Latest results of a timed AI study

[dun]

http://extension.missouri.edu/lawrence/ ... 3.2008.pdf

 

[bandit80]

I find it interesting how they have data on some bulls that perform well in fixed time AI, and others that don't. I have used fixed time AI in the past with mixed results. I used 10 straws of one particular bull, and only got three calves. Hhmmmmm....

 

[TexasBred]

Bandit..you just need a bit more practice... All joking aside, it seems the did research on every facet except the abilities and techniques of the technician.

 

[dun]

Bandit..you just need a bit more practice... All joking aside, it seems the did research on every facet except the abilities and techniques of the technician.

There is another more complete article but I can;t get a link to it and I'm not going to type it all in. It was the same group of techs for these tests as it was for the earlier tests.
These results sure shows that while one producer may have good success with timed AI others don;t have much success at all. Doesn;t explain why, but it validates that there are differences.

 

[TexasBred]

yep...and hard to replicate all the circumstances within a test as well. One factor that changes the least tho is the technician. Course I guess he/she can have a bad day sometimes as well. hangover... lack of sleep...That would play h&11 with everything.

 

[dun]

Something else they didn;t address was the semen source. Different studs use different extenders, process', and concentrations of live sperm.

 

[bandit80]

Bandit..you just need a bit more practice... All joking aside, it seems the did research on every facet except the abilities and techniques of the technician.

It is interesting that on my heifers, I have achieved 75%+ each year I have used CIDRs and timed AI. I have used several different sires from ABS and Cattlemen's Connection and gotten very good results. The cows have been the same way, just with a much less conception rate. Maybe to achieve good conception rates with CIDRs on cows, you must heat detect and AI. That's what I did this year, so in about 285 days from May 2-4, I will have some results for everyone. I would be pleased with 66% across the board each year.

 

[KNERSIE]

Bandit..you just need a bit more practice... All joking aside, it seems the did research on every facet except the abilities and techniques of the technician.

It is interesting that on my heifers, I have achieved 75%+ each year I have used CIDRs and timed AI. I have used several different sires from ABS and Cattlemen's Connection and gotten very good results. The cows have been the same way, just with a much less conception rate. Maybe to achieve good conception rates with CIDRs on cows, you must heat detect and AI. That's what I did this year, so in about 285 days from May 2-4, I will have some results for everyone. I would be pleased with 66% across the board each year.

Surely there must be someone who use CIDRs that heat detects and AI on these boards? I would be very interested in the difference in conception rate with heat detection and AI vs strictly timed breeding.

 

[hillsdown]

One year we just did time breeding in our heifers, our conception was horrible. Less than 30%. The strange thing also was that all of Boo Boo settled but the other two kinds of semen used was 1 in 5.

With actual heat detection we are at around 85 %.

Actual heat detection is always the best way to go.

I will add also that the only time we use CIDRS is when we flush and transplant.

 

[TexasBred]

Bandit..you just need a bit more practice... All joking aside, it seems the did research on every facet except the abilities and techniques of the technician.

It is interesting that on my heifers, I have achieved 75%+ each year I have used CIDRs and timed AI. I have used several different sires from ABS and Cattlemen's Connection and gotten very good results. The cows have been the same way, just with a much less conception rate. Maybe to achieve good conception rates with CIDRs on cows, you must heat detect and AI. That's what I did this year, so in about 285 days from May 2-4, I will have some results for everyone. I would be pleased with 66% across the board each year.

Surely there must be someone who use CIDRs that heat detects and AI on these boards? I would be very interested in the difference in conception rate with heat detection and AI vs strictly timed breeding.

Knersie...we don't do any timed breeding...... just natural heat cycles and breeding. My wife does the breeding and is running 100% to date. Last year we culled one cow after inseminating 3 times and all others bred 1st service. We buy semen from Ultimate Genetics, but my AI Tech is "the best". :heart: :heart: :heart:

 

[bandit80]

It is interesting that on my heifers, I have achieved 75%+ each year I have used CIDRs and timed AI. I have used several different sires from ABS and Cattlemen's Connection and gotten very good results. The cows have been the same way, just with a much less conception rate. Maybe to achieve good conception rates with CIDRs on cows, you must heat detect and AI. That's what I did this year, so in about 285 days from May 2-4, I will have some results for everyone. I would be pleased with 66% across the board each year.

Surely there must be someone who use CIDRs that heat detects and AI on these boards? I would be very interested in the difference in conception rate with heat detection and AI vs strictly timed breeding.

Knersie...we don't do any timed breeding...... just natural heat cycles and breeding. My wife does the breeding and is running 100% to date. Last year we culled one cow after inseminating 3 times and all others bred 1st service. We buy semen from Ultimate Genetics, but my AI Tech is "the best". :heart: :heart: :heart:

Well isn't that sweet. :roll:

"Back in the day" when I was in high school and could be around the cows more, that is the way I did it as well. Just observe for heat and AI. We always ran a high conception rate. But college, other jobs, real world have forced me to synch them up to shorten the observation time. I have it in the back of my head that some point I would like to use CIDRs, heat detect and AI. I would then heat detect and AI for the next 25 or so days to catch any that didn't respond to the CIDR and those that didn't settle. No clean up bull. My biggest pet peeve is dealing with all of that testosterone on the farm. If I could pull that off, that would be about a 30 day calving window, and a very uniform calf crop. I know some operations AI twice, and if they don't settle they go down the road, this would just be an abbreviation of that.

 

[KNERSIE]

[

Maybe I should state this a little better.

When using the co-sync protocol what difference in expected conception rate would there be between fixed time AI and heat observation and AI, still using the same method of synchronization?

