The economic effect of cow-based reproductive management programs with a systematic use of reproductive hormones

Hormone-based reproductive management programs can be beneficial to improve dairy cow's reproductive performance. This study aimed to compare the economic impact of reproductive management programs using systematic hormonal treatments to individual cows with a specific DIM range, with a reproductive management program using cow-specific hormonal treatment based on a veterinary diagnosis of ovarian dysfunction during a fertility check. An existing individual cow-based, dynamic, and stochastic bio-economic simulation model, mimicking the production dynamics of a 200 cow-herd in daily time steps, was extended with ovarian dysfunction and fertility inputs. Four hormone-based reproductive management programs were modeled. In the default reproductive management program, reflecting the current reproductive management of Dutch herds, lactating dairy cows are inseminated based on detection of estrus and noncyclic dairy cows are treated with hormones based on a veterinary diagnosis of ovarian dysfunction during a fertility check. Hormone treatments prescribed by the veterinarian for anestrus, cystic, and subestrus cows were an 8-d progesterone-releasing intravaginal device (PRID)-synch protocol (PRIDsynch), an Ovsynch protocol, and a PGF_2α treatment, respectively. The 3 other reproductive management programs reflected systematic hormonal treatments to cows at specific DIM and included (1) a Double-Ovsynch protocol for times AI (TAI) with nonpregnant cows submitted to a resynchronization protocol (FTAI), (2) a Double-Ovsynch protocol for TAI with nonpregnant cows detected in estrus or submitted to a resynchronization protocol (FTAI+ED), and (3) detection of estrus with cows not detected submitted to a PRIDsynch protocol (ED+TAI). All nonpregnant cows were submitted to a resynchronization protocol based on the absence (PRIDsynch) or presence (Ovsynch protocol) of a corpus luteum. The annual mean net economic return (NER) was calculated for all reproductive management programs. Compared with the default reproductive management program, the highest NER was observed for the FTAI+ED reproductive management program with €23,764 higher net revenues, followed by the FTAI and the ED+TAI reproductive management programs with €19,550 and €14,314 higher net revenues, respectively. Overall, systematic hormone-based reproductive management programs gave higher costs due to more hormones administered and higher calving and feed costs due to more pregnant cows. Nevertheless, the additional revenues of milk and calves in the systematic hormone-based reproductive management programs outweighed the total cost. For instance, the FTAI+ED reproductive management program gave €8,953 higher total cost per year compared with the default but with €32,654 higher revenues. In summary, reproductive management programs where hormones were systematically used gave economic advantages over the current default reproductive management program in which hormones are administered to individual cows based on a veterinary diagnosis of ovarian dysfunction during a fertility check.