Monitoring reproductive performance of small dairy herds in veterinary practice.

A descriptive field study involving 87 herds (3608 cows) in two veterinary practices was conducted to compute mean values for a panel of reproductive herd parameters. A method of monitoring herds and identifying those herds experiencing reproductive inefficiency is reported.When comparing the means of herd indices for both practices, only the means for the index "percent in heat by 60 days" were significantly different. Overall, 20 herds were found to have at least one herd index which was significantly different from the mean for all herds. Fourteen herds were found to have significant reproductive inefficiency. If the index "percent problem cows" had not been used, 29% of the herds with reproductive inefficiency would not have been indentified. Our study suggests that it is useful to compare reproductive indices among herds, practices, and regions using a veterinary office microcomputer.