Targeted Reproductive Management – Explained (Sponsored Podcast)

[MUSIC] >> Hey progressive dairy podcast listeners, it's production editor Frederick Wright now. Thanks for tuning in. This episode is a replay of a previously released sponsor cast. The episode is sponsored by Merck Animal Health, who has paid to promote this episode on our channel. Please be aware that the views and opinions expressed are those of the guests and Merck Animal Health. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the staff and owners of Progressive Dairy. We hope you enjoy this bonus material. Welcome to another episode of the Progressive Dairy Podcast, where we dive deep into the latest advancements and innovations in dairy management and animal health. Today we have an incredibly insightful discussion from Merck Animal Health, lined up for you. Our experts will shed light on the latest developments in reproductive management and how monitoring technology is reshaping the way dairy producers optimize efficiency and herd health. So whether you're a dairy producer, veterinarian, or simply passionate about the future of dairy farming, this is an episode you won't want to mess. Let's dive in. Good morning. Today we have some guests from Merck Animal Health joining us, and I'm very excited to have them introduce themselves. Dr. Bilby, why don't you kick us off? Yes, Todd Bilby, a located right outside of Fort Worth, Texas, spent with Merck about 12 years and I lead our dairy technical services team, and also I'm a reproductive physiologist by training and so focus a lot on our reproductive portfolio for Merck Animal Health. All right, we're also joined by Dr. Shabel. Dr. Shabel, good morning. Hi, good morning. I am not with Merck. I'm actually with University of Florida. I'm a veterinarian and I've been working with dairy cattle since the beginning of 2000, and my training was on reproductive management and reproductive physiology, but I've seen some evolved into doing other things. More recently, I've been working a lot with Dr. Bilby and his team on automation and how automated systems can help with the management, both reproduction of dairy cattle as well as monitoring of health of postpartum cows. Wonderful. Thank you for joining us, Dr. Shabel. And Austin. I'm Austin Snuck. I'm the dairy marketing manager for Merck Animal Health. I've been with Merck for about seven years now and I'm responsible for managing our reproduction and our health products as well as helping bring together our full portfolio of bio-farmata and monitored solutions. So, excited to be here. Thanks. Awesome. So wonderful to have you all here and I know that we're going to have a good discussion. Today's topic, we're going to be talking about reproductive management and I understand that there's something new in reproductive management. Tell us what's new. From my point of view, I believe that with all the advancements, dairymen have made on management and nutrition and also reproductive management. They have reached such a high pregnancy rate, 21-D pregnancy rate, that that has afforded us to explore new alternatives for reproductive management. And, you know, when you get to be that high in pregnancy rates and with the use of automation, it creates some alternatives we believe to manage dairy cows in different ways, than just the metathelatic use of a time-day eye, or which means instead of having to put every single cow into a time-day eye protocol for first-in-semination, we believe that with the automation now, we have the alternative to select which cows really need the time-day eye protocols versus cows that can be managed without hormones or at least with less hormones. Just to be clear though, not that reproductive hormones in any way affect negatively the cow, or our bilaterials or a bed for human health, there's no reason to worry about the use of reproductive hormones in lactating dairy cows. What we've been exploring is basically how to integrate automation into the management in order to reduce handling of cows and reduce the number of injections we have to give to cows, which we believe could be positive both for the management of the cows in the scenario where we have fewer and fewer employees, but also a welfare of the cows so that we're not, you know, handling cows is much and not poking cows with needle is offered. You know, if I could jump in there as well, just to add some context, I think it's interesting when we talk about introducing a new approach to reproduction with targeted reproductive management, and I think Dr. Shabell would agree, and especially when precinct off-sync, for example, was published and put out there, producers were quick to start cherry picking after a precinct program. And when you think about targeted reproductive management, that was some of our first slides into targeted reproduction where we were breeding off of heats after a prostaglandan, and then cows that didn't show a heat would roll into a type of bobsync. And so up until technology came along, right, you had what we could identify after the voluntary waiting period from tail-chocking or some heat. But now with technology, right, we can use characteristics of health or heats or whatever from the voluntary waiting