Recipient Cows

[Buck]

I have had purebred simmental for the past 3 years and was thinking about buying some embryo's to implant next spring. My question is that I see some embryo's put into commercial cows and then I see some put into purebred cows. What would be the difference? Is there a benifit one way or the other?

 

[jnowack]

We use our own purebreds for recips just because we already have them here and we can put an egg in and turn out with the herdbulls. I the embryo doesn't take, we still have a registered calf. I would like to find a good commercial producer in the area to put embryos in their cows and buy back at weaning.
The actual breed of the recip is not a big deal if they can have a calf, do a good job raising it and they are not wild. Some people like dairy cross recips but they can get some big birthweights. I know...birthweights don't matter on ET calves, but perspective buyers will still be leary of the big ones.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

"Papers" on cows don't matter. All that matters is that they are large enough to calve easily, FERTILE, milk well to raise a super growthy calf, and good disposition.
So, yes, using your Simm cows for recips is fine. And like jnowack said, if they don't stick, you just breed them to your bull choice. Conception is lower in ET vs AI, so you want a good fertile cow that did not have any calving difficulties prior to this implant service, or use virgin heifers. This way you don't have to worry about any infections in the cow to lower conception rate.

 

[Frankie]

I have had purebred simmental for the past 3 years and was thinking about buying some embryo's to implant next spring. My question is that I see some embryo's put into commercial cows and then I see some put into purebred cows. What would be the difference? Is there a benifit one way or the other?

I don't know about Simmentals, but Angus embryos put into commercial cows don't have EPDs and their performance data (BW, WW, etc.) is not accepted by the Assn. If they're raised by a registered Angus cow with EPDs, their performance information is accepted and they will have EPDs.

 

[Frankie]

I would like to find a good commercial producer in the area to put embryos in their cows and buy back at weaning.

Be careful who you choose. A friend of ours lost both money and time by using the wrong partner.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I have had purebred simmental for the past 3 years and was thinking about buying some embryo's to implant next spring. My question is that I see some embryo's put into commercial cows and then I see some put into purebred cows. What would be the difference? Is there a benifit one way or the other?

I don't know about Simmentals, but Angus embryos put into commercial cows don't have EPDs and their performance data (BW, WW, etc.) is not accepted by the Assn. If they're raised by a registered Angus cow with EPDs, their performance information is accepted and they will have EPDs.

Really??? :shock: What difference does the recip have on the calf's EPD's. Granted, the recip will effect the calf's BW & WW, but that is taken into account with EPD's by ASA. I don't normally question anything you have to say concerning Angus info, but many Angus breeders use commercial cows for recips, and hard to believe they are sacraficing getting EPD's.
I guess if it's true, I think it's a poor rule. But, of course, it would be another way to "force" breeders to use papered cows, making more demand for papered cows.

 

[Frankie]

I have had purebred simmental for the past 3 years and was thinking about buying some embryo's to implant next spring. My question is that I see some embryo's put into commercial cows and then I see some put into purebred cows. What would be the difference? Is there a benifit one way or the other?

I don't know about Simmentals, but Angus embryos put into commercial cows don't have EPDs and their performance data (BW, WW, etc.) is not accepted by the Assn. If they're raised by a registered Angus cow with EPDs, their performance information is accepted and they will have EPDs.

Really??? :shock: What difference does the recip have on the calf's EPD's. Granted, the recip will effect the calf's BW & WW, but that is taken into account with EPD's by ASA. I don't normally question anything you have to say concerning Angus info, but many Angus breeders use commercial cows for recips, and hard to believe they are sacraficing getting EPD's.
I guess if it's true, I think it's a poor rule. But, of course, it would be another way to "force" breeders to use papered cows, making more demand for papered cows.

We have a fundamental difference in how Simmentals and Angus Associations look at EPDs. How can you adjust for milk from a crossbred cow? If you put identical embryos in a half Jersey cow and a half Limousin cow, you'll probably get considerably different weaning weights. The Angus Assn doesn't think that's reliable enough information to use in the EPD database. But if you use an Angus cow with an EPD for milk, WW, you have some valid information to give the calf EPDs.

The calf can have EPDs, just not at birth. If the calf is tied to other animals on the Angus Assn database, dam, sire, siblings, as soon as she weans a calf and her data gets reported, she'll have EPDs.

We've kicked ourselves for years for not buying a heifer without EPDs at a sale. Her dam was flushed as a heifer, then sold. The new owner never reported any data on her calves, he only flushed her and used crossbred cows, so this heifer didn't have EPDs. She still sold for more than we wanted to pay, but you look back sometimes and say, rats, should have got that one. :( Or at least tried to get her.

 

[jnowack]

I would like to find a good commercial producer in the area to put embryos in their cows and buy back at weaning.

Be careful who you choose. A friend of ours lost both money and time by using the wrong partner.

Thanks Frankie

That is one of my big concerns. There are a few that I think I could trust but their calving season is too spread out and I don't think they would want the hassle of setting them up.

 

[Aero]

we like to use registered recips for 2 reasons.

1. using reg recips allows us to get growth ratios for the calves into the Angus Assoc database. there are no ratios for comm recip calves.

2. there are some pretty neat biological theories that show that when embryos and recips are close in blood, less embryonic rejection and better calf performance is probable and observable on a small scale.

 

[SEC]

Aero, that's sounds pretty neat. I have never heard anything like that before.

 

[Beef11]

2. there are some pretty neat biological theories that show that when embryos and recips are close in blood, less embryonic rejection and better calf performance is probable and observable on a small scale.

I haven't seen any research on calf performance measured according to background of the recip. I would suspect that a good F1 female would make a great recip and have a slightly lower embryo loss %. I don't know if being similar in breed will make much of a difference as far as embryos go.

