31/03/2025
Will likely do an audio of this later for those that just cant be bothered to read (no judgement) but after a lovely morning scanning in the sun I thought I'd give my answer to an essential question:
Why have your stock scanned?
• Preparation for success and safety --- nutrition, housing, inspection frequency, readiness and hygiene of equipment and facilities
• Efficiency --- culling decisions with fewer lost inputs, earlier intervention for fertility treatments/enhancements where indicated, earlier detection of a sub/infertile bull!
• Knowledge sharing --- opportunity to ask questions about the cows/sheep/farm, social interaction is beneficial for overall wellbeing
• Further opportunities --- normalize cattle movements and handling, highlight any safety gaps in facilities, train younger animals in entering the race/crush, opportunity to tie in other services ie vaccinate, TB test, parasite control, mobility score, pelvic score, body condition score……, Identify other problems such as lameness
Food for thought:
Annual suckler cow maintenance costs estimated between £450-£800 (Parry, 2014). Undetected empty cows remaining in the herd are costly. Timely scanning of such cows allows economic and ethical management decisions such as:
culled for returns in a strong market (490-500p/kg DW; AHDB week of March 22)
managed to remain on target for a 1 calf/cow/year system through fertility, nutritional or medicinal interventions (served, hormonally treated, medicinally treated, change of ration/housing group)
Strongly consider scanning at least twice in the breeding period. This can ensure that the bull is working adequately, and allow for interventions if too many cows are empty! For the final scan, ideally time it such that the bull has been taken out >30 days for the most accurate results.