An assessment of dairy herd bulls in southern Australia: 1. Management practices and bull breeding soundness evaluations

AS Hancock; PJ Younis; DS Beggs; PD Mansell; MA Stevenson; MF Pyman

Journal article

An assessment of dairy herd bulls in southern Australia: 1. Management practices and bull breeding soundness evaluations

AS Hancock, PJ Younis, DS Beggs, PD Mansell, MA Stevenson, MF Pyman

Journal of Dairy Science | ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC | Published : 2016

DOI: 10.3168/jds.2015-10493

Abstract

In the pasture-based, seasonally calving dairy herds of southern Australia, the mating period usually consists of an initial artificial insemination period followed by a period of natural service using herd bulls. Bull breeding soundness evaluations (BBSE) were performed on 256 bulls from 32 dairy herds in southwest Victoria, using guidelines produced by the Australian Cattle Veterinarians, before and immediately after a single natural mating period. At the same time, herd managers were questioned regarding the management of the bulls. The objectives of this study were to describe the management practices of dairy herd bulls; to describe the causes of increased risk of reduced fertility in d..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

David Beggs Author

Peter Mansell Author

Mark Stevenson Author

Grants

Funding Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of the participating herds, The Vet Group (Timboon, Australia), Dairy Australia (Melbourne, Australia), Gardiner Foundation (Melbourne, Australia), the University of Melbourne (Melbourne, Australia), and Chenovet (Wagga Wagga, Australia).