Putangitangi
Well-known member
*************":2gx9ezjw said:...How do you explain, maybe we suck at A.I. or it could be that A.I. is a bit more challenging than everyone would have you think. A bull is going to pound it out around the clock, you only have one shot with a small vial of semen and you are hoping that you can get her up at the absolute right time in the cycle. ... I use a monitor and sometimes a cow will be in the sweet spot to breed at 2:30 a.m. on a night that is pouring rain. Am I going to go breed her at that time and under those conditions, most likely no, is a bull? You bet. That is why it can take multiple attempts, I may not breed her at the perfect time, I might wait until the next day which may be too late, or I will breed her too early because I know that I won't be getting up at 3:00 a.m. to breed a cow. I hope this lengthy explanation clears the air.
If your cow is in "the sweet spot" at 2.30am, then she's likely still in the sweet spot four hours later when it gets light. It's not quite that critical unless you're using sexed semen and if you're going to that effort, why not get out there at the right time for the saving of three weeks? You can't buy time.
*************":2gx9ezjw said:...I find that AI'ng a cow that is over 8 years old becomes a more challenging thing to accomplish. Some settle just fine, others seem to take a while. ...
I can't see why that should be. Heifers used to be my tough ones, but only because they were physically more difficult to AI with a tiny virgin cervix. Experience has made that no more difficult than older cows now.
*************":2gx9ezjw said:...We have an AI tech who is very experienced, ... He could AI blindfolded and he will be the first to tell you that anyone who says it's easy is full of sh..t! He knows very good and well that it can take multiple tries on some animals. He mentioned this the other day "It was easy to AI dairy cows, they came in the barn every day, but AI'ng an entire beef herd is a whole different ballgame"
If AI were so easy, everyone would be doing it, which is not the case in our area, as you well know.
We're all AIing "blindfolded"; that's the nature of being inside a cow. I was talking to one of my old trainers the other day, who was telling me when he got back into AI he'd been out of the business for 30 years and when he did it again, it was as if he'd never had a break. It isn't hard if you know what you're doing and have become good at it. Sure some people can't do it or find it hard but people who can do it do not find it hard.
Yes, I'm often full of ****, I can live with that: it gets in my ears, around the back of my head if my cow swings her tail in annoyance, sometimes down my gumboots and often down the front of my clothes. It's summer, so I don't care, just strip off and wash everything down. But I can AI to a near 80% conception rate, so four out of five cows I AI are pregnant on the first shot. I love the AI season. I get a real kick out of introducing new genetics to my lovely herd.
I prefer my cows to calve within a six-week window, so I do everything I can to get them all in calf within about 35 days. Usually I don't quite make that but as the herd is reasonably short-gestation (average 278/280 on heifers/bulls), I have time up my sleeve. I calve in the same months each year.
So yeah, I reckon maybe, as you suggest, you aren't as good at AI or heat detection as you'd like to think, despite all the gizmos you have to help. I'd love to have detectors to tell me when they start standing and when they stop and how active they were in between but I have more time than money and a summer out in the fields with the cows, gradually quieting them all as I wander around checking every few hours, isn't a bad life to live.