The Canterbury Farm Utilising Nutrimol 4n1 To Drive Strong Heats.

A recently acquired 1,100-cow farm in Mid-Canterbury, purchased by a large family business, provided an opportunity to measure cow performance over two seasons under different farming practices.

The farm is operated by a highly-motivated young couple. Their first-year goal was to achieve the same fertility performance of the other farms within the group without any intervention as this is a group policy. They both were particularly driven to achieve high fertility outcomes in their herd for the spring 2023 mating.

Bell-Booth has worked with the farming operation to achieve animal health, production and reproduction goals for several years. With a proven track record of high fertility outcomes on the properties it made sense to implement the same Bell-Booth high-performance animal health programme. As this farm was new to the group and the herd was not previously on a Bell-Booth programme, this provided measurable results. The first practical step was to optimise the trace element and mineral status of the herd over the winter so that the cows were set up to calve as well as supporting them to recover quickly after birth.

With mating only weeks away it was imperative to encourage the cows to return to cycle soon after calving, minimise any ill-health issues as quick as possible and encourage strong and long heats prior to the plan start of mating.

Manager’s Tip #1

“It was easy to implement a Bell-Booth programme,” said the Farm Manger. “Our Canterbury Territory Manager, Glenn, regularly checked up on us and the herd’s performance. We reviewed cow condition, metabolic cases, somatic cell count, lactation performance, and weather conditions.

Based on the data gathered, we tweaked the animal health programme to respond to the current conditions we were experiencing. Our focus then centered around a preventative mindset towards the needs of the herd during the next three months.”

Manager’s Tip #2

“We purchased the majority of our herd from cows that were on this farm and we had access to data that enabled us to make a fair comparison and calculate our ROI on the trace element/mineral programme we were embarking on, When we evaluated our pregnancy scan results, we were ecstatic to see such significant outcomes. Our 6-week in-calf rate and low empty rate were particularly impressive, and most importantly, we achieved this with no intervention.”

Any final advice?

“Yes, attention to detail is crucial! Keeping cows healthy and ensuring they calve down in good condition, coupled with proper feeding at all stages of the season, drives both production and reproduction. We just need to get it right.”

High-performance programme profile

IntenSE 240 formulation

Nutrimol 4n1 mating formulation

Bell-Booth Iodine

1. To improve the 6 week in-calf rate by 4 points to achieve 80%.
2. Maintain single-figure empty rate.
3. Condensing the mating weeks to a more profitable 10.5 weeks.