Sexed embryos Uruguay

[Lorenzo]

Well my friends, here I am back again bothering you with new pictures of what we have been doing during the last year.

We have produced and transfered 2,300 sexed embryos for an international (NZ) dairy company which is established in my country.

Finally we ended with 900 pregnat cows.

The idea was to use cheap hereford as receips of the sexed embryos obteined from holstein oocytes and jersey sexed semen. The oocytes we pick them up at the slaughter houses. So we transfered 2,300 holstein x jersey females embryos and end up with 900 pregnat meat cows.

The embryos were produced by in Vitro fertilization at my lab.

You will see that the colour is similar to a dark jersey.

Enjoy the pictures, it was a really HARD work to achieve this, the number of cows we have to work with to be able to transfer 2,300 embryos in 9 months was huge, and everyone ended very tired.

Here we are watching another pack of future mothers

Hope you have enjoyed them

Lorenzo

 

[alexfarms]

That is less than 40% pregnancies on the embryos. Is that what you usually expect?

Beautifull pictures. Love that lush green grass. It reminds me of my previous home in northeast Nebraska, with our lush brome and timothy pastures.

 

[Lorenzo]

Alex,

Do you know what 40% means when we are talking about using sexed semen and being all of them females??

The cows that don't get pregnat you can use it again and again for a new female pregnacy, you don't have to abort them if they are pregnat of male calfs which doesn't have any value.

The males in the dairy industry don't have any value and are killed as soon as they born, so doing this you are duplicating your dairy female population in a few years allowing you country to double it's milk production much quicker...

Not right now because of the global crisis but a few months ago a holstein cow cost here around $ 1,000

L

 

[Lorenzo]

Look it this way, a hereford cow costs 250 bucks against a dairy cow that usually costs $ 1,000 (not right now :cry2: ). So you use your meat cattle to produce an dairy offspring that values MUCH more than a meat calf.

L

 

[hillsdown]

The idea was to use cheap hereford as receips of the sexed embryos obteined from holstein oocytes and jersey sexed semen. The oocytes we pick them up at the slaughter houses. So we transfered 2,300 holstein x jersey females embryos and end up with 900 pregnat meat cows.

I don't understand this , so your used mediocre genetics and put all that money/work to get a female out of a cull cow ??Why not use embryos from deep pedigreed high producing Holsteins ????It seems a lot of money and time put into an average at best heifer..

40 % success rate is normal for frozen sexed embryos. Another question were the embryos actually sexed or was just the semen sexed, and were they fresh or frozen embryos when implanted ? Also what grade of embryo was the minimum that you implanted ?

 

[Lorenzo]

Well, let start by the beggining.

Good cows also go to slaughter houses now and then, or not ???

Only grade one embryos. We fertilize the oocytes with sexed semen so the embryos were sexed.

IVF embryos must be transfered fresh, not frozen, because the pregnacy rate is not good with frozen IVF embryos.

Why you think we use mediocre genetics ??? :?

Holstein genetics in my country are very good as we have been using the best canadian and american genetics to build our herds, but if you say they are not good...

So this above average holstein cows oocytes were fertilzed with american sexed jersey semen from SS and ABS.

Look, IVF embryos must be worked fresh. As you may know, semen suffers a lot when sexed and also the sexed straws have less millions of sperm cells than normal semen straws.

You say that 40% is a normal pregnacy rate when using frozen sexed embryos.

I am talking about IVF embryos and obviously you are talking about flushed embryos.

Do you know how many sexed straws do you need to inseminate a cow for flushing ? FOUR to obtain an average of 5 embryos.

Do you know how much sexed embryos we (IVF) produce using ONE sexed straw ? 100

So lets compare apples with apples.

It's amazing, I have been in contact with people of the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and they were very excited about our experience, they even took all the data to study it. And here is seems a less than average work :clap:

Well, I guess that is life.

Good luck.

Lorenzo

 

[Lorenzo]

Our facilities, where we produce the ivf embryos.

L

 

[CKC1586]

Fascinating how our countries do things differently. I once asked why we don't do IVF and was told because it was too costly, and didn't you say before that in your country flushing was more costly for you? Impressive looking facility you have pictured. Thank you for sharing your information and as always, love to see your pictures.

