Heifer

Rising Sexed Semen Use Signals Slow Rebound in Dairy Heifer Numbers

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:22:24 GMT

After years of breeding crossbred calves for the lofty beef market, dairy producers appear to be slowly shifting their practices to breed more heifers. According to Sarina Sharp, analyst with the Daily Dairy Report, “U.S. dairy producers prioritized heifer calf production last year, setting the stage for an incremental uptick in heifer supplies in years to come. It’s possible that U.S. dairy heifer head counts reached their low for the current cycle last year.”

Last year, dairy producers bought 10.6 million units of gender-selected semen, a 6.5% increase from 2024, according to the National Association of Animal Breeders (NAAB) annual sales report. Gender-selected semen last year accounted for 64% of all dairy semen sales.

“Producers looking to stock their new or expanded facilities likely drove the increased focus on dairy semen,” Sharp said. “But record-breaking beef calf prices also incentivized producers to breed for the beef market.”

Despite the modest shift in breeding practices, heifer supplies will likely remain relatively tight, especially if some calves are exported. According to the report, international demand for replacement heifers is increasing opportunities for U.S. dairy producers to generate more heifers for export.

“The rise in gender-selected dairy semen sales last year was large enough to arrest a five-year decline in overall semen units, highlighting a modest shift toward making more heifers,” Sharp noted. “Relentless advances in artificial insemination technologies, genetics, and on-farm breeding practices have improved conception rates for cows inseminated with gender-selected semen, boosting the potential increase in heifer calf births.”

The NAAB report also noted that producers are genomic testing a larger number of cows so they can produce replacement heifers from their best animals using gender-selected semen. They then use more beef semen for the rest of their herd to produce high-value calves for feedlots. Last year, NAAB sold 1.7 million units of beef semen to beef producers and 8.1 million units to dairies, up from 7.9 million in 2024.

Both dairy heifer and crossbred beef calves are extremely valuable and will likely remain so in the foreseeable future, Sharp said. In April, newborn crossbred calves set an all-time high above $1,900/head. “With the largest dairy herd in more than three decades, the industry can simultaneously increase births of dairy heifer and beef calves,” she added.

High Milk Production Meets a Changing Cattle Market

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 20:54:13 GMT

The USDA is set to release the February Milk Production data later this week. If on trend with 2025 and the first numbers posted from January’s Milk Production, most are expecting another big number, if not continued growth in gallons of production.

High milk production has stressed markets despite efforts to increase value added products. Increased consumer demand here in the United States of some of these products such as protein products and ready-made dairy products has helped. Also, more exports of fluid milk and milk products to countries worldwide has lessened the blow of increased production, however the overload of production hasn’t been an easy hurdle to surpass.

Last week, the USDA released the monthly WASDE report. As expected, milk production was raised from last month, projecting February and March to be 3 billion pounds over the respective month in 2025, which was 5.6 billion pounds over the 2024 data. The balance sheet was not all doom and gloom though, Exports for Fat-Basis were projected to reach 18 billion pounds here in March of 2026. That is an increase of 500 million from the February projections for 2026, 1.3 billion pounds over March of 2025, and an astounding 6.2 billion pounds over 2024.

Expectations for the February Milk Production Report to be released Thursday are in line with the WASDE report, showing a steady increase in production. Much like what we saw all of 2025.

Looking for a reason behind the growing milk production numbers isn’t as simple as more cows equals more milk. Milk cow numbers are high, one of the highest in the last twenty-five years. However, beef cattle numbers are the lowest in 75 years. This has created a unique dynamic where cattle prices are high, but milk prices are low.

The story gets more confusing when you see dairy heifer retention at a near low. When you take all dairy cattle inventory, including calves, you see one of the lowest numbers of all dairy cattle in history. It is easily explained by the dairy dynamic beef we’ve seen since beef prices skyrocketed.

(USDA - Reports)

Beef-on-dairy calves are worth so much, that instead of keeping back a heifer and breeding for quality retention, we are breeding for immediate dispersal of a beef calf. Therefore, milk cow numbers are high, not due to wanting to produce a greater volume of milk, but to squeeze out another year or two of calf production out of a cow that would have previously been culled prior to the cattle value rally.

This sets the dairy industry up for a big problem for years to come as we eventually are forced to cull a large part of the herd and there are very few heifers to take their place. The question is timing of when we will see this impact on production and dairy prices.

Sarah Jungman is a commodity broker with AgMarket.Net and AgDairy, the dairy division of John Stewart & Associates Inc. (JSA). JSA is a full-service commodity brokerage firm based out of St. Joseph, MO. Sarah’s office is located in Winterset, Iowa and she may be reached at 515-272-5799 or through the website www.agmarket.net .

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Don’t Miss These Four Herd Health Blind Spots

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 22:53:15 GMT

Most producers can spot problems quickly on someone else’s farm. Just a few minutes in another barn, and uncomfortable cows or problem areas tend to stand out. Back home, though, those same kinds of issues can be much harder to see.

“Farm blindness is defined as a misperception by farmers that what they see every day on their own farm is normal, and similar to every other farm, particularly when it is not,” says Carly Becker, former Extension educator at Pennsylvania State University.

Over time, she explains, the abnormal can slowly become a new normal.

“It’s natural to miss certain things when you see the same animals every day,” Becker notes.

To catch these often-overlooked issues, she recommends taking steps to gain a fresh perspective. Visiting other dairies, leaving the farm for a few days and inviting consultants or advisers on-farm are some of the most effective ways to see your own operation more clearly.

Four herd health areas she says are commonly overlooked are:

1. Lameness

Hoof and leg issues remain major health and welfare concerns, yet lameness often goes unnoticed until it becomes severe.

“Lameness is not a single disease but any hoof or leg condition that negatively impacts cow mobility, posture and gait,” Becker says.

These issues go beyond an obvious limp and have real consequences for herd health and productivity. She notes that lameness can reduce milk production by up to 20%, decrease feed intake as cows become reluctant to stand or walk and impair fertility. Even more, lame cows might take up to 28 days longer to become pregnant and are more likely to be culled early, increasing replacement costs and reducing lifetime productivity.

2. Body Condition

Body condition is another area where farm blindness can creep in. Cows use body fat to support milk production, particularly in early lactation, and Becker warns that poor management of this process can harm their health, fertility and longevity.

“Cows that are under-conditioned or over-conditioned are not efficient cows,” she says. “Over-conditioned cows face increased risk of retained placenta, metritis and ketosis, while under-conditioned cows are less likely to show estrus and often have reduced conception rates.”

Cows perform best when they calve at a body condition score of 3 to 3.5. Some condition loss after calving is normal, but Becker says losses should be limited to 0.5 to 1 point. She notes preventing excessive loss comes down to basics, including enough feed and water space, clean and comfortable resting areas and working closely with a nutritionist to balance fresh cow rations. These gradual changes can be easy to overlook, but they play a major role in overall performance.

3. Mastitis

Mastitis remains one of the most common reasons cows leave the herd early, and its true cost is often underestimated. While treatment costs and discarded milk are easy to track, lost milk production makes up the largest portion of total costs.

“Oftentimes, a case of mastitis costs more than estimated,” Becker writes, particularly because clinical cases can have long-term effects on future milk production and reproductive efficiency. “Small lapses in routine can add up quickly,” she adds.

Keeping mastitis under control means staying consistent. Regular training on milk quality helps keep staff alert to early mastitis signs, reinforces proper hygiene and supports consistent routines that protect both cows and milk production.

When somatic cell counts exceed 200,000 cells/mL, tools such as the California Mastitis Test can help identify affected quarters. Becker points to on-farm milk culturing as a best practice way to identify pathogens and make more informed treatment decisions.

4. Heifers

Heifers are the future of the herd and one of the farm’s largest investments. Becker says raising a heifer from birth to first calving can cost between $1,500 and $4,000, making early culling especially costly. With that much time and money on the line, overlooking small management details can lead to big setbacks later on.

“Just as much attention should be paid to the heifers as to the lactating cows,” Becker notes.

Feed costs drive much of the variation in heifer‑rearing expenses, which makes collaboration with a nutritionist especially important. Even minor inconsistencies in ration delivery, bunk access or forage quality can influence growth rates and delay breeding targets. Housing also plays a pivotal role. Clean, dry, well‑ventilated facilities with adequate feed and water access support steady development and overall health, while effective fly control helps reduce mastitis risk in young animals.

Seeing the Herd with Fresh Eyes

Because early signs of trouble can be easy to miss, technology has quickly become an essential extra set of eyes. Activity and rumination monitors can provide data and alerts that highlight changes in behavior before they’re obvious during daily routines. Some systems also track body temperature and cow location, adding another layer of insight into herd health.

Ultimately, Becker emphasizes staying competitive requires openness to change.

“Barn blindness can cause the abnormal to look normal,” Becker says. “Touring other farms, joining discussion groups and inviting nutritionists, veterinarians and consultants to provide honest evaluations can help producers identify bottlenecks and set new goals.”

Fewer Heifers Mean Higher Stakes for Reproduction

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:55:07 GMT

Over the last 20 years, reproduction in dairy herds has changed in ways that were hard to imagine two decades ago. Pregnancy rates that once sat in the low teens are now climbing to levels that have reshaped how farms manage breeding decisions.

“We’ve seen average preg rates go from 13% to 14% to herds that now push 40%,” says Paul Fricke, professor and Extension specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on a recent Dairy Health Blackbelt podcast. “That’s why we’re using sexed semen and beef semen. It’s changed everything.”

However, that progress comes with a tradeoff. As sexed semen is used more strategically and beef semen fills in elsewhere, farms are raising fewer replacement heifers. According to Fricke, that makes it harder to absorb mistakes.

“My argument has been we’ve got to be better with those fewer heifers from a reproductive standpoint,” he says.

With fewer heifers in the pipeline, every breeding decision carries more weight. Missed heats, mistimed inseminations or extended days open can quickly add cost and delay animals entering the milking herd. Fricke says heifer reproduction can’t be treated as a low-priority task. Getting heifers pregnant at the right time, he says, matters more when fewer replacements are available.

Rethink Timed AI in Heifers

As farms work to manage heifer breeding more consistently with fewer replacements, many have turned to synchronization programs to simplify decisions and reduce reliance on heat detection. Timed-AI protocols are now common on many farms because they’re easier to manage with limited labor, but Fricke says they aren’t without limitations. He points to the 5-day CIDR-Synch protocol as a common starting point for heifers, noting that its biggest challenge comes down to timing.

“The big problem with these protocols is they’re not 100% timed AI protocols,” Fricke explains. “We’ll see about 27% to 33% of heifers coming to heat a day early.”