period in order to better select the right animals. Like Dr. Shabell was talking. So even though we talk about targeted reproductive management as being new, that I think the new part is the fact that we can use devices to look at various things before the voluntary waiting period, instead of waiting till after the voluntary waiting period, like we have for years and years. I couldn't agree more Todd and Dr. Shabell. I think, you know, the other really exciting thing about this is looking at it from kind of a bigger picture, you know, we now have the opportunity to utilize technology to manage each individual cow based on her needs and be able to improve really our efficiency. And so we talk a lot about reproductive efficiency, which I think that means, you know, getting the best performance from each cow with the fewest number of inputs, so whether that's labor hormones. So really just being able to be more effective with our reproductive programs. And I think, you know, it's really exciting that this technology gives us the opportunity to do that in a more targeting way. Well, as we talk about targeted reproductive management, I know Dr. Shabell has recently published some research, which might go over some of those key takeaways from your research and what that means for dairy producers. The main key points or takeaways from the research is that we are able to identify by the astros that the ultimate systems record early postpartum, which cows are more likely to need hormones than not. And what we were very lucky to be able to do and others have done the same who you're sure done and Paul Freaking earlier study. We actually show that cows that have displayed astros, an intense astros based on the ultimate system that are allowed to be inseminated in astros without any treatment of hormones. Those cows in particular mature cows, so second lactation and more, they have very similar fertility to cows that had shown an astros by the system, but were enrolled in the Dubois stink. So it seems that in particular mature cows, they will not lose pregnancies by being inseminated in astros versus being enrolled in the Dubois stink. And this is true for us and other researchers. If there are losses in the first AI fertility, it's usually less than two or three percentage points, which is minimal. And because we are working the cows pretty aggressively after the first insemination to find them heat or recent cremize them over the entire lactation, those small differences we had if we had any in the first insemination, they disappear. And so that creates a huge opportunity to reducing half the number of cows that end up having to get a sequence of static injections to be inseminated for the first time. And that could save a lot of labor and could save a lot of cow contact time, which is really important. When we looked at the data from the first experiment we did with first lactation cows, what we noticed was that the ones that had shown an astros and were allowed to be inseminated in astros based on the ultimate system, they had a significant loss in pregnancy to first AI compared to the ones that had shown an astros and went to the Dubois stink. Still, because the reproduction is aggressive and the re insemination is aggressive over the entire lactation, there weren't any losses. So at the end of the lactation, the use of a targeted reproductive management for first AI and the use of the ultimate system for re insemination of the cows in association with time the eye when they're found open resulted in a better economic return at the end of the lactation than just using Dubois stink for first service and no ultimate systems for re inseminations. The one thing that we learned from this first experiment was that first lactation cows, their trash hold for a good astros early postpartum has to be a little higher than the trash hold for mature cows. So if in mature cows we use the threshold of 70 from 0 to 100, we should be using for first lactation cows a little higher, maybe close to 90. In a second experiment we did, recently, we showed that the first lactation cow pregnancy to first service, when they had a heating index of 90 and they were disseminated in extras after prostaclinin, they had a similar pregnancy to the double of sink or cows that were submitted to the double of sink. So there is some correction that needs to be made. When determining which cows can be allowed to be disseminated in asteris, based on how intense their asteris are early postpartum, with first lactation cows having to have higher threshold than the mature cows. But at the end, like I said, even in the second experiment that we did, we actually were able to manage cows according to their early postpartum astroscharacteristics, reduce number of normals given and still reach a similar pregnancy and pregnancy rates to a full blown time-day eye protocol, they realize more and more. So Todd and Austin, any thoughts on what this means for dairy producers from your perspective? Yeah, I think this is just a great opportunity for dairy producers now to just reevaluate their program if they're using technology in their cows. Is this something they want to possibly employ? You know, Dr. Shubbel talked about reduction in the