High fertility is at the core of high milk production on the dairy farm. The dogma was always that all cows lose body condition after calving, and we just need to manage this through an intervention, so they gain that body condition back towards dry off. Dr. Fricke challenges this dogma showing not all cows lose body condition score (BCS) after calving, especially the cows with a BCS ≤3 at calving. These cows tend to maintain BCS, have better fertility, get bred sooner, have lower disease incidence, and enter the high-fertility-cycle.
