One physiological factor that plays an important role in animal health is cow body temperature. Because temperature reflects internal biological processes, monitoring it can provide useful insights into the condition of individual cows and the overall herd.

When combined with behavioral monitoring, cow body temperature data helps producers make faster and more informed herd management decisions.

Temperature as health indicator
Temperature is one of the most widely recognized indicators of health in animals. When a cow experiences stress, illness, or metabolic challenges, changes in a cow’s body temperature may occur as part of the body’s natural response.

When a cow’s body temperature rises, it usually means the immune system responds to stress, infection, inflammation, or heat. The body increases temperature to help support immune activity, which can lead to reduced feed intake, lower milk production, and lethargy.

When a cow’s body temperature drops, it often indicates that the cow is struggling to maintain normal body functions. This can happen during severe illnesses, metabolic disorders, or after calving, when blood flow shifts toward vital organs and the body tries to conserve energy.

Cow body temperature in dairy herd monitoring
Modern cow monitoring systems often track behavioral indicators such as eating behavior, rumination patterns, activity and inactivity.

Adding cow body temperature monitoring to this data can strengthen the overall understanding of herd health. When producers have access to multiple indicators, they can better interpret what is happening within the herd and respond quickly when conditions change.

For dairy producers managing large herds, it can be difficult to detect subtle health changes through observation alone. Monitoring technologies that track indicators such as activity, rumination, and cow body temperature trends can provide valuable insights that support early intervention.

Cow ear temperature
Tracking cow body temperature alongside behavioral indicators contributes to a more complete picture of cow health. Continuous monitoring helps producers detect changes sooner and respond more effectively.

Even better, the CowManager system measures ear temperature as well, making cow monitoring much more accurate and actionable with early alerts.

Whenever a cow develops an infection, blood flow in the ears shifts toward vital organs. By monitoring ear temperature, this change can be detected early, potentially preventing more serious issues for both you and the cow later on.

A peer reviewed study conducted by Iowa State University found evidence of ear hypothermia as an effective diagnostic tool for significant health events. Or, as they cite in their research findings; a ‘problem indicator’.

Supporting better herd management
Cow monitoring innovations continue to change how dairy farms manage animals. Monitoring technologies allow producers to move from reactive management to proactive herd care.

It may seem tooling makes herd management more complex, but systems that provide reliable data are an important part of driving herd management forward.

With real-time data, herd management teams can make more informed decisions about herd health, reproduction, and overall management.

Beef on dairy calves are different

One thing became glaringly clear during this meeting of the minds: beef on dairy calves do not fit the same management practices used for traditional dairy replacements or native beef calves. The good news is that scientists, professionals, and industry leaders are actively working to build a blueprint for success. New research is helping answer some critical questions.

Younger animals are typically genetically superior

Genomic testing remains one of the fastest ways to drive genetic progress and weed out inferior animals. However, implementing a breeding strategy with the oldest half of the herd bred to beef has been shown to make similar growth in genetic merit over time. Dr. Chad Dechow, from Penn State University, discussed research suggesting that younger dams may offer a more favorable epigenetic state, the hypothesis being that the highest producing cows do not necessarily produce the highest milking daughters, as more energy is directed to milk production rather than fetal development.¹

Genetic potential sets the ceiling; management sets the floor

Nutrition and management in the first days of life have a very visible and long-lasting impact on lifetime performance. According to Dr. Pedro Carvalho, from Colorado State University, calves with poor transfer of passive immunity from colostrum were 13 pounds lighter at 180 days of age and experienced a 15% higher mortality rate compared to their better managed counterparts.² Calves that gain the most weight in the first six weeks of life tend to perform better in both milk production and carcass yield later on. This solidifies the importance of a strong start for these animals. Calves that get a rough start will almost certainly never reach their genetic potential.

Feeding frequency matters

Beef calves nurse four to eight times per day while on their dams and are typically weaned between four and six months of age. In contrast, dairy replacements often receive two large feedings per day and are rapidly transitioned to solid feed by around 60 days of age. Dr. Tom Earleywine, with Purina Mills, presented research showing that calves fed three times daily gained 20.7 pounds more through 12 weeks of age.³

His take-home message was clear: the most vulnerable group of animals on the farm tend to draw the short straw as time, labor, and resources are stretched thin. Rushing the transition phase from preweaning to ruminant compromises gut health and predisposes calves to liver abscesses later in life.

