P.PSH.1280 - PDS: Reproductive Health and Management Practices for Beef Heifers

Summary

This Producer Demonstration Site (PDS) project aimed to quantify and reduce the reproductive wastage that occurs from first time heifer joining through to second calving. It was set up to link in with the University of Adelaide’s MLA funded research and development project B. GPB.0038, ‘Optimising heifer development and management to increase whole herd productivity,’ to achieve a faster rate of on-farm adoption of scientific research.

Within the three-year project, 19 participating beef businesses, representing around 18,600 breeding cows across 49,000ha of farmland within the Limestone Coast region of South Australia, monitored their 2020 drop heifers in relation to liveweight, body condition score, animal health and reproductive rates from weaning through to second calving in 2023.

Twelve interactive, technical sessions were conducted across eleven host properties from within the group. With a strong emphasis on industry collaboration and interaction between researchers, veterinarians, livestock advisers and peer-to-peer learning, producers within the group increased their knowledge by 19% (from 66% to 85%) and increased their skills and confidence for managing their breeding herd for improved health and reproduction by 13% from 65% to 78%.
Benefits to the wider southern beef industry have included the development of extension articles, producer case studies, podcasts, and videos. This group will continue to provide a platform for R&D producer consultation and extension, as well as providing mentoring opportunities for early career livestock consultants for a further three years as a dedicated beef discussion group.

Objectives

By December 2023, in the Limestone Coast region of South Australia:
1. 12 core producers will comprehensively measure and monitor pasture quantity and quality, condition score and heifer performance from weaning through to second calving.
2. Four producer heifer demonstration sites (from within the core producer group) will also record the impact of different health issues and disease burdens on the overall reproductive rates of heifers and second time calvers over a three-year period and develop a cost-benefit analysis for preventative health treatments.
3. 100% of the core producer group will have improved their skills and knowledge in relation to the management of heifers and second calvers, to contribute to their enterprise profitability. This will include live animal assessment; pasture availability and quality assessment; routine pregnancy scanning; recording reproductive data; management of animals according to liveweight, condition score and nutritional requirements; and identification and prevention of losses due to animal health conditions.
4. As a result of adoption of selected management techniques demonstrated or discussed within the PDS, 70% of producers within the core group will have increased their reproductive performance, along with having reduced mortality rates relative to their baseline data where possible.
5. The core producers will be well-linked into the MLA R&D project B.GPB.0038, with extension and adoption activities continuing beyond the life of the PDS project.
6. 20% of the observer group (50 additional producers) will have engaged in the project through either online webinar forums and field days and increased their knowledge and skills in relation to heifer and second calver reproductive performance.
7. 10% of the observer group (25 additional producers) will have adopted or intend to adopt selected management techniques demonstrated or discussed within the PDS.

Key findings

Considerable progress was made in assisting producers to build their knowledge and skills to meet the nutritional requirements of their breeding females to achieve optimum reproductive performance and set up for subsequent joinings.
Heifer conception rates of 2020 drop heifers remained similar to baseline levels (81% compared to 80% in 2019 drop heifers), however, an increase in heifer conception rates was seen in 2021 drop heifers to 84%. Additionally, there was a reduction in heifer mortality from 2.7% to 0.6% as well as a reduction from 13% to 4% of heifers needing assistance at calving. Re-conception rates of the 2020 drop animals as second calvers increased from 88% (baseline) to 92%, with the cow mortality in second calving cows reduced slightly from 0.2% to 0%.
The collaborative model between research, industry and advisors within this project has demonstrated to participants the value of ongoing animal health, nutrition, and pasture agronomy advice with several taking the opportunity to work with livestock consultants and veterinarians one-on-one, outside the formal group setting.

- 91% overall satisfaction with the content of the project.
- 86% was the value of the project reported by producers in assisting them in managing their beef enterprises.

Benefits to industry

This project has already contributed significantly to the development of another beef producer extension project with an application submitted to MLA on 'Profitable and resilient Southern Beef herds (MBfP 2.0).' The group, developed within this project, will continue as a dedicated beef discussion group for a further three years and will provide a platform for R&D producer consultation and extension, as well as enabling mentoring opportunities for early career livestock consultants. The network of livestock consultants, veterinarians and beef producers within this project will continue to share with industry the valuable insights and lessons learned from this successful extension and adoption project.

MLA action

- An important enabler for adoption is excellent facilitation to create open and transparent discussions, built on trust and sharing of the good, the bad and the ugly, as well as the provision of a supported learning environment with access to researchers, technical experts, and veterinarians.
- Practical on-farm sessions are an important source of peer-to-peer learning and drive the adoption of more investigative approaches to solve management issues.
- The linked heifer reproduction R&D project describes ‘WAPE’ as a heifer successfully getting in calf, raising a calf, and getting back in calf within the first six weeks (two cycles) of joining. Since most producers only select a portion of their heifer weaners to join, the recommendation is that the percentage achieving WAPE should be assessed from the numbers of heifers at joining (not weaning) through to second calving.
- One of the questions that hasn’t been fully answered within this project is whether increasing heifer conception rates to 88 to 90% actually translates into an increase in profitability or not. Further work needs to be done in this area to model the impact of beef reproduction rates on the profitability of beef enterprises.

Future research

The project identified the following potential future research:
- An important enabler for adoption is excellent facilitation to create open and transparent discussions, built on trust and sharing of the good, bad and the ugly, as well as the provision of a supported learning environment with access to researchers, technical experts, and veterinarians.
- Practical on-farm sessions are an important source of peer-to-peer learning and drive the adoption of more investigative approaches to solve management issues.
- The linked heifer reproduction R&D project describes ‘WAPE’ as a heifer successfully getting in calf, raising a calf, and getting back in calf within the first six weeks (two cycles) of joining. Since most producers only select a portion of their heifer weaners to join, the recommendation is that the percentage achieving WAPE should be assessed from the numbers of heifers at joining (not weaning) through to second calving.
- One of the questions that hasn’t been fully answered within this project is whether increasing heifer conception rates to 88 to 90% actually translates into an increase in profitability or not. Further work needs to be done in this area to model the impact of beef reproduction rates on the profitability of beef enterprises.