That early estrus creates management challenges and opens the door to mistimed inseminations. To address it, Fricke’s team tested a simple change by leaving the progesterone insert in place for an extra 24 hours.

“There were 12% of the heifers that came into heat early on the 5-day treatment, compared with only 1% on the 6-day treatment,” he says. “With conventional semen in Holstein heifers, there was no decline in fertility.”

Does Sexed Semen Need a Different Approach?

That consistency, however, doesn’t always carry over when sexed semen is used. Fricke says many farms manage sexed semen the same way they would conventional semen, which can lead to lower conception rates than expected.

“Sex[ed] semen is quite different,” he says. “What I generally see is low conception rates. I think it’s a timing of insemination issue.”

In a Wisconsin study across three farms using sexed semen, once-daily heat detection with prostaglandin achieved a 45% conception rate. The 5-day CIDR protocol improved conception to 52%. But the 6-day protocol fell back to 45%.

“The worst thing you can do with sex[ed] semen is inseminate too early,” Fricke says. “And that’s what we did. We kind of set them up to get bred too early.”

Look Beyond Upfront Costs

While synchronization protocols often draw scrutiny for their upfront cost, Fricke argues that focusing only on protocol price misses the bigger economic picture. The real driver of profitability in heifer reproduction, he says, is days on feed.

“The big thing about repro in heifers is limiting total days on feed, because total days on feed is determined by when you get the heifers pregnant,” he says. “That feed cost is something that a lot of farmers don’t look at. It’s the classic kind of unfunded cost, right? The hidden cost.”

In his comparison of minimal estrus synchronization versus CIDR-based programs, the upfront numbers favor the simpler approach. Protocol costs averaged $4.05 per pregnancy for the estrus group, compared to $22.29 for the CIDR group. But the CIDR heifers were inseminated 12 days earlier and pregnant eight days sooner.

“The feed costs were $82 for the estrus group versus $50 for the CIDR group,” Fricke says. “So, we’re actually $16.66 more profitable per pregnancy by being more aggressive with the heifers.”

For Fricke, how the numbers are presented is just as important as the results.

“Farmers will look at the upfront cost,” he says. “We need to show them this is an investment, not just a cost.”

Make Every Heifer Count

As herds rely on fewer replacement heifers, the stakes for getting each one pregnant at the right time are higher than ever. Every day a heifer remains open adds feed costs and can delay her entry into the milking herd, making careful management more critical.

“When I look at dairies, the low-hanging fruit now is the heifer side,” Fricke says. “Heifers are kind of out of sight, out of mind, but heifers are important.”

Fricke emphasizes success in heifer reproduction is no longer just about hitting pregnancy targets. It’s about making the most of each heifer and ensuring the herd stays on track. By understanding how protocols, semen type and timing interact, and by viewing upfront breeding costs as an investment rather than an expense, farms can protect their replacement strategy and improve profitability across the herd.

Managing Heifer Mastitis: Targeting Risk Before Freshening

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 20:44:54 GMT

Heifer mastitis is often underestimated because it occurs before an animal has even entered the milking string, but the impacts are long-lasting. Subclinical infections at calving are linked to reduced production across the entire first lactation and often throughout the cow’s lifetime. For a class of animals that has yet to return any of their rearing investment, those losses are magnified.

“It’s been identified that an animal with an increased somatic cell count in the early parts of their first lactation, those animals produce less milk throughout that first lactation and many times have decreased milk production throughout their lifetime,” says Dr. Pamela Adkins of the University of Missouri. “So we are starting out of the gate not performing as well as we could, which obviously can be quite expensive.”

Based on data presented by Adkins, what’s becoming increasingly clear from recent research is heifer mastitis is not simply early-lactation mastitis in small cows. The timing, pathogen profile and management leverage points are all distinct. Because most new infections occur before the heifer ever enters the parlor, this disease demands a prevention strategy tailored to prepartum animals.

How is mastitis in heifers different from mastitis in older cows?

Across multiple studies, higher incidences of clinical mastitis have been observed in heifers during the first few days of lactation compared to older cows.

“It’s likely that those heifers acquire those infections prior to the onset of lactation,” Adkins explains. “Therefore, a lot of our focus potentially needs to be before lactation.”

This represents a shift from how we think about lactating cows.

Culture studies of heifers reinforce this: 29% to 75% of quarters can be culture-positive before calving and over 80% may be positive at first calving and in early lactation. In older cows, early lactation infection rates tend to be around 30%.

What kinds of bacteria are causing heifer mastitis?

The types of pathogens causing infection in heifers differs from those of adult cows. Heifers show a high prevalence of infection with non-aureus staphylococci (NAS), a lower prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus, and a higher prevalence of Streptococcus spp. compared to multiparous cows.

NAS are the most common isolates in heifers, especially Staphylococcus chromogenes. These are generally considered minor mastitis pathogens as they cause only a minor inflammatory response, but Adkins advises not ignoring these bacteria because they are highly prevalent.

Interestingly, NAS infection has been linked with lower incidence of clinical mastitis, and NAS inhibit the growth of pathogen bacteria in lab settings. These results suggest NAS could have a protective effect, but Adkins acknowledges there is a lot more in vitro and in vivo work to be done on this topic.

While not the largest contributor to heifer mastitis, S. aureus infection is still common. However, without the usual parlor-based transmission pathways, the question becomes how these heifers are becoming infected.

“In older cows, we consider the parlor the major concern of where the pathogen is coming from. We know [S. aureus] can be contagious, spread from cow to cow, and we think about that happening during milking time,” Adkins says. “Obviously that’s not happening yet in heifers. Therefore, we need to think of other factors that are important in heifers.”

Some older work looked into where S. aureus was found across seven dairies. Looking beyond milk and colostrum, isolates were found on the udder skin, muzzle, rectum and vagina. Adkins proposes these body sites were an important source of S. aureus infection for heifers. These infections also vary with geography and environment. The risk factors associated with an individual farm’s management and location need to be taken into consideration.

When are heifers most at risk of getting intramammary infections?

“In order to be able to prevent it, we need to know where we should focus so that we can implement prevention strategies at the right time points to help reduce infections,” Adkins says.

Work from her own lab sampled 304 quarters from 152 Holstein heifers. In comparing primigravid and nulligravid heifers, they found pregnant heifers had a higher incidence of positive quarters than non-pregnant heifers.

“Gestation and development of the [mammary] gland associated with pregnancy seem to be risk factors for increased prevalence of intramammary infections,” Adkins says.

These infections, in both pregnant and non-pregnant heifers, are significant because that animal is still growing and developing. Any infection could interrupt that process.

How do we diagnose heifer mastitis?

Without the usual diagnostic pathway of milk culture available, defining an intramammary infection in a heifer can be a bit tricky. In most young and early gestation heifers, there isn’t enough secretion present in the mammary gland to collect a meaningful sample. Collecting swabs from the teat or teat canal might be the best option at the moment, but it might not tell the whole story either.

“A lot of bacteria hang out just in the teat canal or the teat sphincter. They don’t necessarily go up into the gland,” Adkins explains. “If we just culture the end of the teat we can find bacteria that maybe aren’t causing a problem, which complicates our definitions [of infection].”

In research, needle based methods are used to bypass the teat end and go directly to the glandular tissue. However, these methods have not been validated in the field, and Adkins heavily advises against their use on farms.

Herd level factors you should review during your visit:

Overall herd udder health: Herds with lower overall somatic cell counts tend to have less heifer mastitis. Good management practices for lactating cows influence heifer health.
Early-life management: Heifers from farms with strong colostrum SOPs show lower mastitis rates, likely due to both enhanced immunity and overall better heifer oversight. Cross-suckling remains a concern due to teat end damage.
Fly control: It has been well documented that flies can carry mastitis pathogens and move directly between teat ends.
Contact with mature cows: Some research has linked prepartum commingling with increased mastitis risk, possibly due to both pathogen exposure and stress.
Time in calving area: Longer stays in heavily contaminated maternity environments significantly increase exposure risk.

Luckily, a lot of these factors come down to management decisions.

“Heifer mastitis is a major concern in many herds. Management is always a consideration for mastitis and a major consideration in heifers as well,” Adkins says. “Mammary health is related to herd level mammary health. So taking care of mastitis at all fronts is important, and considering environmental management strategies for your heifers is vital to try to reduce infections in these animals.”

Clinical Takeaways for Vets: Managing Heifer Mastitis

Think prepartum, not parlor. Most intramammary infections in heifers are acquired before calving; prevention efforts must target the rearing and prefresh periods.

Expect a different pathogen profile. NAS (especially S. chromogenes) and Streptococci dominate. S. aureus is present but less tied to parlors and more to skin, mucosal and environmental sources.

Use herd somatic cell count as a proxy. Herds with low bulk-tank and lactating-cow SCC typically have fewer heifer infections; poor overall udder health is a red flag to investigate replacements.

Audit early-life management. Verify colostrum SOPs, prevent cross-suckling, evaluate fly burden and assess cleanliness/turnover of prefresh and calving areas. These are high-yield levers.

Beware diagnostic pitfalls. Teat-end swabs overcall “infection”; needle sampling is research-only and not appropriate on-farm. Focus on first-test-day SCC and targeted cultures from clinical quarters postcalving.

Targeted protocols over blanket therapy. Emphasize environmental and management changes first. Use selective culture-based treatment strategies in fresh heifers rather than routine prepartum intramammary therapy.

Don’t Dig Yourself into a Heifer Shortage Hole

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 20:47:27 GMT

Strong beef prices have reshaped breeding strategies on many dairies, pushing more producers to use beef semen and capture the higher value of beef-on-dairy calves. But with fewer dairy pregnancies in the pipeline, some herds are now realizing they might have cut heifer inventories too deep.

During a recent episode of “The Dairy Podcast,” Michael Overton, global dairy platform lead in precision animal health with Zoetis, says the trend has been building for years.

“Dairy producers have been experiencing this really big boom in value for beef cross calves,” he explains. “Now, as a consequence of that, we’ve seen some producers become a bit overly aggressive with their breeding decisions, to the point where they’ve dug themselves in a little bit of a hole of not having enough heifers.”

When heifer numbers fall short, herds are left with two imperfect options: buy replacements or keep older cows longer to hold herd size steady. Both come with real costs. Purchased heifers are expensive and often lag behind home-raised genetics. Keeping older cows might feel like the easier path, but the losses tied to lower production, higher disease risk and reduced longevity add up faster than most producers expect.

