Dairy Surrogate Mother's? Disease???

[TheNewGuy]

Guy's and Gal's
I'm wanting to try my hand in donor embryo's from full blood Waygu cattle in Louisiana. I'm getting out of the horse business and would like to try this for breeding the best gene's not meat production. I'm weighing my options for start up, either buying beef heffiers or verry cheep bottle-Holstine/Jersey for surrogates. The savings using bottle calfs would be huge as I'm in no hurry and still need to get my fences ready for cows. I want to implant 5-8 heffiers knowing my return will only be between 30-80% if I'm lucky!! I have spoken with a few farmers around here about price and I can pick up the bottle calf's at 150-200$$. When I asked one of the farmers about BLV he said he has never had a problem with it and all his cows are up on all shots. as far as I knoe ther is not vacanation for BLV. Should I be worried about this? I know BLV is transfered from cow to calf and many other ways around the yard. I would just want to make sure the guy isn't telling me what I want to hear to sell a couple of cows that end up destroying my herd and future plans.

Thanks.. :help:

 

[Jake]

Go with te beef heifers. If the market changes you can switch easily that way. Wag you calves don't need the extra milk from the dairy crosses anyway.

 

[Taurus]

Jake is right, Wagyu calves doesn't need more extra milk from the dairy cows. And you don't have to worry about the milk fever, scours and mastitis. Not mentioned that dairy cows will eat lots.

 

[TheNewGuy]

How would yall go about purchesing the heffiers? We have a sell barn outside of Lafayette. Im not sure how many young heffiers go through it. I cant afford to spend the 1200 a cow people are asking right now for a cow I know nothing about. I think I would be better off raising calfs.

 

[H and H]

What are the goals for the Waygu animals? If they are strictly terminal, then why not implant several eggs per dairy recip? If more than one sticks, she will have plenty of milk for both.

If she only has one, milk her once a day for your own use, or graft on another baby calf. Nurse cows generally can pay their own way.

If you are trying to raise Waygu breeding stock, then disregard the above crazyiness.

 

[Taurus]

What are the goals for the Waygu animals? If they are strictly terminal, then why not implant several eggs per dairy recip? If more than one sticks, she will have plenty of milk for both.

If she only has one, milk her once a day for your own use, or graft on another baby calf. Nurse cows generally can pay their own way.

If you are trying to raise Waygu breeding stock, then disregard the above crazyiness.

What's wrong with the beef cows? The beef cows eat less than most dairy cows....

 

[Taurus]

How would yall go about purchesing the heffiers? We have a sell barn outside of Lafayette. Im not sure how many young heffiers go through it. I cant afford to spend the 1200 a cow people are asking right now for a cow I know nothing about. I think I would be better off raising calfs.

I would think that you will better off with beef cows in long run. Also buying cheap dairy heifer calves doesn't seem a good idea to me as they may not be fertile especially with Holsteins. Once they are all grown up, I would think you will find out that the Holsteins will get absolutely huge and they comes with a huge appetite.

 

[TheNewGuy]

The cows will be used for breed stock only. The Dairy/Beef cows wil be sold once the calfs are off the tit. I'm just trying to find the cheepest start up to do this. My main concern is the BLV found in dairy cattle. Can anyone tell me any other risks I may run into using the dairy cows?

 

[Taurus]

The cows will be used for breed stock only. The Dairy/Beef cows wil be sold once the calfs are off the tit. I'm just trying to find the cheepest start up to do this. My main concern is the BLV found in dairy cattle. Can anyone tell me any other risks I may run into using the dairy cows?

I believe I mentioned few risks above.....that's why Jake and I recommended beef cows for you.

 

[Jake]

Purposely implanting twins is a horrible idea especially with the cost associated with fullblood wagyu embryos. The risk of dystocia and death loss is exponentially higher.

Your "cheap" dairy heifers are not as cheap as you think. You will have two years of feed in them before they maybe have a calf as there is a chance your buying free martins. With the beef heifers you will have a much faster turn around on your investment. If your hell bent on buying bottle calves to use as eventual recips why not by beef bottle calves? With all of the diseases running rampant in the dairy barn from Johnes to Leukosis and everything else I see NO reason to mess with them especially at the prices you stated.

 

[Lucky_P]

TNG,
I'd be more concerned about Johne's Disease than BLV...but BLV is nothing to sneeze at.
Yeah, it's pretty prevalent in dairy herds, but it's pretty doggone widespread in beef herds, too. At one time, 90% of my beef herd was seropositive for BLV. I need to re-test to see if I've made any headway in the past 7 years.

Have a look here - http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health ... is_BLV.pdf

 

[TheNewGuy]

Thanks guy!! This is exactly why I was asking these questions. Now, I have read some really bad things on here about buying from sell barns. Should I look around to see what is around the local farms or try my luck with the sell? Also does anyone know if I should use heffiers or cows to implant into? Sorry to be a pain in the A#% with the dumb questions but this is my first round with cattle and I'm starting to think what Im attempting to do is not for beginners.

 

[Taurus]

this is my first round with cattle and I'm starting to think what Im attempting to do is not for beginners.

