Worst AI year ever. What happened?

[Katpau]

We have been breeding a portion of our herd A.I. since 2010. Results have varied from 40% success to 90% with most years around 60%. I was using the same man to breed my cows for the last 8 years, but I let my Vet breed them last year. Walt, my regular guy is in his mid 80's and he bred 100's of 1000's of Dairy cows in his youth. He is really good, but I know he gets tired sometimes. Our Vet is also a fishing buddy of my husband and he had approached us last spring about breeding the cows in exchange for a fishing trip for his kids and grand kids. I thought that sounded like a good deal. It would give Walt a break, and my husband seldom says no to a fishing trip, even when it means helping a bunch of kids with their poles. Our Vet has been here many times, so he knew there is no electricity at the corrals. We synchronized the cows and when he arrived to breed he seemed surprised there was nowhere to plug in his heater for the straws. I said we could plug it into the RTV as we did for Walt, but he was able to plug into the truck. We went ahead and bred a dozen cows, but he seemed to struggle. He only got 1/2 way in most of the heifers and one cow. That surprised me because I know he has been breeding his own cows and plenty for others for the last 40 years. He accidentally broke a straw and once pulled two by mistake. That was on the last cow, so he put the extra straw in her.
It has now been 282 days since we bred the cows and it is obvious not a single one settled. We also had 30 cows out with the bulls. Although it has only been 280 days since we put the bulls in, we have already had 12 give birth. When I mentioned none of the cows settled AI, the Vet said maybe it was a nutrition issue. I doubt that considering we aren't having any issues with the cows bred natural service. I suspect there was an issue with his heater and my straws were all cooked. Does that seem like a possibility? I can't think what else would cause total failure. I know we followed the protocols we have used for years and I purchased all fresh pharmaceuticals to be sure that was not an issue.

 

[Redgully]

If you get 0% i doubt very much nutrition has anything to do with it. If he is poor at a.i. some would still take. I would lean towards cooked semen, is his truck 24v? Maybe a bad batch of drugs but even that would be highly unlikely.
I have heard of this before with a broken heater, surprisingly out of over 100 cows 6 still got bred and when they checked the temp it was 39⁰c which to my understanding no semen can survive.

I've also heard those heaters can short circuit and electricute the sperm. When my embryologist uses his we always chuck in one of those heat cards as insurance.

 

[Buck Randall]

How many cows did he breed? It's impossible to say for sure what happened, but not settling a single cow would suggest that the sperm were not viable. It could have been equipment failure, operator error, or something that happened before the semen even got to your tank. Even the big bull studs occasionally ship out a bad batch, though that would be exceptionally unlikely if you were using multiple sires.

 

[Katpau]

I am pretty sure he had a heat card or thermometer, but I never looked at it. I was catching cows and holding the tail out of his face while he bred. My husband was running the cows up. The two of them were talking fishing some of the time and maybe no one checked the temperature. Or maybe they were electrocuted? My free AI tech turned out to be the most expensive one ever. I know he is capable. He runs about a 100 cows of his own and usually does a round of AI on all of them. He use to travel back east every year to breed Leachman cows. I don't doubt his skills, although his age may have slowed him down some.

 

[Katpau]

We bred just 7 heifers and 5 cows. I used 4 different bulls on them. The tank is serviced regularly and never was even close to being dry. Two of those bulls settled cows last year and the other two were a purchase that stayed in the semen suppliers tank for over 6 months before I picked it up about a month before we bred.

 

[moses388]

That sucks. I would not let your vet do AI work again. Get Walt, somebody else, or learn AI yourself. You should be able to do it if you have a good teacher... Walt?

 

[Son of Butch]

Equipment failure, most common cause is an old thermometer that has lost accuracy and the semen cooks by remaining in hot water too long.
Everyone should check thermometer accuracy at the start of breeding season each year. Old school mercury thermometers don't lose accuracy, but newer styles will as they age and depending on how they are stored.

 

[wbvs58]

I blame the fishing stories as too much of a distraction. He would not get another chance to redeem himself here.

Ken

 

[Till-Hill]

I have a cow here been bred 3 times I've never got the gun into her cervex. She has calves AI 3 times.

Your semen was either damaged or you cooked it. I'd give vet another try. In my case tho I've seen vets that can't breed a cow worth a crap!