The Hidden Cost of Holding Cows

On paper, holding cows longer can look like a smart workaround during a heifer shortage. Replacement costs appear to drop, and the cow still brings in milk revenue. But Overton cautions that once opportunity costs are included, the math flips.

For example, if a herd’s replacement rate drops from 38% to 34% because of low heifer inventories, the average market cow will stay in the herd 110 to 115 days longer. Older cows carry significantly higher risk, and when a cow dies late in lactation, the herd loses not only milk revenue but also the potential cull check, income many operations have come to depend on.

“A dead cow used to be painful,” adds Michigan State’s Barry Bradford, host of “The Dairy Podcast Show.” “Now it is financially devastating.”

High cull cow prices only complicate the decision. With Holstein cull cows selling at higher prices than they have in years, the check from the sale barn is tempting. But culling too aggressively without heifers ready to fill the gaps can leave the herd with costly production bottlenecks and an aging inventory.

Overton stresses that the true cost isn’t just the milk a cow produces today, it’s the milk a better, younger cow won’t produce if her stall is occupied by an animal past her economic prime.

“Just because you can sell a cow at a high price doesn’t mean you should if it leaves a hole in your herd,” he says.

Planning Ahead

Preventing a heifer shortage starts with setting clear, realistic targets.

“If your herd total number is not stable, that can be a big challenge,” Overton says.

He recommends looking back at the past two to four years to understand a herd’s true replacement rate, then raising enough heifers to cover normal turnover, plus a margin for unexpected losses or expansion. A major pitfall, he warns, is overestimating how many heifers actually make it to calving.

“The knee-jerk response is: ‘I got more than 90% of my heifers that calve in.’ And my response is, ‘No, I don’t believe it,‘” Overton says.

His data shows real heifer completion rates typically range from 75% to 80%. Failing to account for that 20% to 25% drop-off is one of the most common ways herds unintentionally dig themselves into a shortage. Once that hole forms, climbing out can take years of rebuilding.

Stay Ahead of Replacement Shortages

It’s easy to chase calf prices or cut costs, but not at the expense of creating a replacement shortage in your herd. Low heifer inventories hurt long before anyone notices, and the ripple effects reach every part of the operation.

The smartest herds stay ahead of the curve through disciplined, data-driven planning. Preventing the shortage is far easier, and far cheaper, than climbing out of it later.

Unlocking the Potential of Dairy Heifers: Strategies for Growth and Production

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 13:03:52 GMT

Dairy heifers are an asset selling at over $3,000 as the number of heifers available is limiting. Beef-on-dairy calves have reduced the number of heifers on farms as beef-on-dairy calves are selling at over $1,000 at two weeks of age. When pregnant heifers are ready to enter the milking herds, these opportunities can be considered improving your heifer program on your farm.

Opportunity 1
Average daily gain of your heifers is important. Most dairy managers know the daily milk yield of the herd and rolling herd average. Average daily gain for Holstein heifers should be 1.6 lb. to 1.8 lb. per day (1.4 lb. to 1.6 lb. for Jersey heifers). Average dairy gain before 12 months of age can be 1.8 lb. to 2.0 lb. per day for Holstein leading to protein gain and growth in stature. After 12 months of age, the gain might be lower at 1.5 lb. to 1.7 lb. with more fat compared to protein deposition.

Opportunity 2
Heifer size and age are key for milk production in first lactation milk yield. Heifers should calve in at 85% of mature milk cow body weight of the herd at 23 months of age. If your heifers are 24 months or older at calving, explore why this is occurring. If the heifer breeding program using hormonal protocol is not correct or effective, this can lead to delayed pregnancy. Are heifers not at optimal weight? Are you breeding based on age or size? Research indicates heifers over 24 months of age produce less milk and can experience udder edema. If heifers grew more than 2" during the first lactation, the heifer rearing program was not adequate. If heifers are not grown to optimize size, these heifers will divert nutrients away from milk yield to growth.

Opportunity 3
Close-up heifers are not the same as close-up older cows. Close-up heifers need the additional nutrients that older cows do not require. The challenges for heifers are the nutrient requirement to gain 1.5 lb. for continued growth, mammary gland development, calf development in the uterus and colostrum production. If the close-up pen contains both pregnant heifers and older cows, heifers can be short of nutrients or older cows can gain more weight. This same challenge occurs in the 60-day dry program (one group of dry cows leads to similar problems). The solution is separate dry and close-up heifer groups to allow tailoring nutrients needs and dry-matter intake reducing competition with older cows. Researchers report heifers do not experience lower blood calcium and do not need anionic salts or phosphorous binders in close-up rations saving 60¢ to 90¢ a day in the close-up heifer diet.

Opportunity 4
A separate heifer group after calving for fresh cows allows less competitive heifers to consume the optimal dry-matter intake. Because heifers are smaller and less dominant, dry-matter intake will be lower for these heifers when grouped with older cows. The eating pattern is also different compared to older cows (rate of dry-matter intake per minute, meal size and meal frequency). Heifer fresh cow pens should be under 90% capacity to minimize competition at the feeding bunk and beds to lie down. The ration should contain higher nutrient levels compared to older cows due to lower matter intake and continued growth to mature size.

Take home message
Heifers have unique requirements and challenges leading to individual groups, adjustments in feed additives and rations designed to meet growth and milk needs. Heifers are replacement animals allowing optimal culling. If managed correctly, heifers can express their genetic superiority and experience less metabolic challenges.

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Heifer Inventory Squeeze to Continue: CoBank

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 09:50:38 GMT

A perfect storm is brewing in the milking parlor: a historic investment in U.S. dairy processing capacity, coupled with an aging national dairy herd and unprecedented shortage of heifers.

Despite a current milk oversupply situation, a dearth of heifers in the next two to three years could put the squeeze on milk availability, as noted in “Dairy Heifer Inventories to Shrink Further Before Rebounding in 2027,” recently published by CoBank.

Authors Corey Geiger and Abbi Prins share that a whopping $10 billion is being invested in U.S. dairy processing facilities through 2027.

“Those plants will require more annual milk and component production, largely butterfat and protein,” they state in the report. “That begs the question, will there be enough milk cows given the dramatic shift toward beef semen usage on dairy heifers and cows.”

Dairy producers are currently cashing in on those breeding decisions, with newborn beef-cross calves fetching $800 to $1,200 per head and sometimes even higher in the past year. With the national beef cow herd size at its smallest size since 1972, those calves are in high demand to stock America’s feedyards and appetite for beef.

Cattle feeders also appreciate the year-around supply and now-consistent performance of those animals. The assertion has even been made that dairies are becoming beef calf production centers with milk as a production accessory.

It’s hard to argue with the logic that led dairy producers to shift away from producing excess dairy heifers. The CoBank report notes that bred heifer values bottomed out in 2019, at just $1,200 per head. That’s well below the cost to raise a heifer from birth to freshening of roughly $2,000 per head.

Producers switched gears and bred for beef, increasing the annual amount of beef semen they purchased by nearly 3 million units in 2024 compared to 2020. And within a few years, the chipping away of dairy heifer inventories started to show. According to USDA inventory data, the U.S. population of dairy heifers 500 lb. or higher fell by 18% — to just under 4 million head — between 2018 and January 2025.

Commensurately, heifer prices have seen a healthy boost, climbing to $1,720 per head in April 2023, then jumping again to a stunning $3,010 per head in USDA’s July 2025 Agricultural Prices data.

Those high heifer values and limited supply have fed another management shift: dairy producers “hoarding” cows. To keep stalls full, they are hanging onto older animals, a phenomenon USDA data indicates started in September 2023. Since then, a total of 611,600 fewer dairy cows were sent to slaughter compared to recent-year trends.

“This historic pullback cannot be sustained long term,” the Co Bank authors note in the report. In the short term, they speculate many herds might be holding onto under-producing animals to get one more beef-cross calf from them. That calf, valued in the current market of about $1,000 per head, is worth more than the cow if she was sent to the beef packer.

But the long game suggests a shift back to producing more dairy heifers is in order, and it’s already starting to happen. The CoBank report notes from 2023 to 2024, gender-sorted semen sales grew by 1.5 million units and represented an incredible 17.9% growth rate in just one year.

Beef semen sold to dairies held steady in that time frame at 7.9 million units, indicating producers are becoming more strategic in their breeding decisions. They’re gambling less on the 50-50 prospect of conventional dairy semen, striving to intentionally produce either dairy heifers or beef-cross calves.

Based on these current trends, CoBank developed a prediction model to forecast the U.S. dairy heifer population of the future. Their conclusion: about 285,000 more dairy replacement heifers will be entering the pipeline by 2027. But in the interim, 2025 and 2026 will see a combined total of nearly 800,000 fewer dairy replacements.

Noting dairy replacement heifer inventory already is at a 20-year low, the CoBank authors suggest even with a reversal in the heifer population trend starting in 2027, it will be a long pull to get the national dairy herd back to historic levels.

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Calves and Heifers: How High Can These Prices Fly?

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 16:18:52 GMT

“We keep asking each other how the market can get any better.” This statement was the opening remark on a recent market report from Turlock Livestock Auction Yard, Turlock, Calif., which reported cattle prices continuing to post new highs. In the past month, Holstein springer values topped out at $4,000 and above in two reported markets, and the Turlock site reported potload values of $3,875 to $4,050 per head. Newborn calves, meanwhile, have soared into almost unthinkable territory, with Holstein heifer calves crossing the $1,000 per head mark in Pennsylvania, and beef-cross calves maxing out at more than $1,500 per head in two reported markets.

U.S. Dairy Herd Continues to Grow: Fastest Pace in 17 Years

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 16:17:58 GMT

Last fall, after more than a year of low dairy cow cull rates, U.S. dairy producers started to rebuild the milk herd. So far this year, dairy producers have held cull rates low enough to add milk cows at the fastest rate since 2008, says Sarina Sharp, analyst with the Daily Dairy Report.

“While the heifer shortage has remained acute this year, today’s herd is the largest in four years, but it’s also growing older,” Sharp says. “To fill every stall, producers are holding on to cows for an extra lactation or keeping cows whose milk yields are lower than desired because not enough heifers exist to replace less-productive livestock.”

In late-September 2023, U.S. dairy producers began to rein in cull rates, sending fewer animals to packing plants. At first, the lighter slaughter volumes were not substantial enough to offset the ongoing heifer shortage, and the U.S. dairy herd declined. The herd continued to shrink until January 2024, but as producers continued to hold onto lower-end cows, the decline in U.S. milk cow numbers ended, and the national dairy herd began growing again last autumn, Sharp says.