amount of injections and yet still, and some regards equaling the fertility that they had when they were given all the shots and for a double of sink as an example, when using targeted reproductive management, I think to jump on that, not only is it just reduction in shots, but you think that's the reduction in and lock up times reduction in labor at which to go give those injections. And so it's more than just the shot. And I think this opens up a real opportunity for producers to continue to extract value from the technology that they put in there and utilize all the data that's on those farms today. Here's one way to use that data to be more efficient and judicious with how they're using their reproductive programs. And maybe it doesn't improve fertility over what they're doing today. But then if you can reduce the amount of shots and labor, then there's obviously a return on investment there. And I think Dr. Shubbel, and maybe he wants to comment on this, you know, recently, and I've had the opportunity to chat with him and look at some of his economic models. And he's done some really nice economic modeling showing the cost benefit of using these technologies. And I think at times when we're out working with producers, I know at least me, sometimes we can get laser focused on certain metrics, certain, for instance, first service conception rate, or you know, certain things that you really stare at and things like double off-sync will definitely yield typically high first service conception rates. Or maybe we're looking at first preg check and second preg checked fertility. But I think some of these economic analysis really shows the advantages of looking at these cows over time and how their fertility does. And at the end of their lactation, how many are still in the herd. And so I know Dr. Shubbel, I don't know if you want to comment on any of the the economics that you've recently published with that. Yeah, I think it's a great point that Dr. Billby makes. Obviously, we are all trying to reach as I, as possible, pregnancy to first service because that dictates a lot of what the overall reproductive performance of the herd will be like. But ultimately, 21 day pregnancy rates are what we're looking at. And even if you lose some on first insemination, like I said, the first insemination impact on the 21 day pregnancy rate is high. But if a cow gets pregnant at 60 days versus 70 days versus 80 days in milk, the economic benefits are not that different. So I believe that like Dr. Billby said, worrying more about the overall picture than just what is my first AI pregnancy conception. I think it's critical. One of the key things we found in the first experiment we did was that in the two herds we work with, the tardy repel included keeping the automated system on the cows for the entire lactation versus the control the heavy double of seeing for first AI and no automation for the re insemination. And the automated system really made the cows that were open to first AI be re- inseminated faster, much faster. And so that resulted in a improvement in lactation, a pregnancy rate that resulted in about 40 to $80 more per cow per lactation for the targeted repro. And I think it's very important like Dr. Billby said that we start thinking about how many more open cows who will I have at the end of the lactation. And also how much better my income or feed costs will be when I improve my reproductive performance. Because those are the two things that really dictate the profitability when you compare these reproductive management. So if I was to say out of the top of my head, out of a hundred dollars difference between two protocols, probably 80 to 90 percent of the difference will be explained by how much more efficient the cows are producing milk from the feed they eat. And that's really based on days in milk and the 21 day pregnancy rates. But also how many open cows are at the end of the lactation. So those are two critical things that are impacted by the improvement of the reproductive performance over the entire lactation. Now, Austin, I know reproductive efficiency is part of the empowered dairy portfolio. Tell us more about how you see this fitting in, you know, this research and these discoveries and insights. How do you see that fitting into the empowered dairy portfolio? I think this topic fits perfectly in with the empowered dairy portfolio. Really, the idea behind that is giving the producers all the tools and resources that they need and empowering them to get the most from their operations. And so I think this is a perfect example of how our biofarm apportfolio as well as our mongern solutions come together and it's not just one plus one equals two, it's the two solutions. Amplifying one another and allowing dairy producers to get more from from these tools and from their operations. So I think it's it's a really, really good example of how Merck animal health and our empowered dairy portfolio can do exactly that and empower producers and just allow them to be more efficient and get better results. Obviously, empowering producers is always a part of Merck School, helping producers discover those solutions and opportunities to really improve their operations. Dr. Chabel's