Abstract

 
 
 The aim of this article was to review the state of fertility of female dairy cattle in South Africa and to compare it with international efforts at improving fertility. Fertility in dairy cows is defined as the ability to conceive from first insemination soon after calving and to carry the calf full term to calving. It is one of the main profit drivers in the dairy industry and is a complex trait that is influenced by the environment, genetics, and their interaction. Generally, there has been a decline in dairy cow fertility across breeds worldwide because of intense selection for milk yield, milk components, and body conformation traits. In addition, most fertility traits are negatively correlated to milk production traits. Milk production has been the focal point of selection programmes as it is linked directly to the profitability of the dairy enterprise. The low heritability of fertility traits is one of the factors that discouraged efforts to include fertility in genetic evaluations. However, owing to its economic importance, female fertility was later included in the breeding objectives for dairy cattle in several countries. Although most fertility traits are heritable to a low degree, some additive genetic variability can be exploited.
 
 
Highlights
Female fertility is a complex multi-factorial trait that includes the animal’s genetic composition (Miglior, 1999) and environmental conditions such as nutrition and climate (Muller et al, 2014), the endocrine system (Potgieter, 2012), the age of the animal and on-farm management practices
There are several other profit drivers, for example longevity, disease resistance, feed efficiency and fertility. These traits should be incorporated into the dairy breeding plan and each should play a role in determining the profitability of dairy herds by decreasing input costs of production
This study indicates progress after the inclusion of fertility in South African selection indexes
Summary
Female fertility is a complex multi-factorial trait that includes the animal’s genetic composition (Miglior, 1999) and environmental conditions such as nutrition and climate (Muller et al, 2014), the endocrine system (Potgieter, 2012), the age of the animal and on-farm management practices. The breeding goal of most dairy farmers is to increase the profitability of their enterprise This should be achieved without any detriment to animal health and welfare and the environment. There are several other profit drivers, for example longevity, disease resistance, feed efficiency and fertility These traits should be incorporated into the dairy breeding plan and each should play a role in determining the profitability of dairy herds by decreasing input costs of production. These expenses include repeated artificial insemination (AI) services, extra hormonal treatments, veterinary examinations and treatments of cows that are susceptible to disease, and outsourcing of replacement heifers. In a poor reproductive performance scenario, an average net economic loss of €231 per cow per year was observed in The Netherlands (Inchaisri et al, 2010)
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