Advice for expanding use of AI

[CJohnson]

I have a commercial cow / calf operation, run about 300 cows. I used timed AI on 120 heifers last year, had 45% AI conception. We split them in 2 groups of 60 1 week apart, turned clean up bulls in 2 weeks after AI then did ultrasound on all together. I group was 30 days post AI and other was 37 days. I left the clean up bulls in for 90 days and ended up with 92% conception on the group. I kept the AI conceived and sold the rest. I would have liked a higher AI conception rate but was fairly pleased for our first time. I only had 2 clean up bulls (2 year olds) and 1 got a hematoma of the penis as breeding injury, likely due to breeding too many. I had to buy another clean up bull to finish out.

This year I plan on doing AI on 60 head of virgin heifers same as before but would like to expand and use it on the cows. My question is how to do this, as I want as many early calves as possible but a lot of the cows will not have had enough time after calving to return to estrus. I tag the newborns and move the pairs out of the herd as they calve, so I can easily group them according to calving age. Here is my plan, would like suggestions on this from those with experience:

Heifers that are first calvers (50 head AI bred last fall) will calve in 2 week period starting Jan 28. All these will be AI'ed again on May 7th
I want to AI about 100 of my mature cows (herd is 230). I will sort them as they calve into 2 groups of 50 which will be the first 100 cows to calve. These will be AI'ed on May 14 and May 21 (mature cows start calving around Feb 20). I don't need to know who is bred AI and who is bred by cleanup so will turn in cleanup bulls immediately after AI. I will put the 1st and 2nd calvers into one herd with 3 Hereford bulls and put the older cows in one herd with 6 Red Angus bulls. The other pairs that go with these herds that were not AI'ed due to calving later will be all together.

Do I have enough bulls to cover them? I have 9 bulls for 283 cows but 150 of them will be AI'ed and expect 50% conception. Sounds like enough but using TAI will have a lot coming in at one time.

Next year if I wanted to do more AI, would I just keep sorting them as they calve? Is 60 days minimum time to AI post-calving if they are in good (BCS 5) condition?

Thanks for advice,
Chris

 

[bse]

I think you will have plenty of bull power, assuming all with the A I works ok.
Are you syncing everything, doing your own work? Plays a big part why not run all your mature cows through at theesame time and do the 100?
Id run the virgin hefiers and first calvers at the same tim. Pull cidrs on first calvers in the AM and vigin heifers in the PM.
If you are trying to get these cows tightned up calving you can start the 7 day co sync at 35 days after calving, which will give you 44 or 45 days after calving to breed, and get along just fine.
Next year i am gonna do my virgin hefiers 21 days after cows so they will calve a little later but be ready to breed back the next year along with the cows, i think the faster you can get those bred back the better.

 

[goddy]

I think you will have plenty of bull power, assuming all with the A I works ok.
Are you syncing everything, doing your own work? Plays a big part why not run all your mature cows through at theesame time and do the 100?
Id run the virgin hefiers and first calvers at the same tim. Pull cidrs on first calvers in the AM and vigin heifers in the PM.
If you are trying to get these cows tightned up calving you can start the 7 day co sync at 35 days after calving, which will give you 44 or 45 days after calving to breed, and get along just fine.
Next year i am gonna do my virgin hefiers 21 days after cows so they will calve a little later but be ready to breed back the next year along with the cows, i think the faster you can get those bred back the better.

I.ve always preferred to calve my heifers a little earlier than the cows to give them a bit more time before the second years breeding to get in line with the cows - just my opinion

 

[bse]

Waiting is something i just figured out from a few, last year, they calved late, but i went on with the program on them, they were still in pretty good shape so seems they stuck just fine, I think the longer you wait its longer that they have to loose condition, they sure have alot going on. Just what works for me.

 

[Jessica06]

Since we had all of our heifers calving in such a tight window last year, we tried AI'ing them. Put them on Accuration in a self feeder for about 45 days before we started syncing them up. Even after moving them back about a month before AI'ing them, we only had about 6 show heat out of about 25. I don't think I could recommend moving them up, but the farther back you move them the more you will get bred. Unless yours start out fatter than ours and you start supplementing sooner/better...we figured they were eating about 7#/hd/day. In hindsight, they probably weren't getting enough to do what we wanted to do with them. They were mostly 6's at calving and low 5's/high 4's at breeding.

