Over a 100 farmers and industry representatives from across South and Mid-Wales benefited from hands on practical advice from nationally renowned speakers at a recent event to target fertility.
The event held at Haverfordwest Showground on Thursday was organised under the Improving the Welsh Dairy Supply Chain project.
The event saw Debby Brown of Advanced Nutrition, John Cook of Genus ABS and John Fetrow of the University of Minnesota addressing the full pavilion.
The speakers covered a number of topics including transition cow management, getting cows fit for service, dealing with Metritis, looking at the cost implications of poor fertility and analysing the benefits of improving conception and submission rates.
John Fetrow commented: "Extended open days will cost the typical dairy farmer anything between £2-£5/cow/day. When you extrapolate that over your whole herd it adds up to a significant amount of money, therefore I was very pleased to see so many farmers were present and keen to broaden their knowledge on fertility issues and their consequences."
Dairy health events officer Dylan Jones said: "The event provided an excellent opportunity for farmers to come along and find out anything and everything they wanted to know to help them improve fertility within their herds.
"We heard from three experienced speakers and it is testament to them that 89% of attendees that filled in the evaluation form rated the speakers as excellent.
"It’s always a nervous time leading up to an event, as you start to wonder if you have struck the right chord with the topics and speakers, but it became quite obvious early on in the day that those in attendance were benefiting from the experience and thoroughly enjoying themselves."
Also present at the event were several trade stands ranging from semen companies to companies that sell heat detection aids.
Dylan added: "We set out to provide a one stop shop on all things fertility, and I’m fairly confident in saying that we achieved that goal.
"I am now looking forward to the events in March and April which will focus on Contagious Diseases and Youngstock."
