Why it is necessary to manage the postpartum interval?

three years.

Also the suckling stimulus from the calf has a negative effect on cyclic activity during the postpartum period. The negative suckling stimulus tends to suppress cycling in cows, howeve, animals on a positive energy balance and in adequate body condition generally overcome this negative stimulus.

Another factor which influences cyclicity is uterine involution. This is the time that is required to repair the reproductive tract and make it suitable to carry another pregnancy. The longer it takes to repair the reproductive system especially the uterine muscles the longer it takes for a cow to resume cycling while factors such as body condition, level of nutrition, age of cows, milk production, disease, parasites will affect the ability to shorten the postpartum interval.

Improving nutrition is probably the easiest way to shorten the postpartum period. Nutritional demands increase greatly in late gestation and even more in early lactation hence the need for the cows to be on a rising plane of nutrition during this period.

An animal shares its nutrients to various functions within its body and reproduction is of very low priority when nutrient partitioning is considered. This is why cows in thin body condition often don’t rebreed. Research has also established that body condition is correlated to several reproductive events such as calving interval, milk production, weaning weight, calving difficulty and calf survival.

It follows that a cow whose nutritional status was properly managed pre and post-calving period, will likely to calve easily, produce adequate milk and wean heavier calves. Admittedly there are other factors that contribute to the same outcomes.

Another important factor in managing the postpartum interval is the presence of a working bull within your herd. Cows that are exposed to a bull manage high pregnancy rates than those that are not adequately exposed to a bull.

While this sounds simple and straight forward it doesn’t seem to sink within many smallholder farmers. There are very few bulls in communal herds such that it is very common to find a farmer with a sixty herd of cattle but with no bull. If only farmers could appreciate the basic principle that your bull is half of your herd they would probably find it imperative to keep a bull every time in their herds. Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.