With the cows, being in good body condition, 60 days should be plenty. You could even get by with the low end being around 45 days. In general though, the longer they have after calving, the higher your conception rates will be.

 

[cow pollinater]

If you're using cidrs you can use it as a tool to bump up the late calvers. Conception wouldn't be as good but they will do okay and next year will be a lot cleaner.

 

[RegCowman]

TAI gets expensive with a 45% conception rate. This can be improved with a little extra effort on your part, but think about this:
I noticed you are in east Texas and as the weather warms up conception rates fall due to heat stress.
Also, while TAI is convenient for you it may not be for your cows.
Lastly, conception rates also have a lot to do with who is doing your inseminating work.

You should be putting a CIDR in 52-55 days post-calving because not all cows/heifers breed on the first AI attempt and even if heifers calve a little early they may need that extra time for conditioning as you try to re-breed them after having their first calf. Many times heifers out of cows that breed on the first AI attempt --will also breed on the first AI attempt if BCS is at a norm.

I spend a lot of time with heifers I plan to AI --I write down when they cycle, so I know that they are indeed cycling; and I know the number of days between cycles, which saves me time and money before and after synchronization.

Setting up Heifers for AI
Day 0 - Insert CIDR and give them 2ml of Cystorelin IM (which will clear up any potential cystic ovaries) (its a $3 insurance policy, while we are doing this- why not)
Day 7 - Pull CIDR, apply Estrotect Patch and give 5 ml of Lutalyse / Prostamate IM--whatever you decide.
These patches are really great and give you the heads up on what is going on -- ***do your own heat detection*** --some will say this is a lot of work -and yes it can be, but it's all over in a few days - usually effort pays off in conception rates and convenience rarely pays off.

All heifers that are cycling 5-7 days before the date you plan to put in a CIDR, should be bred on their natural heat instead of putting in a $10 CIDR, ect because it is rare that she can cycle back so soon even with the use of hormones --- save yourself some time and money here.

* Breeding late is better than breeding early after standing heat --try to maintain the 12 hour rule if possible, but if you just cant maintain this protocol be sure and give her another 2ml of Cystorelin at breeding. (I give most of my cattle a 2ml shot of Cystorelin at breeding --it is my insurance policy) Cystorelin shuts down all signs of heat fairly immediately and the egg comes down for fertilization)

Same protocol for cows except that brood cows up to 1300 lbs @ 5ml of Lutalyse and cows over 1300 lbs 6 mls of Lutalyse.
This protocol has allowed us to maintain an 86% conception rate for 7 years in a row.

I have a commercial cow / calf operation, run about 300 cows. I used timed AI on 120 heifers last year, had 45% AI conception. We split them in 2 groups of 60 1 week apart, turned clean up bulls in 2 weeks after AI then did ultrasound on all together. I group was 30 days post AI and other was 37 days. I left the clean up bulls in for 90 days and ended up with 92% conception on the group. I kept the AI conceived and sold the rest. I would have liked a higher AI conception rate but was fairly pleased for our first time. I only had 2 clean up bulls (2 year olds) and 1 got a hematoma of the penis as breeding injury, likely due to breeding too many. I had to buy another clean up bull to finish out.

This year I plan on doing AI on 60 head of virgin heifers same as before but would like to expand and use it on the cows. My question is how to do this, as I want as many early calves as possible but a lot of the cows will not have had enough time after calving to return to estrus. I tag the newborns and move the pairs out of the herd as they calve, so I can easily group them according to calving age. Here is my plan, would like suggestions on this from those with experience:

Heifers that are first calvers (50 head AI bred last fall) will calve in 2 week period starting Jan 28. All these will be AI'ed again on May 7th
I want to AI about 100 of my mature cows (herd is 230). I will sort them as they calve into 2 groups of 50 which will be the first 100 cows to calve. These will be AI'ed on May 14 and May 21 (mature cows start calving around Feb 20). I don't need to know who is bred AI and who is bred by cleanup so will turn in cleanup bulls immediately after AI. I will put the 1st and 2nd calvers into one herd with 3 Hereford bulls and put the older cows in one herd with 6 Red Angus bulls. The other pairs that go with these herds that were not AI'ed due to calving later will be all together.

Do I have enough bulls to cover them? I have 9 bulls for 283 cows but 150 of them will be AI'ed and expect 50% conception. Sounds like enough but using TAI will have a lot coming in at one time.

