Vytelle is bringing certainty to performance, health and genetic progress at renowned New Zealand Angus seed stock producers Te Mania.
Principal Will Wilding is using both Vytelle’s individual animal data collection, information processing, and cutting edge hormone-free in vitro fertilisation program to reshape the operation’s genetic progress.
The Canterbury stud has been in operation for more than 90 years and currently runs 500 stud Angus females, and finishes between 700 and 800 calves a year purchased annually from their bull clients.
Vytelle ADVANCE™’s high-performance reproductive technology has allowed Will to reduce bull wastage and multiply offspring from elite females, increasing their client’s options at the annual on-property sales.
“We used to aim for about 50 percent of the bulls we bred to make the June sale, but with the embryo work we’re aiming to get 60 to 70 percent to the June sale, meaning we have less wastage,” he said.
“We’re able to get embryos out of cows that are proven, so the cows that have had good sales results from their sons. Instead of having one calf a year from them, we can have five or six or 10 and just replicate the bulls that have been in the highest demand from our customers.
“If we can have five or six flush brothers in the catalogue, then instead of everyone scrapping over one, it spreads it out, and that’s what we’re aiming to do.”
Will says convenience has been one of the biggest advantages since partnering with Vytelle ADVANCE.
“I can get a handful of cows and put them on a truck and get them back a week later versus doing however many yardings and injections and things like that for the same amount of embryos,” he said.
“It frees up time for the team on the farm to focus on other jobs – there’s times of the year when it’s just overwhelming to add an embryo flush in as well.”
The cow remaining in the main calving system has also been more productive, Will said, as Vytelle ADVANCE’s hormone-free program means embryos can be collected from cows up to 100 days pregnant.
“A challenge that we’ve had with the traditional collecting is the cows get so fat when they’re out of the system for a year that it almost damages their ability to come back into it – they get so overweight that it’s hard to get them in calf again after a year off having one,” he added.
The latest Vytelle ADVANCE program at Te Mania resulted in 72 per cent conception rate, with the calves due in August.
Will said having Vytelle technicians with extensive experience in insemination made a “big difference” to his outcomes.
“The technician had the confidence to reject a recipient. some people might not want to reject an animal because then they think the farmer would be worried about getting less calves, but I’d rather not waste an embryo,” he said.
First year dry cows from the Angus stud are used as recipient females, allowing Will to value-add to those females.
“Those cows that would normally go to the works (slaughter) we instead take them through a winter and put an embryo in them the next spring, which has helped us keep the stud numbers the same on the home block but have more calves, allowing us to cull and select harder,” he said.
Te Mania was also an early New Zealand adopter of Vytelle SENSE™ to assist in selecting which genetics were performing best in their breeding programs based on their feed efficiency.
Vytelle SENSE is an animal data capture system that records feed intake and weight gain measurements to help you identify important traits such as feed efficiency.
The program’s feed intake nodes and in-pen weigh scales allow individual animal information to be collected and processed by Vytelle for use by producers.
Will said a Beef + Lamb New Zealand tour of North America for stud cattle producers opened their eyes to the need to focus on feed efficiency.
“When it comes to emissions, New Zealand has got a climatic advantage with our grass fed system, but we are losing our climatic advantage to other countries because other countries are progressing in genetics. We need to keep up with them genetically so we’re not just here growing grass and that’s been our only advantage,” he said.
Will said when Te Mania began using Vytelle SENSE they were measuring bulls, assuming their clients would instantaneously see the value and want to purchase more efficient sires. “But it is a slow burn to adopt it,” he said.
“We reckon it’ll be five to 10 years before we’ve got a strong demand for that trait, so we’ve pivoted to putting heifers through [Vytelle SENSE] because we can use it in our breeding decisions for the IVF.
“We can build our feed efficiency in the background so as farmers and our buyers get more understanding and demand more of it and we do start putting bulls through again we are positioned with a good depth and foundation of feed efficiency.”
Vytelle SENSE data has allowed stud cattle producers in New Zealand to establish feed efficiency comparisons to international genetics, a tool not otherwise available to them.
According to Will, net feed intake estimated breeding values in New Zealand and only available for Angus Australia members, and now they can also access the US version from the Vytelle SENSE analysis.
Te Mania have contracted their facility to Beef + Lamb NZ for industry informing feed efficiency and methane emission trials, as well as to other breeders who have their own cattle cohorts to measure.
“We are now able to get worldwide rankings and all of a sudden there’s Hereford breeders here that found animals in their herd that are in the top six or seven per cent in the world for feed efficiency and they had no idea. To get a world ranking from such a broad genetic pull, that was pretty cool for them,” he said.