Pre-breeding management should start now and the first area to look at and one of the biggest influences on cow fertility is nutrition.

Make sure cows are being fed a high-energy diet. The average herd of cows is producing 23 litres per day at the moment, which means there will be plenty of cows producing 27-plus litres in the herd.

A cow producing 27 litres of milk a day needs to be getting 18UFL in her diet to cover maintenance and milk production - 6UFL for maintenance at grass and they need 0.44UFL per litre of milk produced.

Grass

Grass is generally high in energy and 1kg of grass DM equals 1UFL in general. A kilogramme of good concentrates will generally equal 1.1UFL and 1kg of silage DM can range from 0.76UFL for 68 DMD silage to up to 0.81 UFL for 76 DMD silage, but the only way to know for sure is a silage test.

With a bit of an improvement in the weather this week, hopefully most cows will get to grass, which will make it a lot easier to achieve the required UFL.

It important to look at your grass allocation to ensure you are allocating enough grass to the cows each day.

Lower energy content

First-rotation grass that may have been poorly grazed out last October or November that has dead material at the base and the leaves are starting to turn yellow and die back will have a lower energy content, which is worth noting, as you may need to adjust the concentrate levels when grazing to compensate for the drop in energy.

Cows in poor condition will require energy for maintenance and milk, but also weight gain. However, feeding theses cow extra at this time of year will mostly likely just lead to increased milk yield with BCS still being hit.

The simple solution is to put these cows on once a day, reducing their energy requirement and helping them gain condition.

Problem cows

Problem cows, such as cows that retained cleanings, difficult calvings, twins or any cow that may have got milk fever or some illness after calving should be all noted and ideally pre-scanned to make sure they are cycling or to identify any that may need intervention.