 

[Lorenzo]

Thanks for your words.

IVF and flushed embryos are both good, but depending the situation one is better than other.
I export a lot of embryos, but I export flushed embryos because the pregnacy rate is good. It cost less an ivf embryo but they don't have a good pregnacy rate if you frozen them, so for long distances (exporting) you must use flushed embryos.

Also when you want to produce embryos from a given cow and you don't have enough receips you will do better producing flushing embryos.

Both technologies are good, one must choose depending the circunstances which will work better.

Well, I must go to sleep, today was a looong day.

Cheers

L

 

[hillsdown]

I was saying sub par because do you have registration papers and milk records from the culled Holsteins you used, also the main reason Holsteins are culled is infertility..

BTY Alberta Embryo Group has been doing this for years and are quite ahead with their research, the problem with them is that the embryologists become so good that they move to the states and work with humans instead.. ;-) . The last time I was there they were taking oocytes from pregnant cows and doing IVF with them although not quite as fancy of a laboratory as the one you have in Uruguay,, also sexed semen is not 100% so have you had any surprises yet ?

All in all it is a huge undertaking and congratulations on all your research and effort you indeed should be very proud, just curious but how much funding would an undertaking such as this cost ??..It must be quite the site in person to see all those new moms and babies running around.. :tiphat:

Are you a genetic physicist or an embryologist Lorenzo ?

 

[tlmcr]

Lorenzo:

What an project, you should be proud. I have no dairy experience and wondered why the cross breeding of the Jersey and Holstein instead of straight Holstein?

 

[Australian]

Come back anytime Lorenz. Its great to see other parts of the world.
Colin :clap:

 

[Australian]

Is Uruguay basically flat? Are there many mountains about?

 

[Lorenzo]

Well, I am leaving for a small tour around the country and I am returning tomorrow night but I will tell you this...

We also have been doing this for years, in the past we have hired people from the States and from Japan to help us improving our know how.

The thing is, and I am nearly sure, maybe I am wrong but I don't think so, that this is the first time in the world such a big number of cows have been transfered with ivf sexed embryos at the same time.

But this was not the important thing (or yes ?) the original post was to share something not very common with you guys, not to start a "who do it best" competiton.

But as I said, I think this is the first time ever in any part of the world that in a same farm, in a same program, under commercial circunstances and not testing, such thing happened. One of the biggest dairy companies in the world put a LOT of money in this, and believe me, they are not fools ;-)

Bye, I must grab my things...including my 30-06 for pig control this night :mrgreen:

L

 

[Lorenzo]

Lorenzo:

What an project, you should be proud. I have no dairy experience and wondered why the cross breeding of the Jersey and Holstein instead of straight Holstein?

Holstein x Jersey = Kiwi (dairy cattle for grass conditions). There are two schools, the american or canadian with their big cows which produce a lot but need also a lot of food including suplementation (corn, etc) and the New Zeland school with the "kiwis" cows which produce milk with less amount of suplementation.

They (americans and new zealanders) have been arguying about this for a while :nod:

Bye I am late !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

L

 

[Loch Valley Fold]

If your after Jersey cows that milk try some Aussie genetics, we have some good genetics that would suit your conditions

 

[iowahawkeyes]

Very impressive and exciting for you!

 

[KMacGinley]

Very interesting Lorenzo and very diplomatic on your part, in your response to the critics Of course going to grass dairying is very different from confinement and concrete and many of those culled infertile cows might not have been infertile if they were not kept in a cow concentration camp. By the way, how did you get eggs out of those "infertile" cows?

 

[Loch Valley Fold]

Good question I had wondered about that myself. I have also read in an AB magazine that using sexed semen for ET work is not recommended & that the sexed semen should only be used on heifers.

 

[regolith]

Where did Lorenzo say they were infertile cows?

I did a bit of reading on ET many, many years ago and at that stage it was routine to use abbatoir ovaries for practice - I have no idea how they actually extracted usable eggs, since usually they mature individually during the estrus cycle. There was also a practice of harvesting eggs from baby heifers via laparoscopy, which I would presume were also immature (the calves being pre-pubertal) - the aim being to reduce the generation interval and hence maximise genetic gain.

Those are beautiful heifers Lorenzo - congrats. I wonder if they'll mostly turn black when they grow up...