Whole herd infertile?

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R

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Ok, I've hired an man to AI 10 purebred angus heifers (ages 15-17months). He came highly recommended from 2 separate friends who had used him. The heifers have had fertilized hay, salt, & free choice minerals all winter as well as access to all natural protien tubs. They lost a little condition through the winter, but still gained frame and weight. We gave all 10 heifers 5cc of Lutalyse and applied heat detect stickers. I've checked them morning and evening for 3 straight weeks, not a one came into heat. The AI man is scratching his head. He says he used the same Lutalyse bottle on 3 heifers at his place and said they all came into heat. He suggested that I start feeding them 5#/day of a corn/cottonseed based feed to try and increase their condition. We did have a record amount of rain this year, and I've heard a lot of farmers say that though we have tons of hay, the quality is poor. I wouldn't describe any of them as scrawny, especially not the ones at the top of the pecking order. This is all pretty new to me and I would love another opinion on... Why none of these girls are coming into heat?
 
My suspicions would be lower body condition score then desireable or losing body condition, next would be the bottle of lut. But even with a bad bottle of lut in 21 days you should have seen some activity if that was strictly the cause. Heifers particularly shouldn;t lose any condition over the winter, that's typically when they are gaining, slowly, but still gaining.
Or it could be the heat detection devices, K-mars or the deals that look like a scratch off lottery ticket?
 
Its possible for the whole works to be infertile, I suppose, but pretty unlikely. I had 6 out of 6 PB Shorthorn heifers here that all came open on me due to infertility. Their breeding on both sides were close to identical, so it was obviously something in their bloodlines. None were over fat, but none were skinny either. Probably a 3 out of 5 BCS.

I'd suspect something technical on the AI side, although you may want to talk to your local feed salesman about a custom mineral mix to increase fertility. If it turns out that it was a mineral shortcoming and you have to feed more mineral than the rest of your herd (or your neighbor's herd) boot those animals down the dusty, dirty trail. Hopefully they'll make good hamburger somewhere.

I should mention those 6 PB heifers of mine were the only animals on the place to come up open. So that told me they were harder keeping with higher nutrient requirements than the rest of my herd. Therefore, they went away.

Rod
 
When using Lutalyse if they do not come in within a few days I hit them again 14 days after the first shot.
I you Lutalyse within 5 days of a normal heat they will not come in and you must redo on day 14.
I have also seen them come in but do not stand, This may be why they do not scratch the markers.
Seems as though some cows have not read all the literature as to what they are supposed to be doing. ;-)
There are other things that will cause them not to cycle, other than BC and mineral. The way the cattle are handled, weather, or any other kind of stress. I like my cattle to be trained to the chute before any AI is attempted. That makes them much calmer when the time comes.
 
Prior to the AI guy getting to your place did you notice any of the heifers riding one another or showing signs of cycling? This could narrow the possibilities somewhat. If you did not see any activity before he arrived, I would put my bet on a nutritional problem.
 
Ten barren heifers is hard to believe, put a bull in the pasture he is the best AI tech there is.
If you don't have a serious management problem and ten heifers come up open after being pasture exposed to a hot bull, go buy a lottery ticket. Cause the planets in the universe are aligned in some special cosmic way over at your place.
 
I agree with Caustic on this.
I rarely AI heifers. I do not have a clue why others think is is the right thing to do. I prefer to see what kind of cow a heifer will become rather than the crap shoot and wasting high dollar semen. I have to admit I do take that occasional risk, but not just the smartest thing to do.
 
novatech":2phypwpm said:
I agree with Caustic on this.
I rarely AI heifers. I do not have a clue why others think is is the right thing to do. I prefer to see what kind of cow a heifer will become rather than the crap shoot and wasting high dollar semen. I have to admit I do take that occasional risk, but not just the smartest thing to do.
Click to expand...

Science is a wonderful thing and we have all greatly benifited from it.
I think sometimes there are to many biting the hook of this is numbers on a piece of paper to produce the perfect mating. Which doesn't exsist anymore than the perfect cow. There are no bad breeds, there are lots of poor cattlemen when it comes to selecting the most efficient for there enviroment and trying to force cattle to be as or more productive than they were selectively bred for thousands of years.
To many make this much harder than is has to be.
 
Caustic Burno":1eo8ze0q said:
novatech":1eo8ze0q said:
I agree with Caustic on this.
I rarely AI heifers. I do not have a clue why others think is is the right thing to do. I prefer to see what kind of cow a heifer will become rather than the crap shoot and wasting high dollar semen. I have to admit I do take that occasional risk, but not just the smartest thing to do.
Click to expand...

To many make this much harder than is has to be.
Click to expand...

One of my ways of not making it harder is not putting up with a bull and AIing everything. To me 16 bucks isn;t high priced semen. Maybe I'm just a pervert, but I enjoy AIing.
 
