JM So­cial Icons

    Hor­monal lift and good feed cure cow 'in­fer­til­ity'

    Hor­monal in­duce­ment and proper feed­ing are key in deal­ing with false in­fer­til­ity, which causes delayed pro­duc­tion cycles in dairy cattle res­ult­ing in losses.

    Ma­ture heifers and lactat­ing cows may fail to show heat signs, which are im­port­ant in ac­cur­ate bull or ar­ti­fi­cial in­sem­in­a­tion ser­vice, and even­tual fer­til­isa­tion pro­cess.

    Farm­ers incur costs in keep­ing the ‘un­pro­duct­ive’ heifer or low yield­ing lactat­ing cow, which should ideally be served about 85 days after calv­ing.

    Patrick Nyauma, a veter­in­arian in Kisii, says a pro­duct­ive cow should give a farmer one calf per year and high yields in milk for the ag­ribusi­ness to make eco­nomic sense.

    Hor­mones

    He says bio­lo­gical and man­age­ment prac­tices can re­duce the pro­ductiv­ity of cattle. Hor­mones are the basic drivers of the 21-day oes­trus cycle, which is the period that a cell de­vel­ops into an ovum and moves to the fal­lopian tube for fer­til­isa­tion.

    Many hor­mones con­trol re­pro­duct­ive cycle in an­im­als, with pro­ges­ter­one and oes­tro­gen being the major play­ers. 

    An an­imal ex­pert would in­ject an oes­tro­gen con­tain­ing rem­edy to trig­ger and raise levels of the hor­mone in the blood stream for the an­imal to 'de­mand ser­vice' the veter­in­arian said.

    “Hor­monal im­bal­ance has been de­tec­ted to be one of the causes of re­duced de­sire for ser­vice. The body of an an­imal be­haves dir­ectly to the vari­ous con­cen­tra­tions of hor­mones in the blood stream. High or low level sig­nal start of the end of a given pro­cess. But pro­longed show of heat sign should worry any­one who de­pends on dairy farm­ing,” he said.

    READ ALSO: Keenly ob­serve heat signs for suc­cess­ful fer­til­isa­tion

     

    Oes­trus cycle

    Cows are on heat between 18 and 24 days of the oes­trus cycle. Oes­tro­gen is high in blood while pro­ges­ter­one is low when a cow is on heat. Lactat­ing cows nor­mally have higher levels of pro­ges­ter­one. 

    Hor­mones are chem­ic­als that dic­tate be­hav­our and re­sponse in liv­ing things.

    Nu­tri­tional de­fi­ciency can cause dis­mal se­cre­tion of hor­mones, there­fore, the ‘clock’ for vari­ous activ­it­ies will be dormant.​Consist­ent dry feeds also deny an­im­als es­sen­tial fresh nu­tri­ents, ag­grav­at­ing the situ­ation even more, he says.

    Syn­thesis of blood for in­stance, can be hampered if  feeds do not have enough iron. An­aemic an­im­als have re­duced chances of being on heat.

    Feed­ing an­im­als well sup­plies them with the en­ergy re­quired in fer­til­isa­tion, preg­nancy and calv­ing down, Nyauma said.

    Treat­ment

    Treat­ment of uter­ine and other gen­eral in­fec­tions such as trich­om­ini­asis, pyometra and cytic ovarian,  would place the an­imal at a bet­ter chance of being on heat for ser­vice.

    But heifers may be hav­ing per­man­ent in­fer­til­ity, and even after prac­ti­cing some of the above, it will not yield much. They have to be sold to re­duce ex­penses and give more money to re­in­vest in the farm, Nyauma says.

    Com­ments (0)

    RSS
      At­tach im­ages by drag­ging & drop­ping or by se­lect­ing them.
      The max­imum file size for up­loads is 10MB. Only gif,jpg,png files are al­lowed.
       
      The max­imum num­ber of 3 al­lowed files to up­load has been reached. If you want to up­load more files you have to de­lete one of the ex­ist­ing up­loaded files first.
      The max­imum num­ber of 3 al­lowed files to up­load has been reached. If you want to up­load more files you have to de­lete one of the ex­ist­ing up­loaded files first.
      Post­ing as

      Com­ments powered by CCom­ment

      Ed­itor's Pick

      All News

      Powered by mod LCA
      Farm­Biz Africa © 2020