What Is Basco > Fertility Recording

Obviously, in all breeding programs recording of inseminations or natural matings is paramount to success. These records are usually made and held on farm and seldom find their way into single national databases. The BASCO database is being enhanced to enable farmers to record fertility data in a way that encourages recording. Generally in dairy herds, animals are artificially inseminated individually. However, in beef and sheep matings are mostly natural with a bull or ram running with a number of animals. Therefore, the fertility recording process will allow for animals to be allocated to groups and a sire allocated to that group for a period of time. Subsequent confirmation of pregnancy will cause a fertility record to be created.

The availability of these records will enable farmers to manage their animals more effectively and also to identify females that are performing poorly in terms of reproduction. A further major benefit will be that fertility indices could be calculated from the raw records, thereby identifying males of superior fertility and families of females that could better be bred from.