ET for newbies

[JoyfulJerseys]

Hi all

I'm considering embryo transfer for my prize heifer, which I bought this past April. "Leah" is a pregnant Jersey due to calve in August at the age of 23 months. I've never had an ET done before though, so I have a lot of questions for the experienced breeders...
1. When would be the best age to flush Leah? I've been considering doing her after she calves, in her first lactation, but would this be too young with too little info on her reproductive history? Or too soon after her adjustment to the new area? August is also a bit of a tough time in our country - late winter, early spring.
2. Can you use sexed semen for an ET or is the fertility too low?
3. Is ET normally cost effective? Of course I have to do lots of research on prices and crunch some numbers, but I'm wondering what others' experiences are.
4. What is the ideal recipient cow?
5. Is ET cruel or painful to the donor or recipients?

Thanks guys!!

Have an awesome day

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Your first question should be WHY should you flush her? Is it just because you really like her or does she truly have superior genetics? Your second question needs to be WHAT will you do with the embryos? Sell them, or use them yourself?
Everyone is different, and it depends on how deep your pocket book runs. OUR cows that get the status of a flush have produced many superior calves, and thus a reason to flush. We want more females like the female we are flushing. Any good embryologist will recommend you NOT use sexed semen, since there are less embryos typically produced. We flushed ONCE with sexed, and got 12 unfertilized eggs. An expensive lesson that our vet told us not to do, but we wanted to try anyway. Is it cruel? I do not think so. It might be painful, since I too have had my uterus filled with fluid and I can say with 100% accuracy that IT HURT! But they are not in pain for a long time, and by looking at them you can not tell they are in pain. Our recips are our best cows, believe it or not. If they raise a great calf, we put an embryo in them at least once. We have a problem with too many embryos and not enough recips to put them in, so our SUPERIOR dams get AI'd and our great dams get an embryo. Is it cost effective? Never is. It will cost you more than you will get back, but you can afford genetics of other females a lot cheaper by taking a chance on an egg then buying a live heifer!
Hope that helped a little....

 

[WalnutCrest]

I agree with the above.

It is only in the extreme instance that a production-oriented operation would want to flush a female that hasn't put multiple top-notch calves on the ground (preferably of both sexes). And, in my instance, we're planning on flushing a very young heifer who is out of an excellent mother and very superior bull, but had bad frostbite (not her fault) ... and, since we're Aubrac seedstock producers, we believe we need to make a reasonable effort to see what this little lady can do.

 

[branguscowgirl]

Ditto on what the others have said. The female that I am flushing has proven herself over and over again with her calves, in the pasture, and in the show ring. I would not consider it otherwise.

 

[Nesikep]

I currently have 2 cows that I could possibly consider as good enough to do it, but it'll never happen, they're crossbreds and it just wouldn't be worth it. The two I'd consider at the moment are Caddy and Mega (if you've seen my pictures)

 

[dun]

I wish I had flushed Granny. The way her daughters and grandaughters perform I wish I had a pasture full of them. I was BSing with the vet the other day and he said we out to dig her up and get a tooth and have hercloned from the tooth DNA. He was kidding!

 

[branguscowgirl]

I wish I had flushed Granny. The way her daughters and grandaughters perform I wish I had a pasture full of them. I was BSing with the vet the other day and he said we out to dig her up and get a tooth and have hercloned from the tooth DNA. He was kidding!

Wouldn't it would be nice if it was that easy! Cloning our favorite dog, cow, horse.

 

[dun]

I wish I had flushed Granny. The way her daughters and grandaughters perform I wish I had a pasture full of them. I was BSing with the vet the other day and he said we out to dig her up and get a tooth and have hercloned from the tooth DNA. He was kidding!

Wouldn't it would be nice if it was that easy! Cloning our favorite dog, cow, horse.

Yeah, and cheap enough that you could actaully afford to do it.

 

[branguscowgirl]

Dun, I am afraid that if I could clone the animals that I have loved, I would have way too many! :lol:

 

[sim.-ang.king]

I wish I had flushed Granny. The way her daughters and grandaughters perform I wish I had a pasture full of them. I was BSing with the vet the other day and he said we out to dig her up and get a tooth and have hercloned from the tooth DNA. He was kidding!

Wouldn't it would be nice if it was that easy! Cloning our favorite dog, cow, horse.

Yeah, and cheap enough that you could actaully afford to do it.

You can get your cows cloned from some lab in Texas I believe, and the price ain't bad if you have a gold mine in your backyard. :lol2:
I have one cow i'm going to keep a flesh sample of when she dies, and freeze it till cloning is cost effective.

 

[regolith]

Good points above for *beef* operations.

I've never done ET, don't quite have the sort of quality cows yet that I want to be starting on. So these are just thoughts.

Be realistic about what Leah has to offer. Do you know her dam's history and her grandam's, any half sisters, every piece of information you can get to indicate how good her genes are. Find out what it might cost to flush her and weigh that against your other options for using that investment to improve your herd... you might be able to buy in genetics just as good as what you might obtain by flushing what you've got.