Even if calves are leaving the farm as day-olds, investing in tight colostrum protocols and smooth transitions from milk to starter feed pays off, building a reputation for strong, healthy calves that will keep buyers knocking at your door regardless of what the cattle market does.

What beef sires do and don’t change

There is often concern over the negative implications of beef on dairy crossbreeding. Despite some beef breeds having a slightly longer gestation length, using beef sires does not increase calving difficulty, the occurrence of any health event, or reduce performance during the first 60 days of the subsequent lactation.⁴ Beef-sire genetics did, however, significantly influence performance and carcass quality, where much of the added value lies.

Liver health

The exceptionally high prevalence of liver abscesses in feedlot cattle was a major topic of discussion, and rightfully so, as it costs the industry a whopping $683 million annually. Researchers consistently linked liver health to overall performance and carcass quality, reinforcing the importance of proactive management strategies.

A quality study, in cooperation with Texas Tech University, found that while liver abscesses occur in more than 40% of beef on dairy animals industry wide, ProfitSOURCE® cattle showed a dramatically lower incidence at just 6%.⁵ In this study, ProfitSOURCE animals were raised on the dairy of origin from day one through finishing. Their exceptionally low rate of liver abscesses speaks volumes to the consistent nutrition and management throughout their life and circles back to the importance of superior genetics, high quality colostrum, and good passive transfer of immunity at birth.

The bottom line

Beef on dairy isn’t just a trend: it’s a strategic investment. The research reinforces a few key priorities.

• Colostrum matters: Failure of passive transfer reduces growth and increases death loss.
• Feed for growth: Calves fed 3x daily gain more weight early, setting up future performance.
• Manage early life well: Better transitions and nutrition can reduce issues like liver abscesses later.
• Genetics matter: Beef on dairy does not increase calving difficulty, but it does add value through carcass quality.

Whether calves leave as day-olds or stay through finishing tightening protocols from day one pays. The opportunity is clear: raise healthier calves, capture more value, and build a program that performs from start to finish.

Author: Allyse Stafinski, CentralStar Genetic and Reproductive Consultant

References:
¹Dechow, C. (2025). Genetic Considerations for Beef x Dairy [Unpublished].
²Carvalho, P. (2025). Extended colostrum/preweaning nutrition management [Unpublished].
³Earleywine, T. (2025). Beef x Dairy – Start with the finish in mind! [Unpublished].
⁴Basiel, B.L. et al. (2024). The impact of beef sire breed on dystocia, stillbirth, gestation length, health, and lactation performance of cows that carry beef × dairy calves. Journal of Dairy Science, Volume 107, Issue 4, 2241 – 2252
⁵ProfitSOURCE: Your source for proven carcass quality. (2024). https://www.selectsires.com/article/ss-blog/2024/11/01/profitsource-your-source-for-proven-carcass-quality

The impact of higher SCC went beyond milk production. These cows also averaged 15 more days open than cows with a lactation average SCS below 4.0. While only 7% of the herd is represented by SCS of 4.0 or higher, it all adds up and highlights how subclinical mastitis can decrease profitability even in herds with excellent bulk-tank SCC. There can be high SCC cows that are heavy shedders but can be diluted in the bulk tank, especially in larger herds.

This example clearly shows that even herds with low bulk tank SCC can incur hidden losses that quietly erode performance. The key is knowing where to look and using the right tools and metrics to uncover what the bulk tank alone can’t reveal.

Beyond the bulk tank
Frequently monitoring bulk-tank SCC is an important indicator of overall milk quality, but it does not tell the whole story. In a 2025 Hoard’s Dairyman webinar on milk quality¹, Michigan State University’s Pamela Ruegg, D.V.M., shared it’s not enough to only use bulk-tank SCC to monitor a herd’s milk quality; it is also important to monitor subclinical and clinical mastitis. Following are several valuable key performance indicators (KPI’s) Ruegg shared that are important for managing your herd.

• Percent of herd with subclinical mastitis (SCC >200,000): <15%
• New infection rate: <8% (SCC <200,000 on prior test and >200,000 on current test)
• Percent of cows with chronic infection: <8% (SCC >200,000 on prior and current test)\
• Fresh infection rate, 1st lactation: <10% (SCC >200,000 on first test)
• Fresh infection rate, 2nd+ lactation: <15% (last test previous lactation <200,000 and first test current lactation >200,000)

It’s impossible to calculate or manage these metrics without routine monthly DHI testing.