That's a wise move, perhaps you should try to find a cattle mentor or at least more experienced cattleman in your area? I'd like to see you gain some experiences before do any attempts on implanting full-blooded wagyu embryos. Also have you found a market that you can sell the wagyu cattle to?

 

[Jake]

Thanks guy!! This is exactly why I was asking these questions. Now, I have read some really bad things on here about buying from sell barns. Should I look around to see what is around the local farms or try my luck with the sell? Also does anyone know if I should use heffiers or cows to implant into? Sorry to be a pain in the A#% with the dumb questions but this is my first round with cattle and I'm starting to think what Im attempting to do is not for beginners.

You're not going to learn without asking so keep firing. Buying some bred cows and calving them out for a practice run would not be a bad idea before implanting them with embryos. Your conception rate will be higher on females not nursing a calf though. What your attempting is not how most people start but if your willing to throw the $$ at it why not go for it. Nothing wrong with buying cattle at a salebarn if you know what you're looking for. But the key is to know what you're looking at.

 

[TheNewGuy]

I have a market set up here, plus I would like to take them to the Waygu auctions. I've learned with horses if you have the best you dont need a market. The market needs you. Thats why I'm will to jump into this head first and give it a go. Once the herd is established it would be hard to loose your A$$ with Waygu if you dont get to greedy. By greedy I mean cheep, like buying cheep sick cows to try and drop some high grade calfs to start off with. I can see how that might be a bad idea and the wrong mentality to begin with. It costs money to make money. What would you guys look for in a heffier/cow if you were going to do this?

 

[Taurus]

:shock:

 

[Taurus]

TNG, what we're trying to saying that you should gaining some experiences before try out the Wagyu Cattle. We want you to be successful instead of failing and making too many mistakes & loss of money (or even cattle!).

Sick cows and cheap dairy heifer calves? Gosh that's good way to lose lots of money. And I wouldn't want implanting embryos of an expensive breed into unreliable cows/heifers.

 

[Dega Moo]

TNG, what we're trying to saying that you should gaining some experiences before try out the Wagyu Cattle. We want you to be successful instead of failing and making too many mistakes & loss of money (or even cattle!).

Sick cows and cheap dairy heifer calves? Gosh that's good way to lose lots of money. And I wouldn't want implanting embryos of an expensive breed into unreliable cows/heifers.

Taurus - you keep going back to the Wagyu and to the "sick and cheap dairy" and also getting experience but you're not explaining what the problem might be with implanting Wagyu versus say implanting Angus into a recip. You also aren't explaining anything different about the experience one might get with a more "normal" approach to building a cow calf business versus working with recips whether or not the embryo is Wagyu or whatever.

Without that missing detail you're not giving TNG useful information to understand and perhaps heed your warnings. What exactly if anything is the risk about Wagyu or is it literally not Wagyu related but simply an ET risk? What experience would be most useful for TNG to later do these recips? Can you fill in those details?

 

[H and H]

TNG - I am going to differ with the rest of the crowd here, you seem to be educated in the large animal "registered" breeding business and seem open to some level of risk. If you do your homework, the risk can be minimized. Health risks can be assessed via blood testing for: Johne's, anamplasmosis and leukosis. I recommend having all potential recips tested to ensure that the ensuing calf can be sold as breeding stock. Once the recip is of breeding age, the vet can check out the reproductive tract of the heifer to ensure suitability (pelvic area, ovarian cysts, etc.). The risk with your scenario is that you will spend 9-15 months developing a bucket calf, only to find out she is not a suitable recip. You may be better off buying Bangs Vaccinated breeding stock from a reputable local breeder, this animal will be closer to breeding age and you can get all the blood work done before you bring her/them home. That being said - you are going to increase the cost of your recip 5-10x.

Regarding my previous post:

1) My recommendation for the dairy recip was solely based on her ability to milk and handle multiple calves (i.e. nurse cows). If you were starting with Jersey crosses, they are typically smaller than purebred 'steins so the whole feed efficiency argument isn't really relevant

2) Since you are wanting to sell breeding stock waygu - implanting multiple embryos (unless they are sexed) per dairy recip is out - due to the risk of free martins.

Depending on your level of experience, having a certified embryologist "set up", heat detect, and implant your embryos is not that big of deal. In fact, most of them will sell you a recip, confirmed bred, with your embryo for a fee. Last year, our vet would sell us a confirmed pregnant recip for $1900. It is all a matter of how much you want to do on your own and what you are willing to pay.

If you are "one and done" with the recips, then beef heifers may be the way to go. You can breed her back after she calves and make a tidy sum by selling a second calf "heifer" after she weans the waygu calf.

Maybe I am willing to take more risk than most, but if you are confident in the market and your business model shows a profit - go all in. There isn't much difference in delivering a high end embryo and a commercial beef calf. It's simply a matter of risk tolerance if things go south.

If you don't mind me asking, how much are you spending on the embryos and what age are you planning on selling the waygu?

 

[H and H]

TNG - what is th ecalving ease/BW of the waygu embryos that you want to implant?

Are you planning on using sexed embryos, if so sexed heifer embryos may work better on first calf heifer recips (speaking strictly on CE)?