy rate above 20%. A similar trend was seen in Wisconsin. The average pregnancy rate of 464 herds (183,000 Holsteins) on test was 23.2% in 2019, with about 75% of those herds having a pregnancy rate above 20%. These values are substantially greater than in 1998 when the mean pregnancy rate was 14%. “If you could have a 20% annualized pregnancy rate, you were amongst a very elite group of herds. We really didn’t know if we could get pregnancy rates (above 30%) in that point in time,” Fricke said. “Now, we’re seeing higher pregnancy rates than we ever thought we could achieve.” Higher pregnancy rates are the result of two predominant strategies farmers are using that combine heat detection with timed A.I. “I think that’s a really powerful way to get really good fertility in herds,” Fricke said. “This seems to be a way herds are doing really well at getting high 21-day pregnancy rates.” The Dairy Cattle Reproductive Council has orthodox protocols for the industry to follow for best reproductive practices. “These protocols are developed in the ivory tower of academia and then they’re released into the wild,” Fricke said. The rst is a classic presynch-ovsynch protocol where farmers breed to estrus and clean up with timed Turn to REPRODUCTION | Page 5
ANDREA BORGERDING/DAIRY STAR
The Volds – (from leŌ) Rich, Suzanne, Brad and Greg – stand in a robot room in their new facility on their farm, Dorrich Dairy, near Glenwood, Minnesota. The Volds have been milking with robots since October 2019.
Dorrich Dairy invests years of planning into upgrading to robotic facility By Andrea Borgerding andrea.b@dairystar.com
GLENWOOD, Minn. – As with any business, there comes a time when reinvention becomes necessary for survival in an unstable industry. The Vold family focused on that sole intention when faced with an aging facility and the future of their family farm, Dorrich Dairy. “If we were going to have a future, we had to recreate ourselves,” said Brad Vold, co-owner of Dorrich Dairy. “The path we were going down, it was becoming more challenging and expensive to continue operation.” Brad operates a 450-cow dairy with his wife, Suzanne, and brother, Greg, in Glenwood. They have been transitioning their herd of cows from being milked twice a day in a double-8 herringbone parlor to seven Lely Astronaut A4 robotic milkers since Oct. 8, 2019. The upgrade in equipment, technology and facilities has en-
ANDREA BORGERDING/DAIRY STAR
A cow stands in the robot at Dorrich Dairy. The Volds are transiƟoning their herd of 450 cows from being milked in a parlor to roboƟc milkers. abled the Volds to recreate themselves in the dairy industry as an efcient, cow-focused operation allowing them to maximize milk production. “We discussed this upgrade for a few years,” Greg said. “We
just didn’t know when to pull the trigger.” Substantial improvements in retrot designs of robotic barns spurred the Volds’ decision to start Turn to DORRICH | Page 6