Do something with the data
Pathogen identification is an important next step which helps guide the course of action. For individual cows it leads to treatment or culling and can identify if adjustments need to be made with bedding-management practices, teat-dip products, etc., for groups or the whole herd. CentralStar has created a resource to help guide the next steps. Review this guide to learn more about effectively managing mastitis pathogens, from identifying the source to key prevention strategies.

The importance of pathogen identification is underscored in the 2025 Hoard’s Dairymen Round Table² featuring National Dairy Quality award winners. All six herds represented identified routinely DHI test to monitor subclinical mastitis and also perform pathogen identification testing to determine if and how a cow should be treated.

The role of genetics
Managing subclinical mastitis today is critical, but genetic selection can help reduce risk over the long term. The Herd Health Profit Dollars® (HHP$®) index places 13% emphasis on mastitis resistance for Holstein sires. The top 100 Holstein sires for HHP$ have an average SCC of 2.84 compared to the top 100 Holstein sires for NM$ which average 2.93. The same top 100 HHP$ bulls are also a full point higher for mastitis resistance.

Obviously, genetics alone won’t eliminate mastitis challenges, but incorporating mastitis resistance into selection can support ongoing management efforts and protect future production.

Hidden losses
While an average case of mastitis costs around $250³, subclinical mastitis is just as costly at $110⁴/cow/year because it often goes unnoticed. This herd example is proof that low bulk-tank SCC doesn’t tell the whole story.

Identifying these losses requires looking beyond the bulk tank, using monthly DHI testing, monitoring key mastitis KPIs, and following up with pathogen identification when needed. Connect with your CentralStar team to identify opportunities in your herd and put a plan in place to reduce these hidden losses.

Author: Emily Middleton-Gyomory, Regional Consulting Manager

References:
¹https://hoards.com/article-37346-put-that-data-to-work-manage-milk-quality.html
²https://www.nmconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Making-the-most-oftheir-milk-RT.pdf
³https://www.agproud.com/articles/62526-dollars-down-the-drain-what-one-caseof-mastitis-can-cost you#:~:text=The%20average%20cost%20of%20a,make%20decisions%20regarding%20mastitis%20difficult.
⁴Ott SL 1999: Cost of herd level production losses associated with subclinical mastitis in U.S. dairy cows NMC annual Meeting proceedings 199:152

It isn’t caused by just one thing, but rather by what’s known as the bovine respiratory disease complex – a mix of stress, viruses, and bacteria that can quickly take down even healthy-looking calves.

The most common bovine respiratory disease symptoms include coughing, fever, and labored breathing. Calves may lose their appetite, lie down more, experience accelerated breathing, a change in temperature and generally look dull. The real challenge is that by the time you notice these visible signs, the disease is often already well advanced. Early detection and quick bovine respiratory disease treatment are critical to saving calves and preventing serious losses.

The economic impact
For farmers, BRD isn’t just an animal health issue; it’s an economic one. Calves that battle pneumonia often struggle to catch up in growth, which means they won’t perform as well later in life. This is why bovine respiratory disease prevention matters so much.

Cows have a relatively limited lung capacity in proportion to their body weight. Therefore, it’s crucial to maintain good lung health throughout their life. Issues like BRD translate into lower milk yields, higher veterinarian bills and in some cases, calf mortality.

The role of animal monitoring in early BRD detection
Relying on visual checks for BRD can be a tricky business. Coughing, nasal discharge, or falling behind compared to the rest of the herd can be signs of BRD. But calves and cows, prey animals by nature, are experts at hiding weaknesses. This makes it harder to spot bovine respiratory disease symptoms.

That’s where cow monitoring technology makes a real difference. By keeping track of activity and behavior around the clock, these systems can identify early warning signs that would otherwise be missed.

For example, opting for an ultrasound at an early state can detect budding pneumonia. Something that sometimes occurs when calves and cows receive health alerts and nothing comes out of the clinical examination.

Early BRD prevention with CowManager®
A great example of a BRD prevention tool is CowManager’s Youngstock Monitor, designed specifically to track calf health. The system collects detailed data on ear temperature, eating and rumination time, behavior and activity and flags anything unusual. When a calf shows changes that could indicate the bovine respiratory disease complex, the system alerts the farmer early, giving time to act before the disease becomes severe.

