The downside of timed AI

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We are in the mist of out ET work and AI work. All of what we are doing right now are timed protocols. Yesterday we had to pull CIDR's on recips and the donor had to have shots at 8 a.m. And again at 8p.m. We had over 5 inches of rain yesterday so not a great day to have to work cattle. But when your on a time schedule for ET work you have to get it done no matter what the weather is doing. Today we had to pull CIDR's on a group of AI cows and as luck would have it our new donor had a calf. The boss and Jacob went to get the cows up I went to look at the new calf with the Gilmore Girls.....rut row Houston we have a problem mamma is in labor! Yep twins the second calf was a full breach we went to work got the calf turned got chains around the hind feet and delivered the second calf....dead heifer, good news is the bull calf is really nice and mamma is doing great. The lighting started coming straight down, everyone's phones were sounding alerts just a great day to be out working cattle. So what do we do we get them all worked were not going to let a little Tornado warning stop us! Tomorrow we have to do the same work on the mature cow group and give one more shot to the recips. We flush on 1/10/17 AI on the 5th and 6th then stick a fork in us we are done! The donor cow should be in heat tomorrow so we will be getting her bred in the course of the day as well. The storms are still rolling in lighting is coming straight down but we're done for the day :clap: tomorrow will be super busy but the weather is suppose to be better so that is a blessing.

A friend was flushing today he said they had some nasty weather as well. We are purchasing eggs out of one of their donors, pretty excited to add this cows genetics into the herd. They got 9 eggs so pretty tickled!

Gizmom
 
Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep . . . Oh, wait! Well done! Sorry about the twin heifer but at least the mama is doing fine (and you couldn't keep her anyway).
 
one of the first timed AI projects we did was done in an outdoor facility with no roof in a freezing rain that iced up everything....I wrote a humorous story about it.. I think it is on my blog....will try to find a direct link....
if I recall correctly that was one we went 70% success on single service.

found it.....

https://pdfangus.com/2011/12/29/the-timed-breeding-experiment/

this story was quite a few years ago.

I am still doing timed breeding even though the neighbor in the story has been deceased for about 7 years now....
synced three groups for another neighbor and I breed them on weekends.... and think my group 20162 this year (6 head) went 100%. none of them recycled with the bull.
Group 20163 (8 head) is due to recycle on the coming Sunday.
group 20161 (8 head ) went 75%.
 
Pdfangus

That was a great read! Thanks for shareing. I can just picture the neighbor laid out in that muck...not funny if your the neighbor but who can help but laugh!

Named

A number of years ago I got a call from a sweet friend. She and her hubby were like the boss and I both very involved in their cattle operation. They had built up a excellent, productive herd had a bull they had bred and raised make it into an AI stud. The call was to tell us they were dispersing their cow herd...I just couldn't wrap my head around it. She did all the AI work (nurse) and was really good at AI, but like the boss and I the work always seemed to land right at the Christmas holidays. Her son and his wife had move a couple hundred mils away so the AI work was keeping her from being able to go see her children at Christmas. Then the grandkids arrived...she said I'm done I refuse to spend another Christmas unable to see my grandchildren. They dispersed and now have a commercial herd that they cover with a bull. Now that I have grandchildren of my own I totally understand. If my grands were out of town this old GG would be traveling at Christmas not setting up cow! We are blessed that both our sons live nearby. The oldest wants nothing to do with cattle just no interest. The younger son is a partner with us in the farm, he actually lives on the farm as of last year and that sure makes it nice for us, now we don't have to drive over at 8 or 10 at night to get a cow up to AI he takes care of it. It is a family operation for sure the twins are even starting to help with some of the farm chores. The oldest might not have an interest but his boy Caleb is becoming the bosses shadow....it makes me smile! In fact Jacob is getting a cow up as I am typing to AI, they bred her today about noon hitting her again at 8:00 and possibly again in the morning. We will flush her on the 10th, sure hope we have a good flush she is a really nice cow.
Gizmom
 
gizmom":5gcdbq4k said:
Pdfangus

That was a great read! Thanks for shareing. I can just picture the neighbor laid out in that muck...not funny if your the neighbor but who can help but laugh!