For example I use the two shot Estrumate protocol, I still heat observe and AI and had 90% settle on the first service. (last year was exceptional, I usually run at 75-85%) I AI'd the synchronized cows 12 after after beginning of observed standing heat instead of at the standard 72 and 96 hours. I heard the vet mention a figure that i'd be lucky to get 65% if I just time bred with the same protocol if I AI at both 72 and 96 hours. If you AI just on 84 it would be around 45% according to two different vets I talked to.

Now my question is how much difference in conception rate there would be if you use CIDRs and heat observe and breed 12 hours after onset of standing heat vs just AI at the standard 66 hours after pulling the CIDR and giving the shot of PGF2?

 

[TexasBred]

Bandit...I feel the same way. Really don't want a bull on the place.

 

[bandit80]

[

Maybe I should state this a little better.

When using the co-sync protocol what difference in expected conception rate would there be between fixed time AI and heat observation and AI, still using the same method of synchronization?

For example I use the two shot Estrumate protocol, I still heat observe and AI and had 90% settle on the first service. (last year was exceptional, I usually run at 75-85%) I AI'd the synchronized cows 12 after after beginning of observed standing heat instead of at the standard 72 and 96 hours. I heard the vet mention a figure that i'd be lucky to get 65% if I just time bred with the same protocol if I AI at both 72 and 96 hours. If you AI just on 84 it would be around 45% according to two different vets I talked to.

Now my question is how much difference in conception rate there would be if you use CIDRs and heat observe and breed 12 hours after onset of standing heat vs just AI at the standard 66 hours after pulling the CIDR and giving the shot of PGF2?

I will be able to tell you next year about mid-February!!! In all seriousness, the best % preg rates from a timed AI study on cows that I have seen is an average 66%. Heifers are a little higher than that. One of the vets that works at the clinic I use has a herd of 20 cows. The last 2 years he has pulled the CIDRs and heat detected and bred 12 hours after the onset of standing heat like you describe. He has gotten 14 and 15 AI calves the last two years, and each year he had 19 cows "respond" to the CIDR. So, he is running about 75%. I know if I got 75% preg rates out of a synchronization protocol, I would do cartwheels back home from the barn.

 

[KNERSIE]

I will be able to tell you next year about mid-February!!! In all seriousness, the best % preg rates from a timed AI study on cows that I have seen is an average 66%. Heifers are a little higher than that. One of the vets that works at the clinic I use has a herd of 20 cows. The last 2 years he has pulled the CIDRs and heat detected and bred 12 hours after the onset of standing heat like you describe. He has gotten 14 and 15 AI calves the last two years, and each year he had 19 cows "respond" to the CIDR. So, he is running about 75%. I know if I got 75% preg rates out of a synchronization protocol, I would do cartwheels back home from the barn.

Bandit, how much variation was there in the time getting to standing heat after the CIDR was pulled and the pgf2 injected? Just curious to see how big that window is.

 

[Victoria]

Currently we are doing timed AI with CIDRs. We have had our vet doing our AI for us and to keep the cost down we do it this way. This has been our third year of it. We are learning that one particular bull just does not seem to work, even though we had his semen re-tested and were assured it was fine. So the part in the study that mentioned bulls I found interesting. We put him in with a cow that has caught the last two years and we will see what happens. Our luck with cows has been better than heifers but we are only at 50 -60 percent until this year. We used only older heifers and a couple of cows who have caught before and it looks like we have an 80% success rate. I am going to take the AI course this winter and will try doing my own next year by heat detecting, it seems the cheaper and more effective way to go.

 

[Sage]

We switched from heat detection to timed AI last year. We had a 73% conception rate on one service all timed. Some cows will come in a bit early, if you watch and breed them on heat your rates will be a bit better. We couldn't spend the quality time heat detecting before. Conception rates dropped a little, about 4%, but total breed up increased since we were missing cows in heat before.

 

[bandit80]

I will be able to tell you next year about mid-February!!! In all seriousness, the best % preg rates from a timed AI study on cows that I have seen is an average 66%. Heifers are a little higher than that. One of the vets that works at the clinic I use has a herd of 20 cows. The last 2 years he has pulled the CIDRs and heat detected and bred 12 hours after the onset of standing heat like you describe. He has gotten 14 and 15 AI calves the last two years, and each year he had 19 cows "respond" to the CIDR. So, he is running about 75%. I know if I got 75% preg rates out of a synchronization protocol, I would do cartwheels back home from the barn.

Bandit, how much variation was there in the time getting to standing heat after the CIDR was pulled and the pgf2 injected? Just curious to see how big that window is.

Of the 23 cows, this is how they came into heat.


Pulled the CIDRs on Thursday morning, 6am.

2 standing Friday 6pm
2 standing at 10pm

3 standing Sat morning 7am
4 standing Sat evening 8pm

3 more standing Sun morning 7am
5 more standing by Sun noon

The remaining 4 I gave GNRH and AI'd 84 hours after pulling the CIDR. I would have rather heat detected for 2 more days, but had to go back to work Monday and didn't think I could catch them. They may have come into heat on their own, but I will never know I reckon. Hope this helps.

 

[KNERSIE]

Thanks that was pretty much what I wanted to hear. Did you inject Gnrh when you AI'd or just the few that didn't come into observed heat?

 

[dun]

Thanks that was pretty much what I wanted to hear. Did you inject Gnrh when you AI'd or just the few that didn't come into observed heat?

We start charting heat cycles a month or 2 before the start of our breeding season. Anything that we haven;t observed in heat by the end of the first 3 weeks of breeding season we;ll give the GnRH. Only happens once every few years. Never have given it when we bred.