DSD 4.10 | Prevent Early Embryonic Losses

Dairy Science Digest

Pregnancy is the key to profitability, ensuring your herd remains in the most profitable phase of production. However, these early embryos are delicate and often are not carried out through the entire 283 days of gestation. This month we talk with Dr. Stephen LaBlanc, from the University of Guelph about quantifying the frequency of early pregnancy loss in healthy animal and his team’s quest to determine the impact of a failed transition on the cow’s ability to carry the pregnancy to term.

Through management, a producer can prevent the spiral of negative events that result in increased odds of pregnancy loss. The research team determined day 19 pregnancy and tracked the success, or failure, through day 63. Listen in to hear what different parameters they found to have an increased probability of early pregnancy loss.

These findings were published in the Journal of Dairy Science article titled, “The associations of inflammatory and reproductive tract disorders postpartum and early pregnancy loss in dairy cows” This open access article, is available for download to view while you listen in!

Topics of discussion

1:32 Introduction of Dr. LaBlanc
2:15 Description of Research Herds
3:34 On farm monitoring – data collected
5:55 Uterine sampling
7:32 Uterine cytology at 5 weeks postpartum
8:53 Blood progesterone
9:53 Common cycling rate in early lactation
10:52 Day 19 pregnancy analysis
14:03 Figure 1: Predicted probably of pregnancy – Healthy vs diseased transition
15:19 Conception frequency
16:14 Day 19 – 40 pregnancy loss
17:30 Metritis hangover
18:34 Figure 2: Predicted probably of pregnancy – number of clinical disease
20:00 Single disease vs multiple clinical diseases impact on pregnancy loss
22:31 Driving force to what predicts pregnancy loss in a dairy herd
24:13 One in Five cows
24:49 One two punch of failure
25:05 Inflammation effect on the ovary
27:53 What do you want dairy producers to know from your research
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https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(23)00726-9/fulltext