Effects of a herd health program on reproductive performance of dairy cows

144 dairy cows of 5 breeds with a total of 184 parturitions were assigned randomly by breed and parity to a reproductive herd health programme or a control group for 2 yr. Animals of the herd health programme averaged 1.85, 1.73, 73.1, and 99.24 resp. for number of inseminations, inseminations/conception, number of days from parturition to 1st insemination, and number of days not pregnant v 2.59, 2.37, 86.82, and 140.07 for control animals. Controls averaged 255 kg of solids-corrected milk more per lactation on a standardised basis than cows in the herd health programme. Animals of the herd health programme produced 20.59 and 20.63 kg/day of ME and solids-corrected milk resp. v 20.60 and 20.37 for controls. Total yearly veterinary costs/cow, for reproductive purposes, were $16.94 and $15.34 resp. for herd health programme animals and controls. The herd health group returned $0.16 more per cow-experimental day than controls..