This approach supports earlier bovine respiratory disease treatment, which improves recovery rates, reduces antibiotic use, and ultimately lowers mortality. Healthier calves grow into healthier, more productive cows – and that protects your bottom line.

The CowManager system enables farmers to keep an eye on their herd’s entire life cycle, monitoring them from calf to cow with just one ear sensor. Comparing groups, diving into the data and making sure their herd gets everything they need.

When calves become cows, CowManager’s Health solution continues to track their health, ensuring a lifetime of monitoring.

Best practices to minimize the impact of BRD
Monitoring is powerful, but it works best alongside strong everyday management. Good bovine respiratory disease prevention practices include ensuring calves get enough colostrum, reducing stress during weaning and transport, maintaining proper ventilation, keep group changes at a minimum and manage them well, and following vaccination programs.

When these are combined with technology like CowManager’s Health monitor, it’s the best defense against BRD.

Using their DHI data to guide breeding, nutrition, and strategic-culling decisions, the 450-cow Holstein and Jersey herd in Pound, Wis., shifted its focus to producing richer milk. The result has added more than $5 per hundredweight in premiums to Class 3 pricing.

Rather than growing cow numbers, D & L Rusch Dairy used its data to pinpoint where improvements could be made, especially in components. The focus on genetics, nutrition, and removing low-component cows has driven steady progress over the past several years.

“Some cows just won’t produce high-component milk,” Arren notes. “But for those that can, it’s amazing to see what they’ll do when fed properly.” Nutrition adjustments, including feeding palm fat and balancing methionine and lysine, helped cows reach new levels.

And while nutrition unlocks potential, genetics guide which cows can truly excel in fat and protein production. Previously, the herd’s genetic selection focused on improving feet, legs, udders, and longevity. Today’s plan includes those traits, but with a big focus on positive fat and protein percent.

With DHI data in hand, Arren began tracking and making breeding decisions to reach their new goal of producing higher-component milk. High-component cows are bred to sexed- or conventional-dairy semen, while lower-performing and lower-component cows are bred to beef and gradually culled.

Culling, whether for dairy or beef purposes, became a strategic tool during this time. “It wasn’t drastic, just a few cows a month, but over time, you could really see the bulk tank change,” Arren says. Today, the herd averages 4.7% fat and 3.4% protein, a substantial increase from just five years ago.

The results speak for themselves. Since the change in focus to increased-component production, the premium the dairy gets paid has made a real impact on the milk check. “When we were getting $20 (per hundredweight) for Class 3 Base Price, we were up to $5.50 in premiums,” says Arren. “That’s a game changer on the milk check.”

By pushing fat and protein percentages and using DHI data to make more informed breeding and culling decisions, Arren and his family found a way to increase profitability per cow without increasing herd size.

“DHI testing has been key for us to understand every cow’s potential,” shares Arren. “By looking at individual performance over the years, we can make smarter breeding decisions. With all the data from CentralStar and DART, we can rank cows by energy-corrected milk (ECM) and make informed choices. Every report helps us get better and keeps our herd moving in the right direction.”

Author: Kelly Bristle, CentralStar Director of Member Relations and Promotions

In practice, the problem is that the infection is often not noticed initially and only severe cases with clear symptoms are clinically apparent. CowManager’s Youngstock Monitor is a valuable tool for detecting sick calves at an early stage. The major advantage of this system is that it flags calves with a health warning and provides an alert even before the animals start showing visible signs of illness.

Early detection of changes in activity with CowManager
And that’s precisely why herd manager Anna Schaate from Benninghoff Milchenergie in Bevern decided to use CowManager for calves too. “I tend to rely on figures, data, and facts, and that’s why I like working with CowManager’s health data for calves,” she explains, “because once calves stop drinking, you’ve got a major problem on your hands.”

At first, she thought that she wouldn’t see much difference in activity because the young calves don’t move around that much. “But I came to realize how useful CowManager is when it comes to the early detection of pneumonia.” The health warning allows her to recognize early in the day which calves are deviating from the group average in terms of activity and drinking. She then considers information on group changes, rehousing, weaning, and dehorning as this may also influence the data. If there are no such factors to consider, Schaate then examines the calves in question with an ultrasound scan of the lungs.

