Synching and gender
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MistyMorning
Well-known member
With my small group here, the cows have produced 6 heifers to 2 bull calves.
MistyMorning
Well-known member
dun":2l3ufyrv said:
Yeah, timed AI.
cow pollinater
Well-known member
I think I remember seeing a study about ten years ago from the university of Illinois?????? They were trying a few different things with syncronization and calf sex and did show some results in the 70% range as I recall. Their best results(again by my recolection) were when they insemenated the cow about six hours before they gave her the gnrh. The conception rates made the most of the studies worthless for comercial use but they did make some heifers.
The AI industry has tried some goofy stuff to produce sorted semen. At one point one of the main studs was electrocuting entire batches of semen because they felt that the female semen was more tolerant of the treatment than the male semen was and deduced that they could simply kill all of the male sperm cells. :clap: As you may have already guessed, it wasn't exactly the best method that my industry has come up with to date but I AM glad that they tried it because before that they were kind of getting competitive in my area... Not anymore.
We've known for years that the sperm from each bull is quite different. Some bulls are great producers but we can't freeze their semen and impregnate a cow with it. Some bulls simply cannot be sorted with any accuracy while some bulls will produce sortable semen that is quite similar in conception to their conventionally packaged semen.... Every once in a great while if you REALLY keep track of what you've used in the past(and especially if you use alot of unproven bulls) you'll find a bull whose sperm of one sex won't survive the freezing/thawing cycle while the other one does
. Most of them will get culled for poor conception before anyone is aware of what happened but I've seen it more than once. I had a customer who bought five thousand units of what was basically four dollar sorted semen after he figured out what was happening. :nod:
The AI industry has tried some goofy stuff to produce sorted semen. At one point one of the main studs was electrocuting entire batches of semen because they felt that the female semen was more tolerant of the treatment than the male semen was and deduced that they could simply kill all of the male sperm cells. :clap: As you may have already guessed, it wasn't exactly the best method that my industry has come up with to date but I AM glad that they tried it because before that they were kind of getting competitive in my area... Not anymore.
We've known for years that the sperm from each bull is quite different. Some bulls are great producers but we can't freeze their semen and impregnate a cow with it. Some bulls simply cannot be sorted with any accuracy while some bulls will produce sortable semen that is quite similar in conception to their conventionally packaged semen.... Every once in a great while if you REALLY keep track of what you've used in the past(and especially if you use alot of unproven bulls) you'll find a bull whose sperm of one sex won't survive the freezing/thawing cycle while the other one does
. Most of them will get culled for poor conception before anyone is aware of what happened but I've seen it more than once. I had a customer who bought five thousand units of what was basically four dollar sorted semen after he figured out what was happening. :nod:
pdfangus
Well-known member
LOGIC tells me that if it was as easy as time of breeding, some of the greatest bovine reproduction minds in the world would have figured it out years ago. People have been discussing sexed semen ever since I started AI breeding in 1975. so it has gotten a good bit of scrutiny over the years.
If it is working for you go ahead and use what is working.
Actually I don't think I am smart enough to know which cows I need heifers from and which bulls.
some of my better cows over the years have come from cows and calves that were in the middle of my herd rather than the top end. that is 30 plus years of observation.
When I started stacking my good cows by using performance tested sons of my good proven cows on other good proven cows. the environment adaptability kicked in and we surged in performance.
If it is working for you go ahead and use what is working.
Actually I don't think I am smart enough to know which cows I need heifers from and which bulls.
some of my better cows over the years have come from cows and calves that were in the middle of my herd rather than the top end. that is 30 plus years of observation.
When I started stacking my good cows by using performance tested sons of my good proven cows on other good proven cows. the environment adaptability kicked in and we surged in performance.
OP
OP
dun
Well-known member
I was yacking with the vet today about the same subject. The problem is you have to be able to monitor the exact time of ovulation to really do the study about it correctly. I think that's probably the one fly in the ointment that would preclude doing a study accurately.pdfangus":2b2k78r1 said:
Anyway, Bulls to Heifers is now 7 to 2, another heifer this afternoon
MistyMorning
Well-known member
dun":1tetfnez said:
Isn't 6-2, are you counting Pauncho's?
