Draminski have based their very business upon the needs of the diary and beef industries, and are internationally renowed for having the most practical and robust ultrasound machines for fieldwork. With almost 25 years of serving the cattle farming industry, we truely believe that nobody knows the needs of farmers better.

Ultrasound can enable you to confirm mating, AI and ET successes from only 20 days, and:

• Reduce your disease risk AND save money by minimising vet callouts.
• Save you time and allow you to check your herd to YOUR schedle.
• Enable you to sell your pregnant hiefers with a scan to prove pregnancy.

We also offer oestrous detectors to maximise chances of a successful mating.

Recent work:

Vet Image Solutions and Draminski are always working together to improve the service that we offer our beef and dairy customers. This year in September 2011, our two teams travelled to Middlefield Farm in Hinckley. We were very kindly given the permission of Trevor Griffin to visit, despite the dairy farm being very busy with their new robotic milking system (click here to view the BBC report on Mr. Griffin's new cutting-edge technology).

We tested the Animal Profi and Animal Profi L systems, successfully diagnosising pregnancy and sexing foetuses with ease.

Relevant Articles

Heat Detection and AI in cattle

Oestrus or ‘heat’ is a period during the female reproductive cycle which signals the animal is sexually receptive. There are many factors affecting the stock keeper capturing this moment and if the usual behavioural and physiological signs are not obvious to the farmer, especially in a larger herd; this critical period may pass unnoticed.

In cattle, the oestrus cycle lasts between 18-24 days meaning that the cow should shows signs of heat every 3 weeks. The duration of oestrus varies between 1-24 hours and recent figures propose that, on average, it lasts up to a mere 8 hours (taking into account any variations in breeds). With this short window of observation in mind, effective heat detection is therefore a critical component of good, reproductive management in any herd.

A high pregnancy rate is the best indicator of a successful AI programme with poor heat detection being the single most limiting factor in most AI programmes. Pregnancy rates, however, are determined by a combination of accurate heat detection, inseminator efficiency, female fertility and semen fertility, with heat detection being at the forefront. After all as Tom Geary, a researcher with USDA's Agricultural Research Service reports, “the most fertile semen and best inseminator in the world cannot overcome the problem of inseminating at the wrong time”.

In any cattle herd whether beef or dairy, there are several different objectives of oestrus management but a reduction of labour costs and increased efficiency is pivotal to farmers of both systems.  It is therefore crucial to attain an accurate degree of timing as efficiency in this area can be critical to a profitable business.  In fact data from a recent study at SAC suggested that improving oestrus detection rate from 50% to 75% would save on average £15,000 / year in a 100 cow herd.

The window for heat observation is short and is not one which the farmer, vet, breeder or stock keeper can afford to miss. Armed with the correct combination of knowledge, experience and tools (such as the Draminski oestrous detector) they can focus on reaching for the holy grail of minimising cost and maximising output.

Dairy Cattle Lameness and Fertility

As any famer or stock keeper knows, if you have cows, you will have ones which are lame at any given time. Research from Reading University confirms this and shows that up to 25% of any herd will be lame to a degree at any time on a locomotion scale (Zinpro Corporation) from ‘normal’ through to ‘severely lame’.

Lameness affects the dairy animal in many ways including increased veterinary bills and labour costs, lower milk yields, replacements of culled cows, a lower food intake (and therefore a possible compromised nutritional variations) and a general decrease in fertility. The last of these points may seem tenuous, but given the fact that a lame animal will face increased competition for food and also that there is a well document link between levels of nutrition and cow fertility, it is not really that surprising . As Boland & Lonergan, (2003) report, ‘in the case of lactating dairy cows, inadequate nutrition in the short term, or as a consequence of a prolonged depletion of body reserves during early lactation, can have significant deleterious effects on resumption of ovarian activity postpartum, conception rate and infertility’.

The Dairy Information System (DAISY) was developed with Reading University to maintain an accurate record of fertility and health information for use in both research and to help farmers manage their herds effectively. 33 herds had various health markers and fertility recorded over a 6-year period, (Price et al, 1998). These were used to study the relationship between herd health and fertility. As recognised by (Kossaibati and Esslemont, 1995), lameness is generally identified as being the third most costly disease after poor fertility and mastitis. In addition to this, one study, (Lucey et al, 1986), found that lameness was also associated with a longer interval between calving and first service and a longer interval between calving and conception.

Preventative treatment should be at the forefront of the management of any herd to ensure lameness is kept to a minimum; and when combined with accurate, real time pregnancy detection it will help you clinch the maximum performance your herd can deliver. The right tools, such as the portable, tough, water resistant SonoFarm Profi, are ideal for helping you identify early pregnancy on the farm. So with these facts in mind, it should pay for you to identify and treat lameness within the herd as precipitously as possible - in more ways than one.

References

Price et al; ‘Estimation of genetic parameters using health, fertility and production data from a management recording system for dairy cattle’ (1998)

Lucey et al; ‘The association between lameness and fertility in dairy cows’ (1986)

Kossaibati and Esslemont; ‘Wasteage in Dairy Herds’ (1995)

Boland & Lonergan; ‘Effects of Nutrition on Fertility in Dairy Cows’ (2003)