 

[Katpau]

I have already called Walt and asked him to breed this year. He may be in his mid 80's but he's still in better shape than most. He is good at what he does. He made a career out of breeding dairy cows in California for something like 40 years. In all the year's he has been breeding my cow's there were just a couple times he couldn't get through the cervix.

My Vet had called a few days ago to ask a favor. He was on vacation. I asked him if water temperature could be a problem and he admitted it was a possibility.

 

[Dsth]

like other post, I have not gotten completely through a cervex and gotten a pregnancy. I did AI for my neighbor for a few years and generally had good conception rates. one year it was close to 100 degrees and sunny the whole day and he wanted his usual 8 - 12 synchronized cows/heifers bred. I did suggest waiting to breed in the morning after it cooled off, since we covered that in my AI class. He wanted it done late in the afternoon since he would be gone in the morning. I mentioned to him that a few of the cows felt warmer inside than I would like. I was not surprised when he said nothing settled and I did not have any trouble depositing semen in the correct spot. Was ambient temp a problem by chance? if not, my class also mentioned that semen should always be increasing in temp from removal from the tank until inserted in the cow. the water temp would only need to be a few degrees high to ruin the semen. it would be a good time to tell Walt how much you appreciate the AI work he does for you. hope you have a better conception rate this year and good luck.

 

[JKCattle]

It sounds to me like the water temp was too high. I've bred a lot of cows and had decent conception by thawing semen in the gun under my arm pit or in the cow. Would do that in hot weather, but it does OK in cold weather. I wonder if you have 1/4 cc straws. They are far more temperature sensitive than the 1/2cc straws.

 

[Ky hills]

I had similar experiences and soured on AI. Years ago we were getting around 80-90% conception with the protocol of lutalyse and watching for standing heats, and calling the local rep.
Then they used the Cidrs and times AI methods and 50-60% was as good as we could get.
One years breeding of heifers resulted in 60% conception from one bull and 20% from another.
Another rep started doing work in the area and used TAI methods too, Again less than 50% for both cows and heifers was about it. Then the last time we just had 10 registered cows bred, and yielded 0% bred. That ended AI for here.
It just isn't practical for the time, work, and investment to not yield any better, because we still had to run the same amount of bulls. My thinking is that (barring any problems that can and will happen with bulls) the bulls can still do a lot better job settling cows, than all the modern crap.

 

[Katpau]

Dsth,
We were breeding in the middle of May and I don't remember the ambient temperature that day, but I expect I would have remembered had it been unseasonably warm.

Normally when we are breeding we park the RTV under the shed close to the chute, so there isn't very much distance from where the straws are in the heater to where the cow is standing to be bred. Walt always tucks the straw in his shirt as he walks over. The pickup was parked outside of the shed, so my Vet needed to walk around the truck and through two gates to get to the cow. I don't remember him tucking the straw in his shirt, so perhaps they cooled some in the minute or so between being extracted from the water and being inserted in the cow. I know that Leachman would not have used him for years if he wasn't good, but I expect he had plenty of help there, and probably stayed at the chute inserting straws while someone else pulled them from the tank, warmed them and handed them off.

I have always really appreciated my regular guy, Walt, but I think his arm gets tired after 10 or so cows. I thought I was doing him a favor by using someone different. I am glad he didn't turn me down this year for being unfaithful. I do plan to keep the numbers at 10 or less cows this year.

The main reason I breed AI, is to get replacements and an occasional bull. All of my cows are registered Angus, but I run them as a commercial herd. We usually get most of our calves born in the first 3 weeks from the bulls. That may be the most frustrating part of this. I now have 25% of my herd that won't calve until their second heat.

 

[Katpau]

I blame the fishing stories as too much of a distraction. He would not get another chance to redeem himself here.

Ken

I suspect his mind was a little more on fishing stories then it was on cows. I have a hunch he forgot to check the water temp. I can't really complain because he wasn't charging for his work. He did it as a favor to a fishing buddy. On the plus side they had a great fishing trip together a few weeks later and all of the grand kids caught fish.

 

[Lee VanRoss]

Dsth,
We were breeding in the middle of May and I don't remember the ambient temperature that day, but I expect I would have remembered had it been unseasonably warm.

