Schools out!!

[El_Putzo]

Finished up with AI school yesterday and wanted to hear any tips and tricks from you AI Gurus on little things to do to help with conception rates. I know that heat detection is a major factor, but are there any small things you do that you think gets you a little better conception rate, such as massaging the repro tract and/or clitoris.......

 

[LangCattleCompany]

Where did you do your school, and who through?

 

[El_Putzo]

Clark MO, which is just north of Columbia MO. The class was through Cattle Visions.

http://www.onlinebullstud.com/index.html

 

[Anonymous]

Heat detection is the most important and the rest is practice, practice, and practice. ;-)

 

[dun]

As has been posted, heat detection is the single most crucial elemnt of succesful AI. We use a horny steer, but painting the tail head or K-Mar patches or some of the newer silver looking scratch off patches work good too. A half hour morning and evening is the minimum. Looking in on them during the day also helps. In many ways it's like calving. Noticing anything that's unusual behaviour for that animal, looking for swelling of the vulva, etc. I just bred 2 heifers for the neighbor that showed no active signs of heat, no riding, chinning, being ridden, nothing. He saw the vulva swelling and when I bred them the mucus poured out and the cervix was so open you could drive a truck through it. After breeding a couple of the other heifers came over, sniffed them and wandered off.
After heat detection the other elemnts are all equaly important. Quality semen that has been properly handled through out it's span from collecting to deposition in the cow, proper deposition and placement, cow not overly agitated, experience, patience and cow side manner.

dun

 

[jenna]

Hi,
I'm fairly new at this to. I graduated about a year and a half ago. I do most of the ai work on our farm. the best thing I have found that helps is practice. Good technique is also vary important of course. We bred 41 the day the picture was taken. Luckily my mom helped out :lol:
good luck

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[AngusLimoX]

Is this a doctored picture? What happened to your hand??

:lol: :lol:

 

[CattleAnnie]

Jenna, you brave soul!

Where the sam hill are your coveralls (and wearing a white shirt - yoiks)?! :shock:

(Can you guess who does the laundry in our house? ;-) )

Seriously though, good to see another young person involved in agriculture.


Take care.

 

[edb130]

It may or may not help but when I use to AI all our dairy cattle I always did it in the milk barn where I could give the cow grain to eat while I inseminated her. I had very good conception rates and I tend to think it was because the cows were happy at the time. I've been thinking about putting a post with a feed pan swing arm next to my squeeze chute to feed the cows while I breed them. My conception rates are still very good but any little thing that helps including calming the animal can by useful IMO.

 

[buckaroo_bif]

Jenna do you always pet cows from behind like that?
I would be careful she might kick!

 

[jenna]

Didn't even notice the hand right away, must of been mom. My brother took the picture for a project in his ag class. And actually by the time we were done, my shirt was fairly clean yet. (just a lucky day I guess) I bred about half and mom did the rest. Also, I wouldn't think of breeding the beef or heifers like this, but I have never been kicked yet by the older dairy cows (knock on wood).
Jenna

 

[Bez!]

Hi,
I'm fairly new at this to. I graduated about a year and a half ago. I do most of the ai work on our farm. the best thing I have found that helps is practice. Good technique is also vary important of course. We bred 41 the day the picture was taken. Luckily my mom helped out :lol:
good luck

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Jenna

I really appreciated the pic.

I am also really happy to se someone your age involved in the industry.

Keep practising, keep increasing your education - look at it as a potential business - who knows where you will be in 10 years.

Good on ya',

Bez!

 

[Beef11]

I put alot of stress on careful and proper handling before you put it in the cow. If you kill it before you put it in there it doesn't matter how good you are. With AI you need to do it all well.

 

[Susie David]

Jenna, Great post...thanks for sharing. Hope that Dave doesn't start getting ideas...I have enough to do.
Susie

 

[Diehard40]

Hi,
I'm fairly new at this to. I graduated about a year and a half ago. I do most of the ai work on our farm. the best thing I have found that helps is practice. Good technique is also vary important of course. We bred 41 the day the picture was taken. Luckily my mom helped out
good luck

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jenna,
watch out where you point.

 

[MapleDream]

El_Putzo ~ Two important things you can do in breeding the cow to obtain higher conception rates would be Semen Placement and # 2 would be semen handling...Also Cleanliness

Jenna ~ What kind of thawing are you doing at your farm? Pocket, Warm Water, Milk?