For herds using AI, the success or failure of the breeding season is at least somewhat in your own hands. The farmer is in full control of both heat detection and the timing of AI.

As the season progresses, you will know if you are hitting the targets set out for the herd at the outset. If targets are not being met, you can intervene quite quickly to rectify the situation.

However, for herds not using AI, you have outsourced these important jobs to the stock bull. Unfortunately, his record keeping is not always up to scratch.

One in four bulls will be sub-fertile at some point in their lifetime. If this happens to your bull during this breeding season, when are you going to find out? If the answer is scanning time, then it is going to be a costly experience.

Keeping records

Timing is everything – the sooner you realise there is a problem, the sooner you can fix it.

Every day you herd cattle and see a cow bulling you should mark it in the calendar on your phone. Then if you see that cow bulling again, you will know that there is something up.

Many farms have an extended calving spread due to a problem with a bull at some point.

Tightening the spread

There are many benefits to a tighter calving period – less time spent in the calving shed, a more even batch of calves to sell and less bullying in the group, to name just a few.

This is not something that you will fix in one year. Assess where your herd is at the moment and try to reduce this by a week to 10 days for next year.

If you are at 15 weeks this year, aim to have it at 12 weeks in two years and perhaps nine weeks in five years.

Obviously, there are many factors that affect how soon a cow will come bulling post-calving.

Calving ease is a big one. Cows that have a harder calving will be slower to come back bulling. Nutrition is another – cows need to be on a rising plane of nutrition between calving and the onset of breeding.

When breeding heifers, give them just six weeks with the bull – in this way you are constantly selecting for the most fertile animals in the herd. Over a five-year period you will make serious improvements in your herd fertility.