Early stages of respiratory disease are detected in good time
The CowManager health lists are checked three times a day. Schaate identifies calves with deviations and then examines them with her colleagues from the calf team. Depending on the diagnosis, the calves are treated with anti-inflammatory drugs or painkillers. “We’ve found CowManager shows us the animals that have pneumonia two days earlier than we would have recognized their labored breathing and general poor health,” Schaate reports. “Since we started consistently monitoring the calves using a combination of CowManager and lung scan, we’ve been able to treat the pneumonia before the symptoms become apparent.”

Working with a vet on prevention
The herd’s veterinarian, Hanna Strodthoff-Schneider, confirms the benefits of using activity monitoring for the early detection of disease: “With pneumonia in particular, it allows us to identify the affected calves at a very early stage of the disease – at a time when lung tissue is showing minimal change on the ultrasound.” She goes on to explain that as lung tissue cannot regenerate, any loss of functional tissue results in a permanent decline in lung function. Early diagnosis using an activity monitoring system can therefore help to minimize structural changes in the lungs.

“It is likely that this will also have a positive effect on lactation performance later on,” says Strodthoff-Schneider. Despite these undisputed benefits, she underlines that every dairy farm should be aiming to minimize cases of pneumonia from the outset with appropriate feeding practices as well as optimal housing and environmental conditions.

Consistent hygiene management, health monitoring, and treatment
Consistent compliance with hygiene measures and constant monitoring of housing conditions, for example with adequate ventilation, is extremely important in the prevention of calf disease. Damp conditions and draughts must be avoided,” Schaate adds. “We make sure to check the ventilation in all barns on a regular basis and install new ventilation tubes when necessary. We also shave three strips on the backs of older calves so that they can dry off more quickly.”

This combination of hygiene management, health monitoring, and early treatment has considerably improved the health of the calves on the farm. Lung scans take five to ten minutes per calf but are considered worth the time as cases of acute and chronic respiratory disease have decreased significantly. The impact on staff satisfaction and motivation is also noticeable as working with healthy animals is much more enjoyable than trying to alleviate the pain of sick animals. “If this helps us to rear more high-quality heifers that are well-prepared for the start of lactation, then it will have been worth it,” Schaate says.

Author: Angelika Sontheimer

The dashboard is an easy-to-use visual representation of real-time data to simplify daily routines. All relevant alerts and insights are displayed in one place through various widgets. The onboarding process ensures producers know how to respond to alerts and leverage the basics. Year two is where proactive management, integration, and team consistency turn insights into measurable impact. Here’s how top dairies make that shift.

Moving beyond basics
After year one, the real value emerges when integration deepens between CowManager and on-farm management systems. These integrations increase efficiency by reducing double entry and streamlining workflows. For example, CowManager integrates with herd-management software to synchronize cow data and monitor compliance more effectively, ensuring farm protocols are consistently followed. When pregnancy check results are integrated with herd-management software, it becomes easier to identify discrepancies in protocol execution. The level of impact depends on herd size and management style, but nearly every dairy can unlock value by advancing these integrations.

The overlooked details
Compliance is not just about following protocols, it is about protecting profitability. Too often, basic compliance such as tag maintenance gets overlooked. Low batteries on multiple tags can compromise accuracy and trust in the system, no different than missing steps in a breeding protocol.

Consider this: What if an employee skipped part of the Ovsynch sequence? Breeding effectiveness would plummet, leading to more days open, lower conception rates, and ultimately higher costs. By monitoring alerts and compliance through CowManager, these breakdowns can be caught early.

Breeding and reproduction strategy
CowManager data allows tracking of historic heats and real-time compliance. For example, if three open cows showed heat alerts but were not inseminated before the next vet check, how would that affect palpation rates? If heat alerts were correlated with insemination records, how many days open could be saved? These “what if” analyses highlight not only the cost of inaction but the profitability of improved compliance.

Producers should ensure optimal utilization of Fertility Insights by reviewing management settings within the CowManager web application. Parameters such as average cycle lengths, deviations from norms, and voluntary-waiting periods can be customized to align with specific herd requirements.

Health and transition management
The same concept applies to health. What if a review of cows that were sold or died revealed missed sick alerts? What if transition cows were managed by listening to eating minutes instead of relying solely on pen moves?

With CowManager, producers can “listen to the cows.” For example, eating-time data in the fresh pen can identify at-risk animals before visible symptoms. These proactive shifts can reduce treatment costs, improve survival, and shorten recovery times. Tools within CowManager help detect transition diseases such as ketosis and mastitis up to 50 days before calving. This simplifies transition management, especially when symptoms are difficult to detect naturally. With 75% of adult-cow diseases occurring in the first 30 days after calving, early intervention makes a significant difference.

