As breeding season approaches, several factors and decisions can impact the success of your breeding program. While basic breeding standards, like breeding soundness exams, are foundationally key, reproductive technologies support these principles by offering genetic advancements and improvements to an operation’s bottom line.
Managing donors, making OPU collections, and selecting and handling recipients for live calves requires strong decision-making combined with structured strategies.
Here are a few tips to help prepare for breeding season using these practices.
1. Don’t skimp on nutrition, supplements, and minerals for desired body conditioning.
“This might seem obvious, but producers often over-think it,” says Reproductive Services LLC Satellite Manager, Brent Nisley. “We don’t need a professional chart to analyze this. Common sense, middle-of-the-road body condition is much better than being too fat.”
Reproductive Services LLC is a Vytelle Satellite location. Satellites are locations where Vytelle collects oocytes for their in vitro fertilization (IVF) services. Vytelle has over 46 satellite locations, which places us within reach to 54% of the United States breeding herd. Producers can also schedule an on-farm visit, where a Vytelle technician comes to the farm.
Nisley stresses producers shouldn’t skimp on any aspect of nutrition for both donors and recipients. “Simply, if the nutrition is in place and they’re not going backward, we’ll get better conception rates.”
2. Make the extra effort to ensure the donor’s pregnancy.
Ensuring donor cows also become pregnant is a key piece of the puzzle.
Donors offer two opportunities for aspiration:
- 2 weeks post-calving and through her open period.
- Up to 100 days into the pregnancy.
Plan her aspirations and collections properly. Determine the accurate times when collection makes the most sense and block it in the calendar, but don’t neglect to schedule the donor’s breeding. It’s the ‘icing on the cake’ benefit.
3. Take advantage of the bigger window.
“When we were still using FSH stimulation, donors had to be cycling,” Nisley says. “To maintain the yearly calving interval, we only had time to flush once or twice. Today, we get an added perk with a much bigger embryo collection window.”
Vytelle ADVANCE™ is the in vitro fertilization process that gives producers much more flexibility. With no shot schedule and an all-natural process, producers skip the donor set up, forget the added labor and just bring the cow. When timed accurately, collection can be done 6 to 10 times.
4. Don’t use the ‘shortage of cows’ excuse to relax on donors and recipient selection.
With cow numbers down in the U.S., it’s important to keep the faith and continue capitalizing on donors and recipients.
Cherry-pick the consistently ‘first to get pregnant’ as they have the longest time to prepare for the next breeding season, and are, oftentimes, the most fertile cows. This will expand a herd’s high-quality genetic base.
5. Be proactive with plans and goals.
Avoid procrastination. Ask questions to trusted advisors beyond simply the next step and confirm their answers.
- How many embryos are required for the desired number of calves?
- Where will the work be done?
- When will the collections be scheduled and completed?
- Is a specific mating necessary or are multiple options in play?
- What will be included in the vaccination plan?
- What is the main goal and how quickly do we need to reach it?
- Is the recipient pool in place?
- Will fresh or frozen embryos be used?
Confirmed answers at the beginning of the process go a long way in achieving desired results.
6. Embrace the ‘common cow’ stance.
“For success with IVF, it all comes down to the common cow stance,” says Recip Solutions owner, Craig Gana. “Consistency of everything we do supports this stance.”
- Use trusted veterinarians for a vaccination and parasite control program.
- Maintain consistent, long-term diets.
- Strive for a sensible Body Condition Score of 5.
“The common cow sense of doing everything systematically will help increase success. There’s no magic wand so we still need a little luck, but consistency and careful calculation make a huge difference,” Gana says.
7. Make the research effort.
Identify trusted embryo transfer technicians in your area and partner with professionals like Vytelle for all your reproductive and breeding goals. Take advantage of their knowledgeable tips and tricks. Combining many small factors equals substantial differences. It’s the best way to reach our targeted 55 to 60% conception rates.
8. Utilize Vytelle as a resource.
Professional reproductive services like Vytelle are foundational for a reason. We’re much more than ‘arms in cows’. Vytelle helps producers make plans, identify optimal donors, assess recipients, analyze sires, and assist with mating options, timelines, and strategies, all backed by our huge performance database.
“We were impressed by Vytelle right from the start and were instantly happy with the entire process,” Gana says. “It’s obvious they have a passion for breeding.”