research also looked at different prostaglandins for synchronization and I think you came up with some important discoveries there. Can you tell us more about what what the research said about Estimate compared to other prostaglandins? Yeah, so we did one experiment. I'm back in 2016 in which we were looking at the performance of heifers with different genomic estimated breeding value for daughter pregnancy rates. So our goal was to understand how their genomics affected the extrudic expression, monitor by the automated systems and how you know a fast dig up pregnant so using heifers that were very high in genomic value for daughter pregnancy rate and heifers that were very low. And in addition to that, we also had two different prostaglandins. We used the dyno-prost and we used the quprostinol. Quprostinol is the astramate. When we injected the heifers with the quprostinol, what we observed was that they started to express astros faster than the astros that were treated with the dyno-prost. And that's important because in particular for heifers, we're really counts where you really lose money is when you extend your interval to insemination or pregnancy because every day of raising a heifers can cost anywhere from $2 to $4 per day. So that was an important finding. The other finding that we thought was very interesting was that the heifers that were treated with astramate and dyno-prost when they were treated early in the astro-cycle in what we call the mid-byastros or a little earlier. The ones that were treated with quprostinol actually they had a better response more of those chemineastros than the ones treated with the dyno-prost. The way we think about it or the way to explain it that we believe is the way to explain it is that early after astros, so in the early astro-cycle, the corpus luteum is not as responsive to prostaglandins. So it's not unusual that a few of the animals that are treated with prostaglandin early in the astro-cycle end up not responding. And what we think could have happened with the aferst treated with quprostinol is that quprostinol, like we have in a longer heif life staying in the system for longer, was able to actually have a better her ludiolytic action on these corpus lurium that don't respond as well. And half a year ago, a colleague of mine did also a project with Astramate that Claude Prost and all versus the Dynaprost, and he also found the same thing. So from our point of view, at least from the Luiolitic aspect, Claude Prost and all was better than the Dynaprost. In our experiment with heifers, when we look at the fertility, which means pregnancy to inseminations, we didn't see a difference between the two. But definitely we saw an improvement in Astros coming from the Claude Prost and all treatment. And half of our busy note actually showed that the dropping progesterone after the Claude Prost and all treatment was also faster, indicating a faster Luiolitic allizes on those animals. I'll just chime in and say, again, I get all excited about technology and what some of the new frontier is, especially automation, I think is bringing that. But we start, whether using Prost and Glannins or pick your product or pick your drug, until automation technology came along, did we have a realistic way of monitoring the behaviors of a cow every minute of every day. And so this has opened up a lot of opportunity to reevaluate some of the things that we thought we knew or to evaluate products and be able to really see how this affects the cow. Again, every minute of every day. And I think that makes a really unique opportunity and look forward to seeing more research, reproduction, research being able to utilize these type of tools. And something as simple as we've known since Prost and Glannins was launched, which I think was in the '70s or '80s, that it doesn't work on early growing seals. It doesn't work as good, right? The early growing seal, it takes a while before it's functional and we'll respond to a Prost and Glannin. And now that we know when her previous heat was, something as simple as not giving a Prost and Glannin in those first few days, when she has that early growing seal, is a great example of how we can use technology to better dial in and give this drug at the right time to the right cow to get the best response. And I think that's just a simple example, but this whole area of automation will continue to open up in Dr. Shabell's research and others have really showed how these opportunities are going to exist to really evaluate both products and technology. - Yeah, completely agree Todd. The only thing I would add is, I think this is really interesting because in the industry, the common perception is that all Prost and Glannins are the same, all Prost and Glannins perform the same. And so obviously we know that Estromate Cloproslamol is different than Dynaprost. And so I think kind of along the lines of what Todd was saying, now with technology, we have the opportunity to better evaluate the products that we're using. And in this case, it allowed us to see that Prost and all such as Estromate actually does have better performance compared to a Dynaprost. And I think we're absolutely, wanna be realistic, we're not talking a huge