Pregnant cows can be managed to their optimal body condition for calving. Pregnancy staging can also be used to group cows by gestational length for pre-calving vaccinations and calving. Identification of fertile bulls can improve reproductive performance and improve profitability. Sub-fertile bulls, whether from age, disease, or genetics, return fewer calves for the cost of upkeep. Sub-fertile bulls may also prevent good bulls from breeding eligible females.
Fertile bulls can improve conception rates of cows and narrow the breeding season.
Many small operations, those that may not have enough cows to justify using top quality bulls, can benefit from A.I. and possibly eliminate all bulls from the operation. This method would decrease the expense and trouble of keeping bulls on the operation. However, A.I. is only used by 13.3 percent of operations. A.I. involves some overhead expenses, although they can often be recovered from the decreased costs of keeping bulls. Many producers may not be using A.I. because of the time needed for heat detection.