Heat (Estrus) Detection Techniques in Dairy Farms-A Review

Dairy producers who achieve reasonably good pregnancy rates in dairy animals are always benefited from improved heat detection. Proper heat detection is to know the appropriate timing of insemination is the biggest constraint in attaining high conception rate in a herd. Boosting heat detection rates by 10 to 20 percentage points could be invaluable to increasing your herd's pregnancy rates. Traditional heat detection methods involve visual observation of sexual behavior displayed by the cows. Accuracy of visual observation varies according to the expertise of farm personnel, frequency of observation, housing and footing conditions, and milk production levels. The challenge of an excellent heat detection program is not only identifying animals in correct estrus (accuracy), but also not missing any heat activity displayed (efficiency). Generally, well trained farm personnel are quite accurate in identifying the cows in heat, but lack of efficiency of observing all possible cows in heat is the limiting factor. Therefore aids/techniques of heat detection along with visual observation for improving efficiency of heat detection in turn it can give better results in the form productivity in the dairy farms.