Next year if I wanted to do more AI, would I just keep sorting them as they calve? Is 60 days minimum time to AI post-calving if they are in good (BCS 5) condition?

Thanks for advice,
Chris

 

[CJohnson]

RegCowman:
Thanks for reply.

I did use CIDRs with GnRH and Estimate using the 5 day CoSync protocol on the heifers last year.

That is a great idea to pull the ones cycling withing a week of syncronization. How do you manage those? Sync them later or breed on natural heat? I do not AI myself, will hire a technician so breeding on observed heat is not a good option.

86% is awesome, I assume you are getting this by breeding on observed heat instead of TAI? There is no reason to use Estrotect heat patches if you are not breeding on observed heat, right?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[RegCowman]

The ones that cycle 5-7 days before I put Cidr's in I just breed on their natural heat. we breed them all on the 12 hour rule on observed Heat. The patches are good because it give me a heads up on what is going on --

RegCowman:
Thanks for reply.

I did use CIDRs with GnRH and Estimate using the 5 day CoSync protocol on the heifers last year.

That is a great idea to pull the ones cycling withing a week of syncronization. How do you manage those? Sync them later or breed on natural heat? I do not AI myself, will hire a technician so breeding on observed heat is not a good option.

86% is awesome, I assume you are getting this by breeding on observed heat instead of TAI? There is no reason to use Estrotect heat patches if you are not breeding on observed heat, right?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[WalnutCrest]

Good thread.

Side story --- I remember reading about a guy who had 400 (?) head of cows and he wanted to save money on bulls in this high-priced market ... so ... he bought the best, proven bull (as I remember it, he'd seen at least two generations out of this guy on the ground and in production), so he was a pretty low-risk bull ... then ... he had that bull collected. Ran all of his cows through with AI hoping that 2/3 or so would take. Then, he took the remaining cows that didn't take the first time and AI'd them again to this older bull ... again hoping that 2/3 would take. As soon as the 2nd AI was done, he turned the bull in.

He got about 275 pregnancies with the first AI and 90 with the 2nd AI. The remaining 35 females who didn't take to either AI were exposed to the bull ... of those, the bull bred another 20. When he preg-checked, the 15 that were open were culled and the 20 that were bred by the bull were sold as bred cows as they entered their 2nd trimester. The other 365 calved out on his place. So, he used one bull to breed 380 cows in a single year.

One mans story about saving some money on bulls when bull prices are high.

Good luck to you.

 

[Stocker Steve]

We are also expanding the use of AI. We usually retain heifers from the early calvers, and have also started to raise our own clean up bulls.
We have not been able to do better than 50 to 60% settled after sync. Plan to try the 14 day process this year.
We have had very good success in moving cows up when bull breeding. Most settle in 40 days or less. I think a key to to have the cows in good condition when they calve.
Some cows are just hard breeders. Selling a few late calvers can quickly make AI more effective, and really help tighten timing up.

 

[VirginiaCattle]

I've been using the 14 day CIDR protocol for heifers and AI has raised to 70%. The longer the CIDR is in the better. I have much better results with 7 day on cows than 5 day. Most of the literature will say there is a small advantage to 7 over 5 but I found it to be greater than 10% plus there is one less trip through the chute.

 

[Countryrulzz]

I am having problems keeping the CIDR in the right spot. It seems like the cow keeps pushing it out? Am I not getting it in far enough? Or do you think that I need to cut the string so that she can't play with it. I haven't noticed her messing with it, but I am at a loss of what to do. I have already removed it once and put it back in where it seemed much farther than the first time. But this morning it is back to the edge again.

 

[CJohnson]

I am using EZ Breeder CIDRs, and my process is as follows:
I put them in a bucket of water with a little detergent, load the inserting device with the CIDR so that the CIDR wings are flat but no more (not jammed all the way in). I clean the outside vagina with wet paper towel, insert the CIDR so that it is completely in the back of the vagina up against the cervix, then push t.he plunger on the inserting device. Sometimes the CIDRs want to hang on to the inserter, so I pinch the skin of the vagina with my left hand right over the top of the inserter so that it kind of holds the string in place when removing the inserter to keep the CIDR in place. I then push on the tip of the CIDR to push it in all the way if it came out any. On mature cows if it is in the right place, you cannot reach the tip of the CIDR with your finger.
I do not use lubrication as I found it worse on causing them to come back out when removing the inserter.
I suspect that you are not getting the CIDER all the way back before releasing it.
Hope this helps!