“Now the trade is watching closely for any sign that cull rates are climbing, which would foster slower growth in milk cow counts” she says.

For the first time since March, USDA’s weekly slaughter volumes regularly topped 50,000 head in July, and in the last two weeks of the month, producers sent more cows to packing plants than they did a year earlier. At first glance, rising slaughter volumes appear to indicate the situation could be changing, but a deeper dive shows otherwise, according to Sharp.

“The increases in cull rates can easily be explained by seasonality, mathematics and weather,” she says. “First, cull rates typically jump in July following spring flush. And while U.S. dairy producers are now milking 146,000 more cows than a year ago, slaughter volumes can top last year’s very low counts without boosting culling percentages.”

Over the past two decades, she explains, dairy producers have typically culled about 32% of the milk cow herd each year. Last year, the cull rate dropped to 29.6%. This year, with 146,000 more cows, producers could continue to cull less than 30% of the herd and still send nearly 1,000 more cows to slaughter each week.

In addition, while slaughter in late July was unusually high in the Midwest, a derecho that slammed into the Central Plains was likely a major driver of the increase. USDA data showed that slaughter in the Midwest jumped 2,400 head above the prior year in the final week of July.

“Powerful winds damaged facilities and forced some producers to send cows to the packer while they repaired barns and milk parlors,” Sharp says. “Eventually, health and longevity will necessitate a return to historical cull rates, but for now, economics suggest slaughter volumes will remain near year-ago levels and expansion will continue, leading to strong milk production.”

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The Value of Dairy Replacements Continues to Surge

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 15:00:00 GMT

It’s still a seller’s market for dairy heifers and calves. Holstein springers once again topped out at $4,000 per head in Minnesota in the past month. Pipestone Livestock Market in Pipestone, Minn. reported a very strong market with lots of demand for dairy heifers. And Turlock Livestock Auction Yard in Turlock, Calif. sent a full potload of Holstein springers to the Midwest for $3,950 per head. Meanwhile, calves also continue to post historic highs, with dairy heifer calves exceeding $1,000 per head in Pennsylvania and beef-cross calves topping out at $1,650 per head in the same market.

Dairy Heifer Shortage Builds the Case for Older Cows

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:43:42 GMT

It’s no secret that dairy heifers are in short supply, and their prices are high.

An early 2025 USDA-estimated inventory of just 3.914 million head of dairy heifers over 500 pounds marks the lowest population of dairy heifers in the U.S. since 1978. Meanwhile, the U.S. beef cattle herd is the smallest it has been in 64 years, ramping up incentives for dairies to produce more high-value beef-cross calves.

The financial upshot: today it is common for Holstein springers to fetch record-shattering values of $4,000 per head or more. That makes it challenging for dairies to grow or maintain herd size affordably. Or does it?

Surprisingly, dairy herd size has actually grown by about 114,000 head in the last year – to a current population of 9.410 million head -- through the recent heifer shortage and price-a-palooza. And May 2025 year-over-year milk production was up 1.56%.

That means stalls are being filled by the elder stateswomen of dairies. Higher-parity cows that may have been replaced by their first-lactation counterparts a few years ago are now likely being retained longer. And that’s largely for the best, according to Ryan Leiterman, DVM, Director of Technical Services at Crystal Creek Natural LLC , Spooner, Wis.

“Until recently, many dairies were milking 35% of their herd as first-lactation heifers, and some were even milking 50% heifers,” shared Leiterman. “These heifers are not even at their mature bodyweight yet, and they lack experience in the milking string.”

Leiterman said older cows can be an asset for the following reasons:

They’re better producers – Cows typically hit their peak milk production in their third or fourth lactation. Statistically second-calf cows out-pace first-calf heifers by about 10 lb./cow/day, and third-and-great lactation cows outproduce second-calf cows by an additional 10 lb./cow/day.
Milking them is easier – Multiparous cows, especially those in their fourth lactation and beyond, have more developed mammary tissue and better milk letdown.
They know the drill – Older cows are better adapted to the specific conditions of the farm, such as milking schedules and environmental stressors. While first-calf heifers require training and are often more challenging to milk and manage, older cows have the routines down.

Still, the veterinarian acknowledged that higher-parity cows do come with problems. To maintain an older cow population, Leiterman said a dairy needs to be on top of its nutrition and management game to prevent early herd removal or altered production due to ketosis, milk fever, mastitis, lameness, and poor reproductive efficiency.

But by caring fastidiously for those older cows, Leiterman said dairies can amortize the cost of rearing replacement heifers – which now may exceed $2,500 per head – over more years of productive life. They also may require fewer heifers, so they can capitalize on beef-cross calf sales, or sell their excess heifers at a healthy profit.

Or plain old internal herd growth, without the need to purchase replacements for herd expansion, is another potential benefit. In any case, it’s rarely wrong to strive to keep productive cows in the herd as long as possible.

“While a farm with good cow longevity is not guaranteed to be profitable, a farm with short longevity due to a high involuntary culling rate is not likely to be profitable,” Leiterman stated.

Historically High Heifer Prices Start to Slow Down

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 15:25:57 GMT

Historically high values for springing Holstein heifers have backed down a bit over the past month. Turlock Livestock Auction Yard in Turlock, Calif. reported that softening milk prices were a tempering factor for springer prices at their most recent dairy auction. Nevertheless, the value of those close-up replacements still remains robust, taking a healthy bump into near $4,000/head range in Wisconsin in June, and surpassing that threshold in western Minnesota. Calf prices remain in bold territory, with Holstein heifer calves reaching $900/head in Wisconsin, and newborn beef-cross calves topping $1,500/head in Pennsylvania.

Replacement Heifer Values Hang in Record Territory

Tue, 13 May 2025 15:55:31 GMT

It’s history in the making in U.S. dairy animal trade right now, as springer values stay knocking on the door of $4,000 per head, and calf prices continue to soar. Newborn beef-cross calves are bringing north of $1,000 per head nationwide. Ironically, those calves also are at least partially the source of climbing heifer values. In the January 2025 USDA Cattle Report , lactating dairy cows showed an annual tally of about 9.5 million head, up about 3,000 head from the previous year. But the count of dairy heifers 500 pounds and over fell nearly 40,000 head as dairy producers continue to reach for beef semen to raise high-in-demand crossbred calves. That demand is fueled by a dwindling U.S. beef cow herd, which the same report noted was the smallest in 64 years.

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The Importance of Dairy Heifer Selection

Tue, 06 May 2025 13:12:19 GMT

According to Michael Overton with Zoetis, merely raising a heifer does not automatically guarantee her a place on your farm, despite the opportunity she represents to upgrade the herd. At the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference in Reno, Nev., Overton emphasized the significance of evaluating each fresh heifer’s ability to improve the herd compared to the current cows.

Evaluating Heifers for Upgrade Potential
Producers should assess every heifer entering the herd, questioning whether she represents an upgrade over the lowest value cow currently in place. Overton suggests that if a heifer stands out as an upgrade, she should replace a current cow in the lactating herd.

“If she represents an upgrade, bring her in. Let her join the lactating herd, which means she replaces a current existing cow,” he said.

This assessment is crucial as it influences the overall quality and productivity of the herd.

Significance of Heifer Replacement Rate
Key factors in the heifer replacement decision include both the quantity and quality of heifers produced. Although heifer replacement rate is a poor monitor, it’s essential in planning for future herd needs. High genetic potential, suitable growth and development, good health and age-appropriate first calving are critical indicators of a successful heifer.

“Heifers coming into the herd should represent an upgrade over the cows that are leaving the herd,” he says. “If not, we’ve got some serious flaws in some of our decision making.”

Planning for Future Heifer Needs
The dynamics of heifer replacement rates involve assessing past trends and projecting future needs. Overton says producers often overestimate the number of heifers that make it to calving. Thus, understanding historic performance over the past 24 to 36 months is vital for accurate future predictions.

“As you increase the quality of the heifers that come in, you put more pressure on the existing cows, and that’s a very important concept to remember, that’s where we’re always striving to try to improve the quality of heifers that is coming into the herd,” he says.

Understanding heifer completion rate is key when managing herd dynamics. Producers should focus on various stages, such as the percentage of heifers that conceive and actually calve, and the percentage of heifers reaching specific age milestones. Additionally, monitoring the percentage of heifers sold or died in various age brackets provides insight into herd health and management effectiveness.

Quality Matters
Quality improvement among heifers results in more cows being replaced. Quality encompasses factors such as future profit potential and desirability, with specific characteristics including high genomic and production potential, adequate size shortly after calving, optimal conditioning, ideal age for first calving and lack of carryover health issues.

Heifer completion (liveborn to calving): key stages and measures:

Percent of heifers that conceive that actually calve
Percent of heifers reaching 365 days of age that conceive
Percent of heifers sold from 91 to 365 days of age
Percent of heifers died from 91 to 365 days of age
Percent of heifers sold by 90 days of age
Percent of heifers died by 90 days of age

Quality refers to characteristics related to future profit potential and desirability of heifers.

Economic Considerations
Overton advises integrating economic evaluations into decision-making. Calculating the net replacement cost involves assessing trade-in values between market cows and the cost of new acquisitions. The impact of milk prices further underscores the need for strategic economic planning.

Ultimately, optimizing heifer selection is a strategic move that profoundly influences herd quality and productivity. By focusing on evaluation, planning and economic considerations, producers can ensure their herd remains competitive and efficient.

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The Effects of Heat Stress on Dairy Cattle Development, Health and Performance

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 15:18:39 GMT

It is not breaking news that yearly temperatures on Earth have been consistently rising. Indeed, data released from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies – GISS show that the global land-ocean temperature index has consistently increased after the 1900s (see Figure 1 below).

Regardless of the many factors that have been tied to the increase in global temperature (some that were addressed in previous WSU VetMed Extension Articles ), it is evident that the agriculture is affected by such changes, including the dairy industry. With increased global temperatures, the occurrence of heat stress (a condition that occurs when the body is exposed to excessive heat, leading to an inability to regulate body temperature effectively) and its associated detrimental impacts are more likely to be observed particularly in dairy cattle.

A recent study projected the decadal increases in average heat stress frequencies by 2100, and revealed that the majority of the U.S. regions will have at least 6 to 8 additional days under heat stress/decade until 2100 ( Gunn et al., 2019 ; Figure 2).

Because of the expected differences in climate, it is important that dairy industry stakeholders work together to further 1) understand the complexity and underlying mechanisms of heat stress impacts, and 2) develop alternative strategies to mitigate the detrimental impacts of heat stress.

