Most dairy farms will be starting the breeding season at the end of this month or in early May. We are all familiar of the importance of getting cows in-calf, early in the breeding season.

But for them to go in calf, they first need to cycle and there are a number of things that you can do to make sure more cows are ready for breeding.

Body condition score (BCS) is the most significant factor when it comes to achieving high conception rates. Cows that are in a BCS of less than 2.75 have a much reduced chance of going in calf.

Furthermore, cows that lose excessive BCS (more than 0.5 of a BCS unit) have a reduced chance of getting pregnant early in the season.

More grass and reasonably good weather for most of this spring has meant that cows are generally in good BCS.

However, most herds have some cows that are thin and have cows yet to calve. These cows will struggle to get back in calf this year.

The best thing to do is to put these cows on once a day milking now, and put the cows that are yet to calve on once a day milking from calving.

When these cows are served they can then go back to twice a day milking. Farmers who put these at risk cows on once a day milking report very good results, with a noticeable improvement in BCS after only one week.

Only a small proportion of the herd needs to be put on once a day and while they will drop in production now, they will make up for it next season because they will be still in the herd and will be calving earlier than if left to their own devices.

A lot of farmers have started pre-breeding heat detection now. Ideally, this would be completed around three weeks before the start of breeding. This will help to identify the non-cycling cows before breeding starts.

These non-cycling cows should then be scanned by a vet to see what the problem is. In most situations they will just need more time, but they could also have ovarian cysts or other abnormalities that the vet can cure.

Cows that have had a hard calving, twins or retained cleanings should get a washout treatment now. Iodine was widely used for washouts, but is now seen as too severe.

Products like Metricure are available with a prescription from your vet and are safer and probably more effective than iodine-based washout.