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Volume 22, No. 2
How to keep up with reproduction trends
“All dairy, all the time”™
March 14, 2020
Growing up a farmer
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
STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR
The Rieden family – (front, from leŌ) OƩo and Felix; (back, from leŌ) Jim, Joe holding Cora and Susan – milks 600 cows and farms 1,200 acres near Mount Calvary, Wisconsin.
Rieden helps build operation to what it is today By Stacey Smart
stacey.s@dairystar.com
MOUNT CALVARY, Wis. – Joe Rieden has had a hand in running Rieden Dairy Farms ever since he was a young boy. Providing more than labor on the 60-cow dairy in Mount Calvary, Rieden took ownership of various aspects from the time he was just a lad. By age 7, he was tagging calves, and by age 14, he was mating and breeding the entire herd. Becoming a decisionmaker long before most, Rieden relished his responsibilities. He took farming seriously from day one and was deeply committed to making it his life’s work. “I always wanted to farm,” Rieden said. “I never had a desire for anything else. Cows have been my passion from
STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR
The farm’s double-8 parallel milking parlor is located inside the original Ɵestall barn. It was built in 2008. little on.” When Rieden was 12 years old, his parents, Jim and Pam, set him up with a checking account, and Rieden began buying his own cattle. By the time he graduated from high school in 2004, Rieden had 40 cows milking. His parents also had 40.
“Ever since I was a kid, I got to treat the farm as my own,” Rieden said. “I had full control over mating and breeding from the time I was just a teenager after taking A.I. training. My dad probably kept an eye on me Turn to RIEDEN | Page 6