With that in mind, this article focuses on reviewing some of the key aspects related to heat stress impacts on cattle development, health and performance, industry economics, and mitigating strategies.

Historically, the temperature-humidity index (THI) has been the mechanism used to determine when dairy cows are heat stressed. Although there is some variation on THI cut-offs the consensus was established as a THI between 68 and 70 ( Zimbelman et al., 2009 ; Chen et al., 2024 ). Guinn et al. ( 2019 ) described the differences in mean THI between summer and winter months in the U.S. for the last 10 years (69.5 vs. 39.3, respectively), highlighting that without any heat stress abatement strategies U.S. dairy cows could be under heat stress conditions for most of the summer months.

In fact, the same study revealed differences in productive and reproductive performance between summer and winter, illustrated by reduced milk production and pregnancy rates in summer compared with winter months. Similar results were also reported by other authors, including lowered pregnancy rates in warmer months compared with colder months of the year ( Hansen, 2009 ). Both Tao et al. ( 2020 ) and Ouellet et al. ( 2020 ) depicted the detrimental impacts of heat stress on milk production and dry-matter intake (Figures 3 and 4).

Other studies have demonstrated the effects of heat stress (or contrast between warmer vs. cooler months) on the occurrence of diseases, culling, and cow welfare. For instance, cows that calved in warmer months were observed to have greater odds of retained fetal membrane (Odds Ratio = 1.6), subclinical ketosis (Odds Ratio = 2.3), displaced abomasum (Odds Ratio = 1.8), and mastitis (Odds Ratio = 1.1) as compared with cows that calved in cooler months ( Pinedo et al., 2020 ).

Al-Qaisi et al. ( 2020 ) observed a greater somatic cell count in milk from cows exposed to heat stress conditions as compared with cows exposed to thermoneutral conditions, and cows that calved in the summer were more likely develop metritis as compared to cows that calved in cooler months ( Molinari et al., 2022 ). Furthermore, Vitali et al. ( 2015 ) reported higher mortality of cattle during heat wave periods compared to subsequent periods, and an association of mortality and heat wave duration (Figure 5). Heat stress conditions have also been associated with welfare issues in dairy cattle, as cows under heat stress conditions remain in a standing position for greater periods of time (possibly contributing to lameness issues) and have greater blood cortisol levels than cows under thermoneutral conditions ( Cook et al., 2007 ; Allen et al., 2015 ; Al-Qaisi et al., 2020 ).

Considering the effects of heat stress on cattle performance, mortality, and welfare, it is not a surprise that economic losses occur. Specifically, data published in 2003 estimated that heat stress conditions cause up to $2.3 billion/year in economic losses to livestock production ($2.9 billion in 2024 considering inflation). Under heat stress abatement strategies, the economic losses drop down to $1.7 billion/year and the dairy industry represents over 50% of the costs ($897 million; St-Pierre et al., 2003 ).

A component to heat stress in dairy cattle that has received a lot of attention is the “in utero” heat stress on dairy calves. Recent studies highlighted the carryover effects of late gestational heat stress on the progeny, illustrated by lowered birth weight (-4.6 kg), lowered weaning weight (-7.1 kg), and reduced longevity ( Ouellet et al., 2020 ). Moreover, the occurrence of heat stress during the dry period is also associated with differences in offspring mammary gland structure ( Dado-Senn et al., 2019 ), adrenal gland development ( Guadagnin et al., 2024 ), behavior ( Laporta et al., 2017 ), and hormonal/metabolic biomarkers ( Guo et al., 2016 ).

Lastly, combined studies have shown the legacy effect of heat stress on offspring, as lactational performance of such offspring is also different compared to offspring generated by dams under thermoneutral conditions ( Ouellet et al., 2020 ; Figure 6).

The research findings related to the legacy effect of heat stress on offspring add another layer of importance to the topic, and suggest that the detrimental effects and economic losses previously described are potentially underestimated.

Although the complex mechanisms that underlie the detrimental effects of heat stress on lactating dairy cows are not yet fully elucidated, studies have demonstrated biological changes associated with heat stress. For instance, lipopolysaccharide-induced accumulation of IL-1β, IL-10, and MIP-1α was greater in blood collected from postpartum cows that were under prepartum heat stress conditions as compared with control cows,implying that prepartum heat stress has carry-over effects on postpartum innate immunity, which may contribute to the increased incidence of uterine disease observed in cows exposed to prepartum heat stress ( Molinari et al., 2023 ).

Other studies have depicted differences in gut, ovary, muscle, and metabolism morphology/function associated with heat stress, which could be tied to the occurrence of subsequent diseases, animal performance, reproductive performance, and mortality ( Baumgard and Rhoads Jr, 2013 ; Fernandez et al., 2015 ; Hale et al., 2017 ; Ross et al., 2017 ; Fausnacht et al., 2020 ; Mayorga et al., 2020 ; Tang et al., 2022 ; Roths et al., 2023 ). Last but certainly not least, and certainly not depicting the entirety of the mechanisms of heat stress associated with cow performance, cows under heat stress conditions have reduced feed intake ( Rhoads et al., 2009 ) and reduced energy substrate adaptability in skeletal muscle, possibly contributing to reduced performance ( Ellett et al., 2025 ).

Given the detrimental impacts of heat stress on cattle performance, health, and welfare, it is important to consider the region-specific variations in climate and implement heat abatement strategies as needed. There are a variety of heat abatement strategies available for dairy calves, heifers, and cows that can be implemented in dairy operations. Multiple studies have tested the effects of different strategies for heat abatement in calves.

For instance, Dado-Senn et al. ( 2020 ) reported a positive association between postnatal heat stress abatement and thermoregulatory responses, feed intake, and health in dairy calves. Montevecchio et al. ( 2022 ) reported a positive relationship between pre-weaning heat stress abatement and lying behavior and healing time (related to disbudding) in dairy calves. The same group also reported positive welfare-related responses and greater wither-height for calves given heat abatement strategies as compared to calves under a simple plywood hutch ( Montevecchio et al., 2022 ).

Benefits for heat abatement in heifers and cows were also reported. For instance, the use of shade from a freestall barn, water soakers, and fans were associated with positive effects on heifer thermoregulation and productivity as compared with heifers kept under freestall shade only ( Davidson et al., 2021 ). Gunn et al. ( 2019 ) described the milk production losses (per cow/year) according to different heat abatement strategies, ranging from minimal (open barn or shading) to intense (air conditioning).

Aside from structural tools to improve heat abatement for dairy cattle, other studies have reported varying results associated with nutritional tools to ameliorate the impacts of heat stress in dairy cows, including chromium supplementation ( Soltan, 2010 ), Saccharomyces cerevisiae supplementation ( Al-Qaisi et al., 2020 ), choline ( Holdorf and White, 2020 ), and other components ( Fabris et al., 2017 ).

The potential of other strategies for heat abatement have been described; for example, a research group from the University of Florida reported that the SLICK haplotype confers thermotolerance in intensively managed lactating Holstein cows ( Dikmen et al., 2014 ). In that study, the authors revealed that cows carrying the SLICK haplotype had lowered rectal temperature and respiration rate across most times of the day compared with cows not carrying the SLICK haplotype.

Although several aspects associated with the SLICK haplotype have not been explored, a recent study reported that SLICK Holstein cows in Puerto Rico exhibited lower body temperatures, greater voluntary solar radiation exposure, enhanced blood supply to the mammary gland, and alterations in genes and metabolites involved in arachidonic acid metabolism at the mammary gland and blood plasma ( Contreras-Correa et al., 2024 ).

Figure 1

(The Author)

Figure 1. Global land-ocean temperature index ( NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies – GISS ).

(The Author)

Figure 2. Projected decadal increases in average annual Heat Stress Frequency between 2000 to 2100 ( Adapted from Gunn et al., 2019 ).

Average Daily THI

(The Author)

Figure 3. Correlation between milk yield and the average daily temperature-humidity index (THI) of the previous week. Circles represent individual observations, and dash line represents simple linear regression. All cows were housed in the same barn equipped with evaporative cooling, and fed similar lactating cow rations (Adapted from Tao et al., 2020 ).

(The Author)

Figure 4. (A) Summary of difference (kg/d) in milk yield in late-gestation heat-stressed cows relative to cooled counterparts (average difference = 3.6 kg/d; 10.3%) and (B) difference (kg/d) in prepartum and postpartum dry matter intakes in late-gestation heat-stressed cows relative to cooled counterparts (prepartum average difference = 1.4 kg/d; 12.7%; postpartum difference = 0.1 kg/d, 0.5%). Adapted from Ouellet et al., 2020 .

(The Author)

Figure 5. (A) Odds ratio and 95% CI calculated for dairy cow mortality during heat wave (HW) and in the 3 not heat wave days (nHW) after the end of heat wave (d 1, 2, and 3 defined as nHWst, nHWnd, and nHWrd, respectively). (B) Odds ratio and 95% CI calculated for dairy cow mortality in relation to the duration of exposure to heat. The duration of exposure was classified as short (1 to 3 heat wave days), medium (4 to 6 heat wave days), long (7 to 10 heat wave days), and very long (>11 heat wave days). Odds ratios are statistically significant when 95% CI does not include the unit (dashed line). Adapted from Vitali et al., 2015 .

(The Author)

Figure 6. Summary of the performance impairments associated with late-gestation heat stress for the dam (1), daughters (F1), granddaughters (F2), and dairy sector (2) reported in a series of study (where ECM = energy corrected milk). Extracted from Ouellet et al., 2020

Replacement Heifer Prices Hang in Record Territory

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 21:47:09 GMT

Heifer Prices

(Maureen Hanson)

Staph. aureus is being Confirmed More Frequently as the Culprit Contributing to Subclinical Mastitis

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 20:39:38 GMT

If you look hard enough, you can find Staphylococcus aureus (Staph aureus) in at least one cow on every dairy, according to Dr. Justine Britten a PhD animal scientist working at Udder Health Systems Inc .

Despite that bold statement, Britten is not implying every dairy has a mastitis problem or is gearing up for an outbreak. Rather, she is pointing out how common the pathogen is on the farm and that it often flies under the radar, contributing most frequently to subclinical disease.

“One thing I’m still surprised about, is I think that most producers, veterinarians, and consultants know that, and they don’t necessarily,” she tells Dr. Fred Gingrich, Executive Director for the American Association of Bovine Practitioners, during a recent “Have You Herd” podcast: Managing Staph aureus Mastitis in Dairy Cows

Britten says that the prevalence of Staph aureus is increasing, based on the 7,800 bulk milk samples her company tests, on average, each year. From 2017 to 2021, the prevalence stayed relatively flat at about 20%. Today, the prevalence is more than double that.