If you've got that information and decide to go ahead with flushing and ET, don't use sexed semen. It'll lower your chances of success.

Are you seasonal calving in spring? From what I've heard ET can delay a cow's conceiving normally, so could put her yearly calving interval back if done after calving. It would be an ideal time however to synchronise some of your other cows that are ready to get back in calf and have them ready to receive embryos. The ideal recip in this case is a healthy cow who isn't good enough to retain her own heifers in the herd, and isn't likely to be culled before next calving.

If you've got the confidence in Leah's background, go ahead and do it while she's young. Sure, it would be nice to wait and see if she's your top production 2 year old and can get in calf quickly... but its her genetics you want and there's a significant environment/luck factor contributing to a cow's performance. Plus cows can be accident prone, especially top cows.
The cows you want to flush are the top 10% (or 2%) of your herd. If you weren't focussing on one cow, but on the herd as a whole, I'd be inclined to pick mature cows out of that top 10% for production, that are also sound on all other important traits.

Crikey you guys are busy posting while i'm thinking
y'all know you can harvest ovaries and have the oocytes matured in the a test-tube right? They were doing that back in '97 when I was researching the subject, the early research was done with harvested ovaries from culled cows.

 

[regolith]

So are you going to flush her best daughter Dun?

 

[dun]

So are you going to flush her best daughter Dun?

No, I'm not young enough to be able to see the final product.

 

[regolith]

So are you going to flush her best daughter Dun?

No, I'm not young enough to be able to see the final product.

You've lasted this long!
Another three years (and deep pockets) you could have a heifer line full of them.
From what I've seen of your cows they're a good herd already.

 

[branguscowgirl]

y'all know you can harvest ovaries and have the oocytes matured in the a test-tube right? They were doing that back in '97 when I was researching the subject, the early research was done with harvested ovaries from culled cows.

I really don't know anything about that, unless you mean invetro (sp) fertilization? If so, my cow would have to be shipped too far away.

 

[regolith]

y'all know you can harvest ovaries and have the oocytes matured in the a test-tube right? They were doing that back in '97 when I was researching the subject, the early research was done with harvested ovaries from culled cows.

I really don't know anything about that, unless you mean invetro (sp) fertilization? If so, my cow would have to be shipped too far away.

Your cow has been eaten by that stage, you don't need to worry about shipping her anywhere.
I found that report I wrote in '97 and yes, it is in vitro production. I also noted that at the time of writing in the UK all cows 30 months and over were ineligible to have their ovaries harvested (because of BSE controls).

 

[branguscowgirl]

y'all know you can harvest ovaries and have the oocytes matured in the a test-tube right? They were doing that back in '97 when I was researching the subject, the early research was done with harvested ovaries from culled cows.

I really don't know anything about that, unless you mean invetro (sp) fertilization? If so, my cow would have to be shipped too far away.

Your cow has been eaten by that stage, you don't need to worry about shipping her anywhere.
I found that report I wrote in '97 and yes, it is in vitro production. I also noted that at the time of writing in the UK all cows 30 months and over were ineligible to have their ovaries harvested (because of BSE controls).

Regolith, what I am thinking of, is they harvest eggs only and fertilize them in a petre dish. No one does that here local. My cow would have to travel out of state. I would not want to do that at her age.

 

[regolith]

Got our threads crossed...

You lot were talking about cloning deceased cows when I butted in with that comment.
You've got a live cow and are able to do MOET in the usual manner if you want to further her genetics.
The egg harvesting is something you might want to use if your best cow drops dead and you can get her ovaries out and bury the rest of her.
The 'lump of flesh on ice' isn't a bad idea either but I think it needs to be in nitrogen, a home freezer isn't quite cold enough.

This is part of why I say if you've got a good young cow to go ahead and do it... yes, you might spend a lot of money and be disappointed with the results, but you won't have to regret not doing it later. A few months back I shipped the best Jersey I've ever owned without doing ET work on her, ask me what I think of that in ten years time, because right now I don't know how far I am from breeding another that good the slow way. I've also just lost a young cow whose genetics I really wanted to retain in the herd, who has never had a heifer.

 

[JoyfulJerseys]

Thanks everyone for all the input - I really appreciate it. And sorry for the delay in replying.
I would definitely say Leah is in the top 2% of my tiny herd... I have only 21 registered animals and Leah is the only one who combines pedigree and performance. Obviously I don't know what her production is like, but she was supreme heifer champion at her last show. She also comes from an outstanding dam line, the Lobellias... very well known in our country, and highly esteemed. She had an EX-92 maternal granddam who milked seven lactations and produced over 44 000kg of milk; her dam has only milked two lactations but each one with a butterfat percentage of over 4.9. Her paternal grandsire was Maximum out of Tenn Haug E Maid (who needs no introduction).
None of the others really have a pedigree approaching Leah's, which is why I chose her. And forgive me for bragging. I'm still a little giddy from the wonderful excitement of getting this heifer