John uses the milk test over the entire herd at 40 days after service or at the nearest milk recording. It’s straightforward and non-invasive. Around three days later, he receives a text message from NMR when the results are ready for login. They are returned as positive, negative, or recheck.
Those results help him to identify cows that would have escaped his attention. Nowadays he is presenting to the Vet each month just 10 to 12 animals, those that have PAG tested either negative or recheck. He investigates if there is an issue and if so, what’s wrong so he is able to treat accordingly and then quickly rebreed.
PAG also complements John's heat detection system – he checks the pedometers twice a day, and if they pick up any animal that’s not showing by 100 days post-calving, then he presents her to the vet too. Fertility will remain a challenge in a high input high output herd, however, he is relatively relaxed towards tightening up the calving index which stands at 410 days. He’d be satisfied if PAG continues to help the trend and reduce to a targeted 400 days.