“We’re seeing it now at around 44% to 45% of all bulk tank samples we do are positive for Staph aureus,” she says.

Consider The Heifer Population

Something Britten says has surprised her is that heifers may calve into a subclinical infection, resulting from Staph aureus, even in a closed herd.

“Being a closed herd will help reduce the chances that’s going to happen, but it’s still possible,” she says.

In evaluating literature, Britten says between 2% and 15% of heifers are going to calve in with it, and they may have a clinical episode. However, cell counts in the infected heifers tend to be low which lessens detection.

“That’s one of the most frustrating things, is that positive heifers may stay around 100,000 or less with their cell count for quite a while before it begins to climb, and that makes it really difficult for producers to get their minds around the fact that this animal is permanently infected with a contagious pathogen. It also makes the disease that much more difficult to manage,” she says.

If the dairy is not proactively screening, heifers typically recover from an episode and look fine. At that point, they are usually returned to the herd where they may infect other heifers and cows.

“My takeaway is if Staph aureus was easier to see, more like a mycoplasma, I suspect producers would be a lot less tolerant of it than they currently are,” she says.

Screen All Cows And Heifers

Britten considers a monthly bulk tank culture as the bare minimum that a dairy can do towards monitoring pathogens in the bulk tank, and she calls it an incredibly helpful tool.

“You’re really operating in a vacuum otherwise,” she says. “Even by monitoring at the bulk tank level, we’re monitoring at the 10,000-foot view. But if [the dairy] is not doing any other culturing, it’s still better than nothing.”

Britten says she is a strong advocate for screening all cows and heifers as that’s the most proactive approach to prevention.

“It works, I know that it works, but it is very important to have some kind of audit system in place, so that you get them all, not 50% of them, not 70% of them, all of them, and that you have a management plan in place for what to do with them,” she says.

On the dairies she works with that have a very low staff positivity rate, they often sell the cows.

“They’re not going to tolerate them, while for others it’s too expensive to do that,” she says. “They’re going to go into a staff pen, or with the heifers, they try and treat them and see if we can get them cleared up. But yeah, screening, culturing of all fresh cows and heifers is the best way to find those animals early and to manage them.”

Take-Home Messages

In the podcast, Gingrich and Britten discuss that in outbreak situations it is important to evaluate why cows are getting infected and remember that cows typically get infected in the parlor and focus efforts there. This includes evaluating teat condition, parlor procedures and equipment function.

Aggressive culturing programs, segregation and culling are important to minimize risk.

Britten provides these three additional take-home points, per the AABP discussion:

Take-home point #1 – Not all Staph aureus colonies exhibit beta-hemolysis, therefore, it is important that all Staph colonies undergo coagulase testing to identify Staph aureus.

Take-home point #2 – Monthly bulk tank cultures are a bare minimum monitoring program for dairy farms.

Take-home point #3 – Somatic cell count is a lagging indicator and cultures will detect infections earlier. Britten emphasized that the difference lies in management practices. Proactive monitoring, culturing, and implementing strict control measures can prevent Staph aureus from becoming a major issue, even though the pathogen is present.

For more information and recommendations, be sure to check out the podcast: Managing Staph aureus Mastitis in Dairy Cows

Managing Heifer Inventories to Maintain Herd Size

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:00:00 GMT

Market costs for replacements are at an all-time high, ranging between $3,000 and $4,000 per head. Iowa State University Extension calculated heifer raising costs in 2024 to be just over $2,600 for 24 months. The difference in the expenses provides a financial opportunity for dairy farms that can raise their own replacements. Heifer inventories need to ensure that herd size is maintained. The amount of heifers needed on the dairy to maintain herd size is highly impacted by age at first calving and herd culling rates.

Age at First Calving

Heifers are unique to the farm in that they are the future of the dairy farm but do not provide income to the farm until they have their first calf. The optimal first calving age ranges between 22 and 24 months. According to Iowa State estimates, reducing the age at first calving by a month will save the dairy $93 per heifer. However, research has shown that calving too early (< 21 months) would hurt profitability in the long run because heifers would not reach their full milk production potential.

Proper growth rates are extremely important to reach optimal age at first calving. Body weight determines when heifers reach puberty, around 45 to 50% of mature weight. Too low of average daily gain can delay puberty, which then will have a snowball effect by delaying time to first breeding and age at first calving.

Delaying the age at first calving costs money and increases the heifer inventory needed to maintain herd size. A herd of 100 milking cows needs 5 to 6 more additional heifers for every two-month increase of age at first calving when their culling rate is 30%.

Culling Rate

To no surprise, the rate at which animals leave the herd has a significant impact on the replacement inventory. A herd of 100 milking cows with an age of first calving of 24 months needs an additional 4 to 5 heifers with every 2% increase in culling rate. Therefore, increasing the culling rate from 22% to 32% would require 22 additional heifers to keep the milking herd size at 100.

High market prices for heifers can significantly increase farm income for farms with excessive replacements. However, heifer inventories should be monitored closely. Small changes in culling rate and age at first calving significantly impact the number of replacements needed.

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Why Are Cow Numbers Increasing?

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 15:00:00 GMT

One of the more common questions I’ve received has been, “If heifer supplies are tight, how can cow numbers increase as much as they have?” Of course, there is disbelief in the reports as some believe the USDA is reporting wrong numbers. That is a common theme throughout the agricultural industry, with all USDA reports questioned for accuracy depending on whether the individual is on the wrong side of the market or if the numbers are different from what the person anticipated. We have all had these thoughts from time to time.

Farmers Holding on to More Cows
High heifer prices and a tight supply have resulted in farmers holding on to more cows. The bar for milk production is lowered as it would be very costly to buy a replacement heifer. It makes sense to have lower milk production from a cow already owned than to buy a replacement heifer, which will take some time to pay for itself before it can make money.

Reduced Culling and Growing Herd Numbers
The monthly slaughter reports have shown substantial decreases in dairy cattle slaughter over the past year. This has allowed cow numbers to increase to 9.405 million head in February. This is the largest herd since May 2023. Culling has decreased due to higher heifer prices, but also because farmers do not need to cull cows as much to generate extra income to pay bills.

Beef-on-Dairy’s Impact
A substantial amount of money is being generated from beef-on-dairy. These calves are bringing phenomenal prices, adding significantly to the farm income. This has tightened the heifer supply substantially and has allowed the dairy herd to increase as lower-producing cows are being held.

Milk Production and Herd Composition
Milk per cow may be reduced somewhat, as some of the cows in the herds will produce less milk as they are older or have less genetic capability than a heifer. However, higher cow numbers will make up some or all of the difference, keeping milk production strong. The evidence of this was seen in the February milk production report, as milk production was higher than the previous year when the adjustment was made for leap day.

Butter Inventory and Market Impact
The February Cold Storage report was neutral to the market, indicating prices have little reason to change much from the sideways direction they have established. The most significant category was butter, with the inventory gaining 44.8 million pounds. This was a large increase considering there was one less day this year than in February 2024. Historical gains in butter inventory for the year following leap year showed limited gains and sometimes even declines. Interestingly, the USDA revised January stocks down 9.5 million pounds from what they initially reported. That was an unusually large revision, reducing the bearishness of the January report but adding to the bearishness of the February report.

Limited Upside for Butter Prices
Unless butter demand improves significantly, the price will remain rangebound for an extended period. Sellers continue to offer loads to the spot market as they limit the increase in manufacturing inventories. They have no desire to hold for higher prices as they see limited upside potential. Buyers have been able to purchase supplies for immediate orders and purchase for later demand without the need to chase the market higher. Butter is being frozen for later, limiting the need to purchase butter when demand seasonally improves.

Your Next Read: From Farm to ‘Shark Tank:' One East Coast Dairy’s Eco-Friendly Pitch

Robin Schmahl is a commodity broker with AgDairy, the dairy division of John Stewart & Associates Inc. (JSA). JSA is a full-service commodity brokerage firm based out of St. Joseph, MO. Robin’s office is located in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Robin may be reached at 877-256-3253 or through the website www.agdairy.com .

The thoughts expressed and the basic data from which they are drawn are believed to be reliable but cannot be guaranteed. Any opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Hypothetical or simulated performance results have certain inherent limitations. Simulated results do not represent actual trading. Simulated trading programs are subject to the benefit of hindsight. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those shown. There is risk of loss in trading commodity futures and options on futures. It may not be suitable for everyone. This material has been prepared by an employee or agent of JSA and is in the nature of a solicitation. By accepting this communication, you acknowledge and agree that you are not, and will not rely solely on this communication for making trading decisions.

Can You Afford Today’s High-Priced Heifers?

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 14:50:02 GMT

Does it make financial sense to purchase dairy replacement heifers in today’s white-hot market?

Maybe. Or maybe not, according to a pair of University of Florida Dairy Extension Specialists.

Albert de Vries and Russ Giesy developed a spreadsheet [available here ] more than 20 years ago to help individual dairies determine how much they could afford to spend on replacement heifers.

The handy tool was developed specifically for dairies with vacant spots that could be filled with new heifers to maximize herd capacity – but not as a method to decide whether to replace a cow with a heifer. It also does not take tax considerations into account.

Values for receipts and revenues in the initial spreadsheet examples were based on the Dairy Business Analysis Project, compiling results from an annual survey of the financials from dairy farms in Florida and Georgia.

When the spreadsheet was developed, replacement heifers were trading at $1,000-2,000/head compared to today’s market of $3,000-4,000 head. But calf values – a part of the calculation matrix – also were hovering around $100/head then. That’s up to 10 times less than today’s calf prices. Cull cow prices – another factor built into the formula – were also considerably lower than today.

The spreadsheet also offers alternative results based on changes in expenses and milk yield compared to a herd’s base calculation. The authors noted that whether expenses are fixed or variable can dramatically change the maximum worth of a heifer.
In some cases, for example, labor could be entered at $0, because fixed labor needs would not change appreciably with the addition of one or a modest number of heifers. Other expenses that might be considered fixed include crop production, milk marketing, and depreciation.

The spreadsheet’s value lies in that it calculates results based on individual herd data, which can vary significantly. But plugging in experimental values in line with today’s overall market and production conditions shows that $4,000 replacement heifers could be a realistic investment for many herds.

Your Next Read: Where Will the Replacement Heifers Come From?

Where Will the Replacement Heifers Come From?

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 16:00:00 GMT

An unprecedented shift in the U.S. dairy cattle population could signal uncertainty ahead in terms of milk production, cow numbers, and prices – for both the milk and the animals.