Symptoms of ketosis, such as loss of appetite, weight loss, and sweet-smelling breath, are difficult to detect early without monitoring. Likewise, early signs of mastitis, including swelling, heat, or hardness in the udder, are easily missed, especially in large herds. Mastitis severely affects milk production, making early identification critical to both animal health and business performance.

Team approach to success
The dairies that have the most success with CowManager use it as part of a broader team strategy. Consultants, veterinarians, and nutritionists are brought into the data conversation. After year one, involving this advisory team becomes even more valuable. Together, they shape protocols, adapt management practices, and find new efficiencies that drive profitability.

The difference between “working” and “winning” often lies in consistency. Employees must interpret alerts the same way every time. Multiview enables consultants, veterinarians, and nutritionists to participate, turning individual data points into shared strategies. Simple SOPs for common alerts ensure that whether it is a heat detection or a sick-cow alert, everyone knows the next step.

Looking deeper
CowManager also offers opportunities to connect cow data with genetics. By analyzing how specific genetic indexes correlate with health alerts, producers can identify traits linked to stronger performance. This influences both current-herd decisions and future-breeding strategies.

Year one establishes trust in CowManager. Year two is where real potential is unlocked through integration, compliance, data-driven protocols, and team collaboration. By moving from reactive to proactive management, dairies shift from simply “using alerts” to truly transforming herd performance.

CowManager works. The question is: Are you using it to its full potential? Talk with your CentralStar team about CowManager and how to unlock it’s full potential.

Author: Jared Krull, Vice President of Sales & Service, CowManager North America

The average cow-pregnancy rate for a subset of CentralStar herds that utilize consulting services is 28%, ranging from 18% to 43%. The heifer-pregnancy rate for 64 of those herds averages 29% and ranges from 10% to 50%. In other words, heifer-pregnancy rates average just 1% higher than cow-pregnancy rates, but with nearly double the variation. In that same data set, the average conception rate to conventional semen is 46% for cows and 61% for heifers. If heifers conceive 15% better than cows, why is their overall pregnancy rate barely higher? That gap is the opportunity.

Why 40% pregnancy rate matters
For most dairies, a realistic goal for heifer-pregnancy rate is 40%. Increasing heifer-pregnancy rates can reduce rearing costs, bring replacements into the herd sooner, and create more calves each year. In a case scenario, Figure 1 shows the distribution of age at first calving for a herd with a 40% heifer-pregnancy rate versus a 25% pregnancy rate. Both herds start breeding heifers at 390 days old, yet the herd with a 40% pregnancy rate averages 22 months at first calving, while the 25%-pregnancy-rate herd averages 24 months.

The heifers calving in at an older age may produce more Energy-Corrected Milk (Figure 2), but the extra production doesn’t outweigh the extra feed costs (Figure 3). Based on this production data and the age-at-first-calving profile for these 100 heifers, the herd with a 25% pregnancy rate has over $8,000 more in opportunity cost from later calvings than the herd with a 40%-pregnancy-rate. Furthermore, the 40%-pregnancy-rate herd has a lower non-completion rate, 10% compared to 14%, meaning more heifers successfully make it to the milking herd when pregnancy rates are higher.

Why do heifers lag?
Heifer-conception rates average 15% higher than cow-conception rates. Even the bottom 25% of herds for heifer conception average 5% higher than cows. The issue isn’t usually conception, it’s getting heifers inseminated in the first place.
Whether a herd breeds heifers by age or weight, 90% of heifers should be bred for the first time within a 30-day window. Low-insemination rates often stem from three things.

1. Difficulty moving heifers into the breeding pen on time. Some farms struggle with labor or overcrowded facilities. Working with a CentralStar consultant to develop a breeding strategy can help right-size heifer inventory and reduce overcrowding. Consultants can factor in a buffer, so the farm is never short on replacements, while also capturing added value through beef on dairy calves. Genomic testing can also identify which animals should produce replacements, ensuring only the best heifers move into the breeding program.
2. Lack of a consistent heat-detection program. A lack of routine heat detection hinders insemination rates. A good goal is for more than 60% of heifers to be rebred within the normal heat-cycle window of 18–24 days. Utilizing a CentralStar A.I. Specialist and/or a monitoring system like CowManager® can improve both conception and insemination rates. Because sexed semen works best when used 16–24 hours after estrus begins, CowManager’s insemination window can help maximize success.
3. Heifers being too small for breeding. Heifers should reach 55% of mature body weight before their first breeding. Many undersized heifers have a history of calfhood diseases like pneumonia or scours. These health setbacks delay breeding and limit their future milk potential. Prevention is key. Selecting for calf-wellness traits, feeding high-quality colostrum or replacer followed by a high-quality diet, following a veterinarian-approved vaccination program, and supporting the immune system with products like AccelAIRate or CONVERT™ all help heifers stay on track. CowManager’s new Youngstock Monitor can even detect illness in calves before clinical signs appear.

