The main objective of a boar stud is to produce a large volume of high-quality semen per boar in an efficient and safe manner. This includes: the management of the anatomy, physiology and sexual behaviourof the young boar, that influences its performance as an adult. Normal reproductive activity in boars is coordinated by the endocrine and nervous system. Abnormal activity in one or more of the...

Thomas E. Spencer1, Peter J. Hansen2, John B. Cole3, Joseph Dalton4, and Holly Neibergs1 1Department of Animal Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164 2Department of Animal Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 3USDA‐ARS, Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory, Beltsville, MD 20705 4Department of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Idaho, Caldwell,...

Nutrition of transition period in dairy cows dramatically increases requirements for energy, glucose, amino acids and other nutrients in dairy cows and, parallel to that, feed intake is depressed. An insufficient or imbalanced nutrient intake might lead to the malfunction of organs, causing reproductive failure. To minimize the metabolic/reproductive damage caused by negative energy balance (NE...

The BLRI Cattle Breed 1(BCB-1) is a native cattle breed developed by Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI) through selective breeding among indigenous cattle of Bangladesh. Data asserted from record sheets of 529 animals maintained during 1992 to 2006 were analyzed to evaluate the reproductive efficiency of BCB-1 cattle in different generations, seasons and parities. The highest percen...

Reproductive efficiency in dairy cattle has been decreased over the last 5 decades despite significant gains in genetic selection, improved reproductive technologies and nutritional care. In high-yielding dairy cattle, the negative energy balance (NEB) during the first week post-partum adversely affects ovarian activity, mainly follicle growth and steroidogenesis. Circulating levels of non-este...

Managers of high producing dairy herds have known for some time that optimizing reproductive efficiency is an essential issue in maintaining profitability of a dairy herd. A recent survey by the University of Wisconsin Center for Dairy Profitability asked a random sample of 2,700 dairy producers in Wisconsin to rank the importance of different dairy issues to the future profitability of their b...

Masting is a reproductive strategy defined as the intermittent and synchronized production of large seed crops by a plant population. The pollination efficiency hypothesis proposes that masting increases pollination success in plants. Despite its general appeal, no previous studies have used long-term data together with population- and individual-level analyses to assess pollination efficiency ...

A deterministic beef efficiency model (BEM) was used to evaluate life-cycle herd efficiency (LCHE) in cow-calf beef production systems using four breed groups of beef cattle. The breed groups were Beef Synthetic #1 (SY1), Beef Synthetic #2 (SY2), Dairy Synthetic (DS), and purebred Hereford (HE). The LCHE was defined over the lifetime of the herd as the ratio of total output (lean meat equivalen...

This review focuses on the potential effects of twinning, dystocia, stillbirth, abortion, retained placenta and metritis on the productive and reproductive performances in dairy cattle. These are diverse disorders that are similar in that they all can result in impaired performance of dairy cows. Reproductive problems occur frequently in lactating dairy cows and can dramatically affect reproduc...

Mate finding, which is essential to both population growth and gene exchange, involves both spatial and temporal components. From a population dynamics perspective, spatial mate-finding problems are well studied, and decreased mate-finding efficiency at low population densities is a well-recognized mechanism for the Allee effect. Temporal aspects of mate finding have been rarely considered, but...