At the center of the current conversation: heifers, and more specifically, lack of them. In the most recent USDA Cattle Inventory report, released January 31, 2025, the inventory of dairy heifers weighing 500 pounds or more totaled just 3.914 million head. That’s the lowest count for that population since 1978.

Included in the total are heifers expected to calve into the milking herd in 2025, estimated at 2.5 million head. That figure has dropped precipitously every year since 2017, when about 600,000 head of additional heifers freshened. The current number of heifers expected to calve is also the lowest since the USDA began tracking that figure in 2001.

The shift in heifer population nearly identically mirrors the adoption of beef crossbreeding to add more value to non-replacement dairy cattle. It’s currently doing just that. With the U.S. beef cow herd size also hovering at near-historic, low levels, demand for those beef-cross calves is high, leading to almost-unheard-of prices of $1,000/head or more for newborn calves.

Likewise, springing heifers are scarce -- and expensive -- on the open market. Holstein springers started topping $4,000/head on the high end in Pipestone, Minn. toward the end of 2024. And at the Turlock Livestock Auction Yard’s January Dairy Video Sale in Turlock, Calif., potloads of Holstein and Jersey springers brought an average of $3,650-3,700 and $2,750-2,900/head, respectively.

Tight heifer supplies mean herds are generally creating just enough heifers to meet their projected replacement needs. Meanwhile, the nation’s milking herd is not growing, continuing to hover at around 9.35 million head.
What remains to be seen is whether an aging dairy herd will affect total milk production if producers hang onto cows longer before marketing them for beef. Any hiccup, like bird flu or another unforeseen challenge, could leave producers scrambling to maintain herd size.

Finally, while many factors remain in play, one benefit of the changing supply-and-demand dynamic could be a boost in milk prices. The all-milk price forecast for 2025 is $23.05 per hundredweight, up about 50 cents year-over-year. A shift in heifer supplies will take at least two years to happen, so those benefits could be enjoyed relatively long term.

Your Next Read: Dairy’s Gold Rush: Replacements Heifers and Beef-on-Dairy Calves

We've Reached the Lowest Replacement Herd Since 1978

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 20:32:24 GMT

It’s starting to become a familiar story. Heifer inventories remain exceedingly tight, and the lack of replacements is likely to constrain milk production growth over the coming year. This year, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) also continues to threaten milk production at a time when many producers would like to expand, according to Monica Ganley, analyst with the Daily Dairy Report and principal in Quarterra, an agricultural consulting firm in Buenos Aries.

As of February 4, 957 dairy herds in 16 states had been affected by HPAI, according to the Centers for Disease Control, but the numbers are likely much higher. More than two-thirds of the dairy herds in California have been affected by the virus. In November, California posted an unprecedented 7.9-percent year-over-year drop in Milk production followed by a 6.8-percent decline in December. While the production loss for an individual herd is relatively short-lived, many key dairy states have yet to see any cases, and if the virus continues to spread so too will losses in milk production.

“Dairy producer margins are strong, and under normal circumstances, high enough to encourage producers to grow milk production by expanding their herds, but the heifers just aren’t available,” Ganley said. Part of the reason for the lack of replacement heifers is that the beef herd is also rebuilding.

“Biological necessity suggests that it will take a couple years to build back the beef herd, and as a result, beef prices will likely remain elevated for the foreseeable future,” Ganley said. “In response, dairy producers will continue embracing the lucrative beef-on-dairy strategy, keeping dairy heifer inventories limited.”

The recent annual Cattle report showed that as of January 1, only 3.914 million head of dairy heifers were available nationwide. That’s a 0.9% decrease from the prior year and the lowest recorded inventory since 1978, according to USDA data. USDA also made an aggressive downward revision to its 2024 estimate, dropping its estimate by 108,000 heifers to 3.951 million.

Dairy Heifer Inventory

(Fran Howard)

“USDA’s revision shows that year’s situation was even more severe than previously believed,” Ganley noted. “Looking ahead, little optimism remains for a quick rebuilding of the national dairy herd. Of the already tight heifer numbers, only 2.5 million are expected to calve and enter the milking herd this year.” That’s 0.4% fewer than at the start of 2024, she added.

“USDA’s Cattle report confirmed the anecdotal information that has been circulatingaround the industry over the past several months,” Ganley noted. “Record-high beef prices underpinned by a dwindling beef herd have encouraged dairy producers to embrace the beef-on-dairy strategy through which they use semen from beef bulls to breed dairy cows. The resulting crossbred calf can be sold to a feedlot for a healthy price, and these calves have become a critical component of dairy producer revenue.”

At the New Holland auction in Pennsylvania in late January, newborn Holstein bull calves were selling for an average of nearly $704, a relatively high price historically. But crossbred bull calves were selling for more than $986.

Until the beef and heifer herds recover and avian flu outbreaks among dairy farms subside, milk production gains will be limited, she said.

Your Next Read: Beef-on-Dairy: A Critical Solution to the Shrinking U.S. Cattle Herd

Historically Low Inventories Supercharge Dairy Heifer Values

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:00:00 GMT

The USDA’s January 2025 Cattle Inventory Report revealed that we are living in historic times in terms of the U.S. dairy heifer population. The nation’s dairy heifer inventory dipped another 0.4% in the past year, adding to a cumulative decline of nearly 7% in the past 5 years.

In 2025, just 2.5 million head of dairy replacement heifers are expected to calve into the milking herd, the lowest level since USDA started tracking the metric in 2001. Less than a decade ago, that figure peaked at more than 3.0 million head. This illustrates a sharp contrast in dairy heifer inventories in recent years, and closely parallels the advent and growth of beef-on-dairy breeding. And replacement heifer values show it, breaking the $4,000/head mark last month in Minnesota.

Meanwhile, a continually shrinking U.S. beef cow herd, due in part to high market cow values, is keeping demand high for those beef-cross calves. They topped out at a whopping $1,100+ per head in two reported markets this month.

	Springing Heifers		Heifer Calves	Beef Cross Calves
Location (sale date)	Supreme/ Top	Approved/ Medium	90-120 pounds	60-100 pounds

Turlock, Calif. (1-24-25)	No test	$2,400- $2,800
Lomira, Wis. (1-31-25)	$1,800- $2,400	$1,200- $1,700	$250- $500	$680- $1,100
Pipestone, Minn. (1-16-25)	$3,700- $4,150	$3,400- $3,700	No test	No test
New Holland, Pa. (1-27-25)	No report	No report	$410- $700	$800- $1,160

The Importance of Tracking Heifer Growth

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 15:35:41 GMT

Growing dairy replacement heifers is no longer the “one-size-fits-all” proposition that it was once assumed to be.

Today, we know that simply using breed-average standards is less than ideal for individual herds and their unique animals. To help dairies evaluate their heifers and raise and breed them to best serve their specific needs, Penn State University has developed a free, customizable, online spreadsheet to track heifer growth.

“If you can use Excel, you can use it,” stated Gail Carpenter, Assistant Professor of Extension and Outreach at Iowa State University and host of The Dairy Podcast Show . “It’s an excellent, easy-to-access tool that can provide great value to dairies.”

Developers Jud Heinrichs and Coleen Jones noted that certain physiological changes like the start of puberty happen not because a heifer reaches a particular weight or age, but because she has matured to a certain proportion of her final, mature body size and composition.

Mature size is a lynchpin in the program. Many herds underestimate the height and weight of their mature cows; it should be assessed specifically rather than relying on breed averages. “If we know the mature size of a heifer and her current size, it is a relatively simple matter to figure out what growth rate we need to achieve to move from the current size to the mature size,” said Heinrichs.

Times in between, such as breeding, can be benchmarked as well, and the spreadsheet generates a customized growth curve for an individual herd based on that herd’s goals for age at first calving. The spreadsheet is based on the following target metrics:

Body weight of 55% of mature weight at first conception and 85% of mature weight after first calving.
Height of 55% of mature height at birth and 96% of mature height at first calving.
50% of height growth from birth to calving is assumed to occur between birth and 6 months of age, with an additional 25% between 6 and 12 months, and the final 25% between 12 months and calving.

These targets were derived from a comparison of heifer growth data from all breeds to mature heights calculated by assuming mature body weight and using research-validated ratios between withers height and body weight.

Withers and hip height are assumed to change at the same rate throughout the growth phase, so either one can be used to monitor growth, as long as the same standard is used for heifers and mature cows. Mature cow size can be entered as herd average or individually for each animal’s dam.

Heinrichs said the spreadsheet’s greatest benefit is tracking heifer progress and monitoring whether they are hitting growth targets as they develop, rather than waiting to measure heifer performance at first calving. Nutrition, housing, and sales decisions can then be made to steer heifer development and inventories.

The spreadsheet – including metric and Spanish language versions -- can be accessed here .

Your Next Read: Calf Feeding Frequency Found to Be Less Important than Feeding Rate

Some California Veterinarians Say Virus-Hit Dairies See More Abortions in First-Calf Heifers and Dry Cows

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 20:11:12 GMT

Triple-digit temperatures lasting for days and then weeks helped fuel a firestorm of highly pathogenic avian influenza A virus (HPAI A H5N1) cases on California dairy farms last summer.

“August wasn’t too bad, September was kind of rough, and then early October was severe,” recalls Dr. Maxwell Beal. “I think part of the problem was the cows had little relief from the heat even at night.”

But even with the onset of winter, Beal, with Mill Creek Veterinary Services, Visalia, Calif., adds that, “Cooler temperatures haven’t slowed the spread.”

Indeed, cases of the virus continue to trend upward in California. The state, the single largest producer of milk in the U.S., with 1,300 commercial herds and 1.7 million milk cows, holds the dubious distinction of being the current epicenter for HPAI H5N1.

As of Dec. 19, 2024, the California Department of Food and Agriculture had confirmed 650 dairy cowherds – roughly half of the commercial herds in the state – had been infected with the virus (see AHFSS - AHB - H5N1 Bird Flu Virus in Livestock - CDFA).

Bovine Veterinarian talked with several veterinarians in the Golden State and elsewhere about what their herds, producers and farmworkers have experienced and how they are addressing the virus. This is a summary of what practitioners shared.

Younger Dairy Animals Are Being Affected, As Well As Lactating Cows.

Among production animals on the dairy farm, lactating cows have taken the brunt of the virus infections so far, but that doesn’t mean other segments in cowherds aren’t or can’t be affected.

“I’m hearing reports from California veterinarians of sick young calves and challenges with cows resuming production and reports of dry cows aborting,” says Dr. Barb Petersen, owner and operator of Sunrise Veterinary Service, Amarillo, Texas. Petersen helped confirm the first case of HPAI H5N1 identified in U.S. dairy cattle last spring.