I have seen breeders get upset at ET calves because "they didn't perform" this same breeder flushed the cow with the biggest calf at weaning and put the embryos in the cows with dink calves. The result was dink ET calves, to me he was selecting donors on milking ability and was shocked when the ET calves didn't do well on his poor milking cows. Interesting post i'll have to snoop around and see if i can find some recip comparison data.

 

[Aero]

2. there are some pretty neat biological theories that show that when embryos and recips are close in blood, less embryonic rejection and better calf performance is probable and observable on a small scale.

I haven't seen any research on calf performance measured according to background of the recip. I would suspect that a good F1 female would make a great recip and have a slightly lower embryo loss %. I don't know if being similar in breed will make much of a difference as far as embryos go.

I have seen breeders get upset at ET calves because "they didn't perform" this same breeder flushed the cow with the biggest calf at weaning and put the embryos in the cows with dink calves. The result was dink ET calves, to me he was selecting donors on milking ability and was shocked when the ET calves didn't do well on his poor milking cows. Interesting post i'll have to snoop around and see if i can find some recip comparison data.

this is based on the body's rejection tolerance. when the body thinks the biological material is completely unrelated, it calls it "foreign" and this lends itself to lower conception rate. if there is no embryonic mortality even though the body tries to reject it, there is still a lot of inflamation and irritation where the placenta attaches.

when an ET calf is born, if you see a lot of red and possibly puss-like liquid that is not normally there, the embry was probably rejected to a point and this rejection causes the placenta to be smaller from damage which is a result of the rejection. the reduced placenta size directly impacts the development of calf and not just in birth weight. these effects can be observed well through weaning.

this is a project that a friend of mine is working on and doesnt have any formal report for it yet.

pretty much, when you look at the placenta:
if you see excess blood and puss, the recip probably rejected the calf and is likely to not perform as well as others.

if you spread out the placentas of these calves, it has also noticed that the area the placenta takes up is reduced.

this was explained to me by a PhD and the smartest man I know. i imagine there is much to be desired in the conveyance of the full message.

 

[Beef11]

Is your buddy doing this for his Phd? I have been around some cloned calves and cloned fetus' and it has been observed that they tend to have far fewer cotyledons. I wonder if this is related to your buddys research? This is right up my ally and i'm very interested in learning more about this, when the report is in a formalized form i would be very interested in getting a hard copy. keep me posted i would be happy to pay for printing/shipping costs.

 

[jaydill]

Is your buddy doing this for his Phd? I have been around some cloned calves and cloned fetus' and it has been observed that they tend to have far fewer cotyledons. I wonder if this is related to your buddys research? This is right up my ally and i'm very interested in learning more about this, when the report is in a formalized form i would be very interested in getting a hard copy. keep me posted i would be happy to pay for printing/shipping costs.

Ditto this for myself. It's actually right up the ally I plan to get into once I've finished college.

 

[Beef11]

So you're coming over to my alley.

 

[jaydill]

So you're coming over to my alley.

You betcha!

 

[Aero]

he had his PhD 45 yrs ago and taught at Iowa state almost the entire time.

i dont know the full details of what he has done; he just lets me in on a few things here and there.

 

[Tod Dague]

I have had purebred simmental for the past 3 years and was thinking about buying some embryo's to implant next spring. My question is that I see some embryo's put into commercial cows and then I see some put into purebred cows. What would be the difference? Is there a benifit one way or the other?

I don't know about Simmentals, but Angus embryos put into commercial cows don't have EPDs and their performance data (BW, WW, etc.) is not accepted by the Assn. If they're raised by a registered Angus cow with EPDs, their performance information is accepted and they will have EPDs.

Really??? :shock: What difference does the recip have on the calf's EPD's. Granted, the recip will effect the calf's BW & WW, but that is taken into account with EPD's by ASA. I don't normally question anything you have to say concerning Angus info, but many Angus breeders use commercial cows for recips, and hard to believe they are sacraficing getting EPD's.
I guess if it's true, I think it's a poor rule. But, of course, it would be another way to "force" breeders to use papered cows, making more demand for papered cows.

We have a fundamental difference in how Simmentals and Angus Associations look at EPDs. How can you adjust for milk from a crossbred cow? If you put identical embryos in a half Jersey cow and a half Limousin cow, you'll probably get considerably different weaning weights. The Angus Assn doesn't think that's reliable enough information to use in the EPD database. But if you use an Angus cow with an EPD for milk, WW, you have some valid information to give the calf EPDs.

The calf can have EPDs, just not at birth. If the calf is tied to other animals on the Angus Assn database, dam, sire, siblings, as soon as she weans a calf and her data gets reported, she'll have EPDs.

We've kicked ourselves for years for not buying a heifer without EPDs at a sale. Her dam was flushed as a heifer, then sold. The new owner never reported any data on her calves, he only flushed her and used crossbred cows, so this heifer didn't have EPDs. She still sold for more than we wanted to pay, but you look back sometimes and say, rats, should have got that one. :( Or at least tried to get her.

What does the recips WW epd have to do with the performance of the ET calf?

 

[dun]

What does the recips WW epd have to do with the performance of the ET calf?

Maybe as a contribution to the weight due to milking abiilty. I know that's "theoretically" addressed on the milk and maternal, but................

 

[Aero]

What does the recips WW epd have to do with the performance of the ET calf?

Maybe as a contribution to the weight due to milking abiilty. I know that's "theoretically" addressed on the milk and maternal, but................

from my understanding, the recip's WW EPD has nothing to do with the calf. the Milk EPD allows the calf's performance to be evaluated for growth and Milk seperately. this way EPDs can be adjusted from the pedigree estimate.