Dun we agree and disagree to me AI is not for the average cattleman like myself or the dreamchasers.
AI is a great tool for the professinal seedstock producer like Mike C,Frankie or old experts like yourself.
Didn't mean to insult anyone by leaving there name out just a couple of real seedstock producers that came to mind.
This is a deep pond and you had better be a good swimmer before wading in.

That my 2 cents.
 
Caustic Burno":3s46uegq said:
Dun we agree and disagree to me AI is not for the average cattleman like myself or the dreamchasers.
AI is a great tool for the professinal seedstock producer like Mike C,Frankie or old experts like yourself.
Didn't mean to insult anyone by leaving there name out just a couple of real seedstock producers that came to mind.
This is a deep pond and you had better be a good swimmer before wading in.

That my 2 cents.
Click to expand...

We're more then half commercial, in a couple of weeks the percentage of commercial will increase, but rather then put up with a bull I just prefer AI. Did the bull deal for 2 years. The extra managment and not knowing until preg check time who has settled and who hasn;t just isn;t worth the trouble.
 
If you haven't seen them in heat the last few months, I'd be inclined to blame it on a nutritional problem. A cow can be thin and yet still cycle and breed back first service, but if she's in a negative energy balance it doesn't matter what her body condition is, she won't cycle and you won't get her bred.

Personally, I'd just haul them over to the vet and have him/her tell me if the heifers 1) have all the reproductive organs they need, and 2) have a CL and/or are cycling. It's faster and cheaper than dumping bottles of Lute into them.
 
as i read this i can see a few probs.1 the heifers didnt seem tobe in condition to breed.so they need tobe put on feeding an mineral program for 90 days.to see if you can get them in shape.2 your wasting time an money trying to AI heifers that not cycling.3 have the heifers checked by a vet to see if they are breedable.4 im betting the heifers are showing silent heats.if they doing that youll never see them in heat.5 put a bull in with then for 120 days.pull him out an palpate them 60 days after pulling the bull.6 cull the open heifers at palpating.
 
Thanks everyone for the input. To answer your questions... These heifers have been nowhere near a bull for the last 7 months. They were riding eachother in the fall and going into winter. I havn't seen any of it since probably december, though I am now associated with food so whenever they see my truck they drop what ever they're doing to come eat. I can't even sneak up them to watch them. We havn't tried to AI any of them yet because we havn't been able to detect heat yet. The detectors are white tubes with a red dye tube inside. They mark by pressure not scratching and seem pretty hard to miss if one changes. The mineral i've been putting out is the one everyone around here buys from the local feed store. I did notice that mineral consumption dropped since I started putting out the protein tubs in Nov. The AI man looked at the herd a month before and said that they looked ready to him. I'm going to try and take some pictures of their condition to see what you guys think. They aren't show calves, but they sure seem big enough to me. I double checked the calendar and I was off. We gave them the shots and none showed signs of heat for 2 weeks. I've had them on the feed ration for about a week now and just last night one showed heat on the heat detector (17 days after the lut). About the lut bottle, the same one worked on the neighbors heifers. Consensus seems to be that there is a nutritional problem. Would this be solved by having the hay tested and supplementing accordingly? I thought I would be covered with the protein tubs?
 
Don't think you have any nutritional problems unless they're starved to death. Problem was probably the Lutalyse....Looks like all of them will probably be cycling over the next few days. Take notes and call your AI Tech.
 
If you had one heifer cycle 17 days after giving the Lute... she was probably 2-5 days past her last heat when the tech came out and gave the whole group Lutalyse. Keep in mind Lute won't cause a cow to cycle if she does not have a CL on one of her ovaries, and CLs are absent on non-cycling animals, and until about 7-8 days after ovulation or about 5 days before ovulation. If you give Lute to heifers in any of those catagories they will not come into heat.

Kind of unlikely the entire group was just past heat though. Could also be they were not cycling and have just started cycling again. Hard to say. I'd still maintain your best bet is have them all palpated, but there's just my opinion.
 
MM no need to palpate as they have never been exposed nor infused. Only reason i can think of would be to check ovaries and even with cystic ovaries they should still cycle. I think you were right in the first part of your comment. Lutalyse at the wrong time.
 
Well... one heifer is cycling, but who knows about the others. If you have them palpated you'd know if the group is even cycling; it's kind of a waste of time and money to try breeding heifers that aren't cycling. If it's a nutritional reason and they're past puberty but not cycling and have no CL... it means a minimum of 30-40 days to wait even the nutritional program is changed immediately. It'd also be good to make sure they all have complete reproductive tracts; if there's a freemartin it's nice to know before any more money is spent on her.

I'd still recommend having them palpated... but then that's just my thoughts. I have most everything palpated prior to breeding. Heifers usually get palpated at purchase and again when it's time to breed if I haven't seen them cycle or if they're getting Lute. Cows get checked prior to breeding to make sure they're open, clean, and cycling. I've found it to save me time and money in the long run. JMO.
 

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