Impact of Disease Etiology on Lactation and Reproductive Performance in Culled Cows and First-Calf Heifers

Relevance. The proportion of culled animals, particularly from high-producing herds, remains significantly high due to various diseases.

Methods. This study draws upon data from the breeding registry database “IAS SELEX — Dairy Cattle. Breeding Records in Farms,” encompassing 33,982 cows ann heifers culled from the dairy herds of 26 agricultural enterprises in the Republic of Tatarstan between 2001 and 2023. The culling was attributed to the following disease categories: obstetric-gynecological (OGD), internal non-communicable (INCD), surgical (SD), and infectious and invasive diseases (IID).

Results. The research yielded new insights into the duration of key productive and reproductive intervals. For culled first-calf heifers, the average lactation length was 401.18 days; the calving to-first-insemination interval was 98.08 days; and the calving-to-conception interval (service period) was 160.75 days. For culled cows, the average lactation length was 345.74 days; the dry period lasted 62.60 days; the calving-to-first-insemination interval was 86.32 days; the calving-to-conception interval (service period) was 146.27 days; and the calving interval was 415.30 days. In culled first-calf heifers, significant correlations in lactation duration were found between specific nosology groups: OGD with INCD, and OGD with IID. For the service period, significant correlations were observed between OGD and INCD, OGD and SD, INCD and SD, and SD and IID. Among culled dairy cows, the most frequent significant differences in the duration of the studied periods were found in comparisons involving OGD and INCD. When analyzing average values across all lactations, significant differences occurred with comparable frequency in the OGD–INCD, OGD–SD, and INCD–SD pairs. Considering the last completed lactation and the maximum lactation, the most pronounced significant differences were consistently observed between the groups with OGD and INCD.

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