There’s a snippet of wisdom that inevitably lingers from our childhood. Honesty is the best policy. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Slow and steady wins the race.
Fourteen-year-old Ed Hordern found his while watching an embryo being inserted in a cow.
“They described it as ‘putting a $6000 baby in a $600 cow’ and that always stuck with me,” he says. “ I remember thinking, ‘I need to learn how to do that’.
Today, the boy who grew up on a family-owned vineyard in Orange, New South Wales is a Bovine Reproductive Specialist on the expansion team at Vytelle.
Vytelle is a precision livestock company reshaping how cattle producers worldwide optimise their herds. Through Vytelle’s integrated technology platform, generations of genetic gains can be made in just a few years. This allows producers to sustainably deliver more protein with fewer inputs, helping to ensure meat and milk are viable, competitive food choices for future generations.
So, how did Ed come to find himself in an “awesome job” working with cows day in, day out?
A life-changing visit to the Sydney Royal Easter Show, rodeo broncs, a scholarship to study in the United States, and a soul searching, heart stopping moment with a rhino, to start.
“I fell in love with cows after seeing them at the show so Dad bought a handful of trade steers and me and my brother and sister had them like pets in the end,” Ed recalls.
Buying two Angus heifers for $1500 each fueled the teenager’s passion and Ed soon tracked down renowned Angus breeder Chris Knox to learn more.
“I found his number on the internet when I was 14 and asked if I could come out there for two weeks. That was back in the day when they were putting embryos in the flank, and I found myself watching on and just being hooked immediately.”
A love for bronc riding soon followed) and a scholarship to rodeo and study animal science technology at Lakeland College in Alberta.
Ed went on to work with the rodeo team fighting bulls for the practising competitors which opened several doors over the course of nine years and Ed thought he could happily ‘fight bulls until retiring at 45’, but COVID had other plans.
Stuck in the U.S., Ed took a job at an Oklahoma-based, family-owned company specialising in bovine IVF and reproductive services – an eye-opening experience.
“I only ever wanted to flush cows and I thought IVF was a waste of time the first time I showed up there,” Ed admits.
“But I was there for one day and I turned to the bloke doing it and said, “can I change my mind? I need to learn how to do this.”
Ed later returned to Australia to work for Vytelle as a technician doing pickups and transfers at the 10,000-head dairy operation, Moxey Fams, in the NSW Central West region.
After six months he took time off to travel, but an offer to work in the expansion team with Vytelle and set up new labs piqued his interest. And that’s how he found himself just metres from a drowsy, but definitely not immobile, critically endangered northern white rhino.
“It was the coolest experience of my life,” Ed says.
With a supply of semen harvested from the last remaining male northern white rhino, Ed spent six weeks assisting a team of conservationists using IVF to help repopulate them.
“On that particular day we saw a rhino walking through the scrub and we darted her just enough that she’s sedated through the process but can keep breathing herself.”
But as he approached, Ed and the team of 30 people quickly realised no-one could see the dart. Assuming it’s simply fallen out and the reproductive show must go on, a blanket was placed over the rhino’s eyes, prompting her to wake up – and face up.
“There’s nowhere to go, everyone but me and the vet have run back to the ute, and he’s yelling at me, ‘don’t move, don’t move!’,” Ed recalls.
“But rhinos have terrible eyesight so this guy shakes the blanket as she’s coming at him, sedated but still fast enough and he simply hooks the blanket on, throws a rope over and we lead her to a tree and get underway.
“I was absolutely blown away. Dr Hendrick Hensen is his name and he’s my hero. I’ve fought some bulls before but this guy is out there just busting everything for the rhinos.”
Now back on home turf and based in Woodstock, NSW, Ed’s day to day sees him performing the ovum pick-up (OPU) process at Vytelle’s satellite centres across Australia.
In the IVF process, he performs the ovum pick up procedure: taking oocytes (unfertilised eggs) from donors which his colleagues in the lab fertilise to produce embryos eight days after the OPU. Because Vytelle’s IVF offering is hormone-free, there is no added labour for the producer, and no donor set up required. The producer just has to bring the cow.
The OPU time per cow varies based on follicle numbers, but on average it takes about 10 to 15 minutes per donor. Oocyte collection is a safe procedure, done under localised epidural anesthesia to the tail head which blocks all sensitivity of the ovaries. Vytelle producers only pay for the embryos produced.
In Australian dairy cattle, the average number of oocytes collected is around 12 oocytes per donor and in beef cattle, it’s around 16 oocytes per donor.
Ed works with every breed from Angus and Wagyu to Lowlines and Highlands – but says there’s something in those rumors about size matters.
“The bigger the ear, the more oocytes,” he says. “I had a Brahman heifer in Julia Creek who sent me 305 viable oocytes to the lab. It was unreal.”
“On another day I did 22 Rondel Droughtmasters and we had an enormous 1806 viable oocytes. Anything with a bit of Bos Indicus content just seems to produce way more, so the impact with IVF on those breeds is massive.
“It really is just the most awesome job and I’m so keen to keep advancing genetic progress. It’s incredible”
