Breeding season guide

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33064, 3 November 1972, Page 13

Breeding season guide

The accompanying photograph shows a device made in Colorado in the United States and now on the New Zealand market for detecting heat or the breeding season in cows. It is called the Kamar Heat-Mount detector. It is a plastic bubble on ? . canvas backing. The bubble before use is, white m colour — it contains a white liquid — but it also contains a sache or container with a red dye. Using a special glue the detector is placed on the back of a cow between the hips. A placement guide is used to help position the detector correctly. The detector then remains white until the cow in question is mounted by another cow. The pressure of the brisket of the cow doing the mounting then activates the detector but this is not done until the pressure has been applied for at least three seconds. In other words, the cow with the detector on its back must stand to be mounted. When the detector is activated the red dye in the container within the bubble is released and spreads through the white liquid turning the bubble red. This situation can be

readily recognised and it is recommended that cows be inseminated 12 hours after it is observed—where the detector is noticed to have been activated when the cow is brought in in the morning it is recommended that it be inseminated that night, and if the detector is showing red in the evening then the cow should be inseminated the following morning. It is claimed that the detector gives more than a 95 per cent accurate indication of a cow being in the breeding season.

The New Zealand agency for it has been obtained by a businessman and farmer who has a dairy herd at Levin. He is Mr D. H. Murray, who had experience with it while in the United States. The South Island agents are South Island Chemicals, who are suppliers of veterinary requirements. The detectors will cost the farmer 95c each and have an indefinite life when stored in a refrigerator.