Small losses, big impact

The losses are rarely dramatic. They do not arrive all at once, and they do not announce themselves. They slip in quietly – a percentage point here, another there – until, by the end of the season, something feels off. Fewer calves on the ground. Slightly lighter weaners. A cash flow that does not quite match expectations.

It starts with a simple question: What is your pregnancy rate? Do you know? Not what it should be. Not what it was five years ago. What is it now? Do you have the real numbers, or are you guessing?

From there, the next question is just as important: What is your calving percentage?

Because getting a cow in calf is only half the story. Pregnancy rate tells you how many cows became pregnant. Calving percentage tells you how many of those pregnancies actually result in live calves. Somewhere between those two numbers, losses can occur – and that is where profit is often lost.

In a well-managed system, anything under 90% calving is not good enough. A 95% calving rate is achievable. This is not an ambitious number – it is a necessary one. The difference between 85% and 95% may look small on paper, but in a 100-cow herd, that translates to ten extra calves on the ground. Ten more animals to sell, to grow or to retain. It is often the difference between a tight financial year and a comfortable one.

The challenge is that these losses are seldom caused by a single obvious problem. Reproductive diseases tend to erode performance in patterns.

A heifer group struggling to conceive, sitting at a 50% calving rate, improving with age, but with mature cows plateauing at 80% to 85% – that should raise suspicion for trichomoniasis. This is a sexually transmitted infection in cattle, spread by infected bulls. It causes early pregnancy loss, meaning cows may conceive but then lose the embryo shortly afterwards, often without obvious signs. Because of this, it can quietly spread through a herd before it is detected.

When pregnancy rates fluctuate from season to season – up one year, down the next – campylobacteriosis becomes more likely. This is another bacterial infection spread during breeding, which affects fertility and can cause early embryonic loss. Its inconsistency makes it difficult to spot unless good records are kept and compared over time.

Then there is BVD (bovine viral diarrhoea). Despite the name, it is not only a digestive disease. It is a viral infection that can affect reproduction, immune function and calf development. Not always dramatic, not always obvious. Sometimes it is just that one calf that never quite keeps up with its peers – the small one, the one that always lags behind. In more severe cases, it can cause early pregnancy loss, weak calves or ongoing disease problems in the herd.

The key is not to chase symptoms, but to recognise patterns early.

Some of these diseases can be managed with vaccination. Others require testing, culling decisions and tighter control of breeding animals – particularly bulls. All of them require informed decisions and ongoing discussions with your vet. In every case, the starting point is the same: knowing your numbers. Pregnancy rate. Calving percentage. Weaning percentage.

Because once you can see where the losses occur, you can begin to close the gaps. And when you close those gaps, you improve cash flow, making it easier to invest in the essentials such as antiparasitics, annual vaccines and mineral supplementation – the inputs that support longterm herd health and productivity.

Those small percentage points, quietly recovered, are often the most valuable gains a farm can make.