Named

A number of years ago I got a call from a sweet friend. She and her hubby were like the boss and I both very involved in their cattle operation. They had built up a excellent, productive herd had a bull they had bred and raised make it into an AI stud. The call was to tell us they were dispersing their cow herd...I just couldn't wrap my head around it. She did all the AI work (nurse) and was really good at AI, but like the boss and I the work always seemed to land right at the Christmas holidays. Her son and his wife had move a couple hundred mils away so the AI work was keeping her from being able to go see her children at Christmas. Then the grandkids arrived...she said I'm done I refuse to spend another Christmas unable to see my grandchildren. They dispersed and now have a commercial herd that they cover with a bull. Now that I have grandchildren of my own I totally understand. If my grands were out of town this old GG would be traveling at Christmas not setting up cow! We are blessed that both our sons live nearby. The oldest wants nothing to do with cattle just no interest. The younger son is a partner with us in the farm, he actually lives on the farm as of last year and that sure makes it nice for us, now we don't have to drive over at 8 or 10 at night to get a cow up to AI he takes care of it. It is a family operation for sure the twins are even starting to help with some of the farm chores. The oldest might not have an interest but his boy Caleb is becoming the bosses shadow....it makes me smile! In fact Jacob is getting a cow up as I am typing to AI, they bred her today about noon hitting her again at 8:00 and possibly again in the morning. We will flush her on the 10th, sure hope we have a good flush she is a really nice cow.
Gizmom

there is always the option of changing the breeding schedule a little...For the last thirty years I tried to target Thanksgiving week rather than trying to work around Christmas....when I was at Walnut Hill I did not start until the week after Christmas. But that was in the days before synchrony....in fact lutalyse came out while I was at Walnut Hill and we were one of the first herds to try it...but we were still breeding on detected heat.
 
Ebenezer":3ednl0h0 said:
There are multiple advantages to using your own bulls if they are good and you believe in them enough.

no argument...
we always used our young bulls to clean up after AI.
AI was the way to use the genetics we wanted on the cows we wanted it on....
Stacking sons by AI bulls, of our good cows .... on our other good cows really gave our herd a jump...
 
pdfangus":3hq7jrhj said:
Ebenezer":3hq7jrhj said:
There are multiple advantages to using your own bulls if they are good and you believe in them enough.

no argument...
we always used our young bulls to clean up after AI.
AI was the way to use the genetics we wanted on the cows we wanted it on....
Stacking sons by AI bulls, of our good cows .... on our other good cows really gave our herd a jump...
How long/ # of generations before you were a herd that sent out genetics to make other herds "jump" or is AI a perpetual need or desire that cannot be broken? Or a marketing tool more than a genetic tool?
 
Ebenezer

We feel very comfortable using our own bulls and have for quite a while. The last bull purchased in our operation was in 2009.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQgXGwD ... e=youtu.be

This bull is at the Florida Bull Test and will sell on 1/21/17. His flush brother will be turned out with our 2 and 3 year old cows next week we bred and raised these bulls. The dam of the flush was purchased as a flush cow, the sire of the embryos was a bull purchased from a dispersal sale. I have no regrets whatsoever about purchasing genetics that I think will move our herd forward. We have already turned out a young bull with our heifers that we raised, I can't take credit for breeding the one on heifers he was purchased as an egg, but we had the egg put in and we have raised the calf. We will be flushing the dam of the bull in the video on Tuesday to Coleman Charlo, then sending her to a facility to collect her several more times. I do plan to flush her back to the sire of the bull in the video, we only had that bull collected once and I am down to 70 straws so I will be using what I have left very carefully. I understand what your saying about using our own bulls, but I also see that AI allows us to incorporate new genetics into our herd that I couldn't do otherwise.

gizmom
 
Ebenezer":2eh5b8zy said:
pdfangus":2eh5b8zy said:
Ebenezer":2eh5b8zy said:
There are multiple advantages to using your own bulls if they are good and you believe in them enough.

no argument...
we always used our young bulls to clean up after AI.
AI was the way to use the genetics we wanted on the cows we wanted it on....
Stacking sons by AI bulls, of our good cows .... on our other good cows really gave our herd a jump...
How long/ # of generations before you were a herd that sent out genetics to make other herds "jump" or is AI a perpetual need or desire that cannot be broken? Or a marketing tool more than a genetic tool?

If you just want to be rude.....

we were only in business about thirty years....

but when we used a good bull out of one of our top cows and he cleaned up after AI and bred another one of our top cows....the bull calf from that mating was very good....he did well on test but he had "a no name pedigree"...that is what a good friend at a bull stud told me....there were big names top and bottom as grandsires...we kept him and used him as well.

We never had the goal of being a big league player.
Our Motto was "Your Neighborhood Source Of Quality Angus Bulls"
that identified our market and as a sixty cow herd at our max that was about all we could produce for.
in the later years we cut the herd back to 40 cows and actually gained ground in production.
We participated in the state bull test yearly and sold bulls there as well.
we did have top gaining bull at test several times but since they were mostly of home breeding from a small herd they never generated bull stud interest and I was not into the marketing and cattle trading game enough to be a player.
when we sold the herd, I notified my customers and they came and bought most of the cows right off the farm...One Saturday I had three customers walking thru the cows the same day at the same time and the only fair way I could find to arbitrate who bought what was to give them a price list and production information and say the one who gave me a number first had first dibs on the cow....they thought it was fair and actually they mostly picked different cows...
 

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