difference. It's marginal, but I think we all understand the number of things that we've all tried just to gain that extra percentage point in pregnancy rate. And so when it's something as simple as choosing a brand of Prost and Glannin, that can potentially provide value for a dairy, I think that's really good to know. - So before we go, any last words of wisdom for our listeners? - Word of wisdom is continue to do the basics well, continue to provide your cows with good nutrition, continue to provide your cows with comfort, heat abatement with clean environment, worry about what is critical and there has a huge impact on the health of the cow and consequently on the reproductive performance and production. But do understand that when you have everything well managed, there are new opportunities to either improve the management or in a way simplify the management by reducing handling, by using automation and targeted approach to reproductive performance or to reproductive management. I think these are very, very interesting times and I think we're learning more and more with support from both the federal agencies but also companies like Merck. I really believe that there's going to be more and more interesting these type of approaches of automation and adjustment of the management to really give the cow what she needs. I really feel that that's where we're going even though it's due in its infancy and very, very few people are adopting at this point. - Yeah, and I would echo all those comments and just add, you know, with targeted reproductive management, we're not saying or I'm not saying that this is the end all be all everyone should be doing it, that's the only way you're going to achieve higher fertility. There's multiple ways to achieve higher fertility and each farm needs to evaluate what that is for them and what their goals are working with their management team and we just want to bring to the surface that targeted reproductive management now has been researched. I'd love to go back and look. The first paper was probably published seven or eight years ago be my guess and so we just wanted to bring to the surface more of, hey, look at this as a potential another strategy for your farm to be more efficient and if it makes sense in your management team agrees and you can incorporate it and as Dr. Shabell said, you're doing all the basics right than this might be another next step to become more efficient. And so it's just worth keeping this tool in your toolbox knowing it's available and evaluating and see if it makes sense for you. - Absolutely, yeah, I completely agree. I guess the only comment that I would add to that is the most expensive words that come out of a dairyman's mouth are, that's the way we've always done it. And so kind of to Dr. Bilby's point, definitely I know this seems like a very new and foreign concept but really it's just working off a lot of the things that many dairy operations are already utilizing and just trying to further refine the processes and the techniques to get better results. So don't let it just because it may seem a little bit new and scary like Dr. Bilby said, it's been very thoroughly researched and proven. And so I think just being open to evaluating this is an opportunity and determining whether or not it's right for your operation is the best approach. - Dr. Shabel, Dr. Shabelby Austin, thank you so much for your time. That's gonna conclude today's podcast. But before we let y'all go, where can listeners go to learn more about targeted repromanagement? - There are a few articles published in scientific journals and I know that who Ljordano has some things in his website in Cornell. I have some in mind at the University of Florida, the dairy care reproduction council is also the resource where you may find a little more detailed information. - Yeah, absolutely. And also the Merchanemal Health Cattle website has a lot of good resources on some of the products we've discussed and links to some of the different research studies as well. So m-power-dairy.com is always a great resource as well. - Awesome. Well, thank you all very much. Really appreciate your time in the good discussion today. Thank you. - Thank you. That's a wrap on today's episode. Thank you to Dr. Bilby, Dr. Chabell, and Austin Snook for joining us and sharing their expertise in reproductive management and monitoring technology for dairy operations. If you're interested in taking your herds reproduction to the next level or want more information, visit reproductiveefficiency.com or speak with your Merchanemal Health Rep today. Estimate is a cloproestinal injection. Do not administer Estimate to a pregnant cow unless abortion is desired. Severe localized post-injection clusteredial infections have been reported. In rare instances, infection has led to death. Women of childbearing age, asthmatics, and persons with respiratory problems should exercise extreme caution when handling Estimate. Estimate is readily absorbed through the skin and can cause abortion and/or bronchospasms. Direct contact with the skin should be avoided. An accidental spillage on the skin should be washed off immediately with soap and water for complete safety information referred to the product label.