The payoff
Heifer reproduction is still one of the biggest opportunities in many dairies. Heifers are typically the highest-genetic animals in the herd and carry the most-valuable pregnancies. With today’s low heifer inventories and the cost of raising replacements, it’s more important than ever to complete as many heifers as possible and to make sure those heifers are of the highest quality. If you would like help with your heifer reproduction, reach out to your local CentralStar team.

Author: Emily Middleton-Gyomory, CentralStar Regional Consulting Manager

The study conducted by Gellatly et al (2025)* at the Technology Access Centre for Livestock Production (TACLP) and published in MDPI Animals (September 2025) explored both behavioral and physiological responses, as well as the potential return on investment for producers. “Weaning is one of the most stressful events in a calf’s life, triggering behavioral and physiological changes as calves adjust to new social and nutritional environments,” says Dr. Désirée Gellatly, research scientist at TACLP. “Our findings suggest that FerAppease at weaning improves adaptation in beef heifers, resulting in greater growth and feed efficiency and translating into potential profitability.”

The study included Angus-influenced heifers that were abruptly weaned, weighed and randomly assigned to receive a single treatment of either 10 mL of FerAppease or the water placebo treatment (control group) on day 0 of the study. After treatment, all heifers were transported under identical conditions (equal space allowance per animal per trailer, the same route, identical durations of feed and water deprivation, and a controlled, predesignated speed), ensuring consistent handling across both treatment groups. Over the subsequent 28-day period, the heifers were monitored for key health and performance indicators, including body weight, feed intake, feeding behavior, rumination and blood parameters. Measurements were recorded on days 0, 14 and 28 of the study.

Researchers revealed that FerAppease-treated heifers gained an average of 29.7 pounds more than control heifers over the 27-day feeding period. Treated heifers achieved an average daily gain (ADG) of 3.96 lb/day, compared to 2.86 lb/day for the control group (P = 0.048). Blood analyses also indicated a potential enhancement of immune function, with notable differences in lymphocyte counts, hematocrit levels and platelet trends compared to the control group.

Treated heifers also achieved numerically higher profit margins, suggesting FerAppease may support improved post-weaning performance and economic outcomes. According to the research, profit per pen (CAD$/pen) over the 28-day experimental period was calculated as the difference between the final value and the initial value, total feed costs and total medication costs. “Our findings suggest that for every CAD $1 spent on mBAS treatment, the return is approximately CAD $11.74 in profit, based on liveweight-adjusted mBAS treatment costs,” says Dr. Gellatly.

“At FERA, we are dedicated to advancing practical FerAppease research to support producers in enhancing both animal welfare and performance,” says Dr. Rodrigo Bicalho, D.V.M, FERA Diagnostics & Biologicals founder and CEO. “The findings of this study suggest that FerAppease facilitated the adaptation of weaned beef heifers to the background environment. By supporting growth performance, enhancing select immunological parameters, and improving patterns of activity and rumination, FerAppease was associated with enhanced feed efficiency across the entire trial period, particularly evident during the latter half of the study. These results indicate a role for FerAppease in promoting physiological and behavioral adaptation during the post-weaning transition period.”

All ingredients in FerAppease are FDA approved under GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe), its use does not require a veterinarian’s prescription or a Veterinary Feed Directive plan, and there are no meat withholding requirements.

Source: Gellatly, Désirée, Yaogeng Lei, Alison Neale, Lyndsey Smith, Emilie Edgar, Brittany Bloomfield, Brianna Elliot, Irene Wenger, and Sean Thompson. “Impacts of Maternal Bovine Appeasing Substance Administered at Weaning on Behavioral and Physiological Adaptation of Beef Heifers to the Feedlot.” Animals, vol. 15, 2025, p. 2788. doi.org/10.3390/ani15192788