shadyhollownj":13uptl8n said:
Ok so I run a small registered herd. I do have a budget and have been pondering this question. Is it better to say buy 6K in embryos and a half decent 5K cow OR say just buy a few embryos and buy a proven 5 yr old cow for 10k that could be a donor cow. My thoughts with the embryos would be that say for every four you would only result in two calves. Now that is a lot of time before it would pay off but you have the chance to get a real good ET heifer or bull. you could also spend 3K on those four embryos and get nothing special. Where as if you buy a proven donor type cow you would have a great proven cow that you could flush. I put my first embryos last year and calves are hitting the ground now so I know what the ET deal involves. So the question is what is the better way to advance your herd. Buy the expensive female or gamble with embryos? Just looking for peoples experiences.
The other day a friend of mine said that he was going to make himself up a T-shirt that reads:
"Everything I've learned, I've learned the hard way!" I told him to order mine in size 4XLT!
I'm very prejudiced in this discussion by my own experiences. I've bought 4 former donor cows from other breeders and I've also bought some proven older cows that had never been flushed, then had them flushed myself. The net sum total of all that expense, headache, and heartache is that I still have ONE average(at the best) cow in my herd from it.
Given the choice of buying a donor cow, or buying some embryos, I'd buy the embryos. And I would buy ALL embryos and NO donor cow! For one thing, you have a semi-known quantity with the embryos. Also, you can buy an assortment of embryos from different donors/bulls, so if you get a "knock 'em out" herd bull prospect, you'd have some diversity in your herd where you could actually use him, at least as a whale of a clean-up bull. If you buy a donor cow, all of your calves from her will be at least half-sibs = a much narrower gene pool.
Eventually, one of those embryos will turn into a cow that's truly "donor" quality - and you'll want to flush her. Regardless of which way you go with this, when you're dealing with flushing donors, embryos, and recips, there will be days where you'll be wondering: "Now, WHERE do I order that dang T-shirt?"
George