Normally when we are breeding we park the RTV under the shed close to the chute, so there isn't very much distance from where the straws are in the heater to where the cow is standing to be bred. Walt always tucks the straw in his shirt as he walks over. The pickup was parked outside of the shed, so my Vet needed to walk around the truck and through two gates to get to the cow. I don't remember him tucking the straw in his shirt, so perhaps they cooled some in the minute or so between being extracted from the water and being inserted in the cow. I know that Leachman would not have used him for years if he wasn't good, but I expect he had plenty of help there, and probably stayed at the chute inserting straws while someone else pulled them from the tank, warmed them and handed them off.

I have always really appreciated my regular guy, Walt, but I think his arm gets tired after 10 or so cows. I thought I was doing him a favor by using someone different. I am glad he didn't turn me down this year for being unfaithful. I do plan to keep the numbers at 10 or less cows this year.

The main reason I breed AI, is to get replacements and an occasional bull. All of my cows are registered Angus, but I run them as a commercial herd. We usually get most of our calves born in the first 3 weeks from the bulls. That may be the most frustrating part of this. I now have 25% of my herd that won't calve until their second heat.

I used to keep heifers from cows I liked and started running into a situation like yours. Now I only keep heifers from cows calving in the
first cycle. If a cow has a calf (bull or heifer) in the 2nd cycle I never keep another calf from her and will sell her if she repeats.
It does help to keep an eye on body condition of 1st calf heifers to ensure they breed back on time.

 

[Tori Te]

Could it dare be the dreaded SILENT HEAT?!! (my nemesis). I fought back!! Am getting a Semex AI24 electronic heat detection system for my herd. One calf will pay for it.

 

[Katpau]

I used to keep heifers from cows I liked and started running into a situation like yours. Now I only keep heifers from cows calving in the
first cycle. If a cow has a calf (bull or heifer) in the 2nd cycle I never keep another calf from her and will sell her if she repeats.
It does help to keep an eye on body condition of 1st calf heifers to ensure they breed back on time.

I rarely keep a heifer that wasn't born in the first two weeks, but I would keep one in the future from most any of the cows I had chosen to AI this year. I can't blame them for not settling to AI, because I'm pretty sure there were issues beyond their bodies control. I only leave the bulls in for 8 weeks and I usually have them all calved in the first 5 weeks. Anything open is sold, and I seldom have one repeat a late calving more than once. I keep track of when every cow calves and I have a chart that shows when they calved by year. It is color coordinated to show first heat cycle, second and third. None go longer, because bulls don't stay in longer. A cow that calved later will sometimes be open and culled the following year, but I have also had some that calved 30+ days into the season one year and then come back to calve in the first week in subsequent years. This year we are just 282 days from when the bulls were put in. Angus gestation is calculated at 281 days and we already have 14 out of 30 calves born to the bulls. The other 12 that were bred AI look about 2 to 3 weeks out.

 

[TwoByrdsMG]

I am learning to AI my own cows. Figured as many times as we have had repeat breedings I can waste semen for cheaper than the AI guy can. AI'd my own herd (only set up 5 cows and had 4/5 stick on first time) on April 3 last year. We don't use live vaccines at all anymore.

Set up another herd of 17 cows that a family friend owns (June 13). They used MLV vaccines on the whole herd less than 60 days prior to TAI.
We used 4 different bulls. I noted that 5 were non-responders, dry and/or poor tone. So should have had 12 potential calves due around 3/20. Turned out the cleanup bull 2 weeks after TAI. I checked the water temp and even changed it halfway through since it was getting too cool. Had no AI calves. Our select sire rep actually watched me for the first 5 before he went to get coffee (he lived right down the road) and said everything looked great. He supplied the semen that we used on 10 of them (2 N/R).

He expressed concern for success when he found out they had used modified live virus so close to TAI. Is there any changes that were made on vaccines?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I always use MLV - but have always been careful to inject at least 30 days prior to start breeding. But, that was always difficult, so now I vaccinate my spring calvers MLV in the fall and fall calvers in the spring. As long as they receive the vaccine within 12 months, you can vaccinate while they are pregnant. And, actually, the cows should have better immunities in their colostrum this way. My conception rate has been great.
In order to get into this pattern, the cows got vaccinated twice in the same year (spring and fall - or fall and spring)