One of those reports came to her from Beal in California.

“I tell people, ‘Don’t sleep on your heifers, calves or your bulls, because there could be issues that we don’t know about yet simply because that’s not been our focus,’” says Beal, who reports that his virus-hit dairies have all experienced an uptick of abortions in first-calf heifers.

“One thing that happens at every affected dairy is we lose more calves, that were already called pregnant, and they’ll be all over the map as far as gestational age,” he says.

“It happens to dry cows, it happens to big calves, and these heifer abortions were all at 180- to 220-days (DCC), somewhere in there,” he adds. “Whether that’s directly caused by the bird flu or it’s caused by the clinical symptoms of the flu, I don’t know. And it’s the same for other veterinarians in our practice to the point that we will go back and reconfirm pregnant animals that we had already reconfirmed.”

Dr. Blaine Melody has had similar experiences: “We’ve consistently seen more early embryonic death and fetal loss at various days of gestation. We have recommended clients switch from long-acting dry cow tubes to lactating if we’re given the heads up before clinical outbreak, via early non-negative bulk tanks,” says Melody, a partner at Lander Veterinary Clinic, Turlock, Calif.

The Virus Amplifies Existing Health And Management Issues.

While HPAI H5N1 is associated with high morbidity and mortality in birds, this hasn’t been the case for dairy cattle in most regions of the country. Most affected animals reportedly recover with supportive treatment, and the mortality/culling rate has been low at 2% or less, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.

That percentage fits with Beal’s experience in California, but dairy producers in some parts of the state have reported higher mortality levels. Some have experienced cow mortality rates as high as 15% or 20%, according to a Reuters article published in October. See Cows dead from bird flu rot in California

“Cows that get H5N1 are compromised, so any other health issues that are present in the dairy increase,” Beal explains. “Staph aureus, mastitis, mycoplasma, all of them go up.”

“The virus takes the problems that are already on your dairy that you’ve either figured out how to cope with or they’re just sitting at a low level, and it exacerbates them for probably a month,” he adds.

Melody says management quality plays a huge role in what producers and their employees must deal with when the virus hits.

“If you have overcrowded pens, bad cow comfort, poor nutrition management, poor transition cow management or any other underlying risk factors, you will have a worse outcome with a clinical HPAI outbreak. That’s a given,” he says.

In mid-December, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a State of Emergency to address the virus in California dairy cattle, ramping up monitoring, quarantine efforts, and resource deployment. See California Issues State of Emergency Warning in Response to More Bird Flu Found on Dairies

The number of farmworkers infected with the virus is likely higher than what’s being reported.

Officially, there have been 66 confirmations of human being infected by the virus in the U.S. See H5 Bird Flu: Current Situation

Melody, Beal and other veterinarians told Bovine Veterinarian they have seen presumed infected employees on farms working with cows.

“Some of these workers are at potential risk, because we don’t know all the ways this virus is spreading yet,” Melody says.

“They just put their heads down and work, so they can keep their paycheck,” Beal adds.

Drenching Cows Can Help, But Rest Can Do As Much Good In Some Scenarios.

Both Beal and Melody say drenching can help clinical HPAI cows, but veterinarians and their producers need a good plan for the treatment to work well.

Beal says there is a significant learning curve for people who have never or seldom drenched a cow. Employees on some of the infected dairies he works with went from never using the practice to suddenly treating hundreds and even thousands of cows a day.

In that intense scenario, Beal says it’s nearly impossible for employees to succeed.

“When you run a drench hose through 1,000 cows, you will not do as good a job with that last cow as you did with the first one,” he explains.

There is real potential to cause more harm than good to the animal physically, Melody adds.

“Drenching can help, but if you’re locking cows up too long or drowning cows because you’re drenching lots of cows and you’re exhausted, that undoes any good you’re trying to accomplish,” he says.

Beal says after working with a couple of outbreaks, he decided to try a different approach.

“We started to use a let-the-cows-rest approach, and I felt like we were still doing just as much good for the animals and not exhausting our staff in the process,” he says.

However, he continued to encourage workers to drench the ones that were clinically dehydrated or exhibiting signs of duress.

“I would say the ones that showed clinical signs to the degree that they warranted treatment has averaged around 30% in a herd,” Beal says. “The ones that are obviously clinically affected we need to treat, but not necessarily the ‘she’s got a runny nose,’ cows.”

What Is Your Definition Of Disease?

Melody says one of the challenges is how veterinarians and producers define disease as well as their definition of severity. With regard to HPAI H5N1, he has observed inconsistent practices and varied approaches to reporting, because people don’t have a consistent benchmark for reference.

“When you get HPAI on dairies, every cow that gets sick is then called a flu cow, but you can’t conflate that it’s all influenza,” he says.

Melody also encourages practitioners to keep a tight rein on their treatment protocols and to maintain consistent practices with regard to regulations.

“If you make things gray, when it comes to regulatory standards, we can quickly start to spiral, because you start going, ‘Well, we made this exception for this, so why not here too?’” Melody says. “Stay with your established playbook, and don’t deviate from it.”

Melody and Beal both say they have been frustrated at times by slow turnarounds by state laboratories responsible for providing test results. Their advice: Be a squeaky wheel with regard to getting virus test results.

“Many testing labs are overrun with samples, and the process gets bogged down, or the results don’t get to the veterinarian because of confidentiality rules,” Melody says.

“Some people are shipping animals that are infected but don’t know it because they didn’t get the information back in a timely fashion from the bulk tank tests,” Beal adds. “There needs to be a reworking of the testing protocols.”

Nutrition And Cow Comfort Practices Can Help Affected Animals Return To Good Production Levels.

Melody and Beal say most of their clients’ cows return to a good level of production post infection.

“Now, do they all come back 100%? No, I haven’t seen that on any of my dairies,” Beal says. “If people compare production now to last December, there’s likely a deficit. Some of the cows are ending up 5 lb. to 6 lb. under where they were this same time last year. That’s not unusual.”

Beal adds that veterinarians who can talk with their clients about what ramifications to expect from the disease, before it ever reaches their herd, can probably save a significant number of cows from being culled in the future.

What can improve that scenario for virus-impacted cows in the future is investing dollars in nutrition and facilities as farm resources permit, Melody adds.

“Renovate your dry cow barn, put some shade over those animals, put a little extra metabolizable protein into the fresh cows right now to make sure they’re getting off to a good start,” Melody advises. “Do good management, the things that you know are going to make your cows strong. Those things will pay for themselves whether you’re in the midst of a virus outbreak or wanting to help cows in the long-term.”

____________________________________________________________________________

‘No Established Gold Standard’

Dr. Blaine Melody, a partner at Lander Veterinary Clinic in Turlock, Calif., says somatic cell counts (SCC) are not a gold standard for defining parameters of the HPAI A H5N1 virus. He says SCCs can be wildly different for each farm because of management differences — whether dumping not dumping milk, sturdy versus frail cows, good or bad preexisting milk quality practices.

“My goal is trying to get as close to an apples-to-apples comparison between farms, and you can only decipher that by knowing the farms and asking more questions when people start throwing numbers around,” he says.

Melody offers one real-life example from his experience:

“Two dairies get HPAI at the same time,” Melody says. “One farm gets hammered with a 15% cow clinical mastitis case rate for the duration of the epidemic. The other farm may say it never had any HPAI clinical mastitis cows and only treated a handful of febrile cows with no milk, respiratory or GI disease. You look at their records and can confirm that to be ‘true.’ You ask more questions and also learn that the primary method of identifying mastitis is different between those two farms: the first farm strips and visually screens each quarter for abnormal milk, while the second does not and relies solely on milk conductivity sensors.”

“The vast majority of these clinical cows in our area are mild cases of mastitis with no effect on the udder or cow,” he adds. “This thick, clinical HPAI milk did not get flagged with conductivity sensors. Even within the same brand there can be modified settings farm to farm. The truth in this example ‘lied’ in the salable milk quality when their SCC more than doubled.

“The importance is understanding the farm management differences and knowing what further questions to ask rather than jumping at naked numbers that are often without clear denominators,” Melody says.
____________________________________________________________________________

200-Plus Mammal Species Infected

While researchers have learned a lot about HPAI A H5N1 since its confirmation in a Texas dairy herd in March 2024, much is still unknown, including the various ways the disease might spread and which animals it infects.

According to USDA’s APHIS, in addition to dairy cows, more than 200 other mammal species in the U.S. have been infected by the virus since 2022. One of the hardest hit animal populations on farms are barn cats, which often consume colostrum and raw milk, not to mention potentially infected birds and vermin.

Other U.S. mammals infected with the virus include a bottlenose dolphin, foxes, bobcats, mountain lions, coyotes, skunks, harbor and grey seals, opossums, squirrels, minks, otters, black bears, brown bears, polar bears, and a single pig on a backyard farm in Oregon, confirmed in late October.

Your Next Read: I’m Going Into 2025 With Increased Concerns About HPAI H5N1

Replacement Heifer Prices Hit Monumental Highs

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:00:00 GMT

Compared to 5 years ago, today’s Holstein springer values are double to triple and still on the rise. As an example, October 2019 prices for high-quality springers in Turlock, Calif. ranged from $1,300-1,600/head, compared to $2,800-3,600 for the same month in 2024. Even compared to a year ago, springer values have seen a healthy bump, jumping from $2,400-2,675 in Pipestone, Minn. in October 2023 to about $3,700-3,850 today.

Calf prices, too, have made a stunning transformation. In October 2019, Holstein heifer calves were practically being given away at $5-50/head in one Wisconsin market, and $18-26/head at another in Pennsylvania. Today’s heifer calf values hang steadily in the $300-500 range nationwide, as beef-cross calves also continue a mind-boggling run with current values still sometimes exceeding $1,000/head. In the most recent Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Report , USDA economists predict that tight dairy replacement heifer inventories will keep a lid on U.S. milk production as producers hang onto aging cows to keep their stalls full.

	Springing Heifers		Heifer Calves	Beef Cross Calves
Location (sale date)	Supreme/Top	Approved/Medium	90-120 pounds	60-100 pounds

Turlock, Calif. (10-25-24)	$2,800-3,600	$2,000-2,700	--	--
Lomira, Wis. (10-30-24)	$1,800-2,400	$1,200-1,700	$290-550	$700-1,080
Pipestone, Minn. (10-17-24)	$3,700-3,850	$3,500-3,700	No test	No test
New Holland, Pa. (10-24-24)	No report	No report	$500-775	$750-1,050