Are pure Holsteins coming to an end?

[som farmer]

Did some embryo transplant work a few years ago. We were being paid but it was an expensive process with limited success - around 50% holding to term.

if you can't get someone to take your shite calves, you have 2 choices, 1, keep them yourself, or 2,,pay someone to take them, embryo transplant looks quite attractive then ! It would also go a long way to replacing suckle cows, which, unless the clean beef rises in price, will become increasingly expensive to keep. If there is a market for et, they will soon bring the price down, and success rate up.
Imagine, Bald Rick, could have 100% bb calves, from his jerseys !!!!

 

[M-J-G]

How much are the embryos implanted and what's the success rate?

 

[som farmer]

How much are the embryos implanted and what's the success rate?

that's the million dollar question

 

[Dead Rabbits]

How much are the embryos implanted and what's the success rate?

Can’t get them for less than $30. Not sure on success rate, that will take awhile. Big change for guys that cry about paying $3 for a semen straw

 

[Serup]

How much are the embryos implanted and what's the success rate?

We usually flush one or two heifers on contract with viking each year.
They pay 1000 euro and then i have to do all the work and pay all the bills.
We average about 5-7 viable embryos per flush. It cost more than 1000 euro before they are in. Viking pay a test-fee for every bull they can dna test from a contract-flush, and you need on for two of these for the numbers to add up.

Out conception rate on heifers who had been on strict heat detection and never inseminated is about 50-60%.
That equals about 3 pregnancies from a flush on average. That cost about 1200-1500 euro and you had maybe 10-15 heifers you didn't inseminate on the optimum time, because you kept them for synchronisation to put fresh embryos.

So using embryos just to make more desirable beef calves, need a steep premium on these calfs to add up.

I don't see embryo work for anything other that breeding in any near future. It's cost prohibitive.

 

[Serup]

Can’t get them for less than $30. Not sure on success rate, that will take awhile. Big change for guys that cry about paying $3 for a semen straw

Can you buy embryos for 30$?
Thats less than what i pay for top bull sexed straws

 

[Dead Rabbits]

Can you buy embryos for 30$?
Thats less than what i pay for top bull sexed straws

Apparently you can. I don’t know if they are being produced at a loss just to get it going or what. Semen has to have a huge mark up.

 

[Bald Rick]

Can you buy embryos for 30$?
Thats less than what i pay for top bull sexed straws

Americans do a lot of ET work though

Personally I found it fascinating that Viking only work a bull for 6 months before he’s off the list. Genomics have transformed breeding and we are seeing that in our NTM and PLI scores even within the last eighteen months

 

[M-J-G]

£250 is the least I've heard embryos being sold for, insemination is on top so £300 per attempt, and at 60% success is £500 per pregnancy.

 

[Blue.]

Be better off inducing cows into milk.

 

[Bald Rick]

£250 is the least I've heard embryos being sold for, insemination is on top so £300 per attempt, and at 60% success is £500 per pregnancy.

That’s largely why ET in the U.K. is limited to high value stock

 

[Bald Rick]

Be better off inducing cows into milk.

Well it IS possible to make a human male lactate ...

 

[Dead Rabbits]

£250 is the least I've heard embryos being sold for, insemination is on top so £300 per attempt, and at 60% success is £500 per pregnancy.

The guys that do AI are doing it themselves.

 

[Bald Rick]

The guys that do AI are doing it themselves.

Was a vet job when we did it. Vet numbed the tail root with anesthetic but for the life of me, I can’t remember why

 

[Serup]

Americans do a lot of ET work though

Personally I found it fascinating that Viking only work a bull for 6 months before he’s off the list. Genomics have transformed breeding and we are seeing that in our NTM and PLI scores even within the last eighteen months

The breeding values are only about 50-60% certain on genomic bulls. That means as a group they will be right, but individually there will be considerable variation. So to make sure you don't use the bad one too much, they don't use any of them a lot.

£250 is the least I've heard embryos being sold for, insemination is on top so £300 per attempt, and at 60% success is £500 per pregnancy.

That fit my calculations pretty good.

Was a vet job when we did it. Vet numbed the tail root with anesthetic but for the life of me, I can’t remember why

Because you do it 7 days after heat. It's not so easy as inseminating. Viking tried to educate some staff to do embryos as inseminations about 20 years ago when they had a flush station in DK. The conception rate was about 1/10 of what the vets could achieve, so it stopped pretty quick.

 

[Llmmm]

Americans do a lot of ET work though

Personally I found it fascinating that Viking only work a bull for 6 months before he’s off the list. Genomics have transformed breeding and we are seeing that in our NTM and PLI scores even within the last eighteen months

Yes but is genomics speeding up inbreeding look at the viking jerseys there all related to a few bulls

 

[Serup]

Yes but is genomics speeding up inbreeding look at the viking jerseys there all related to a few bulls

I don't know the situation with jerseys, but i do know that they have the tools to control it and that whatever level they work with, is a chosen one. With the red ones, we keep inbreeding at below 4% in all animals.
They also work with several lines, so they don't all just get more and more in family, as the holsteins did many years ago.

 

[Llmmm]

I don't know the situation with jerseys, but i do know that they have the tools to control it and that whatever level they work with, is a chosen one. With the red ones, we keep inbreeding at below 4% in all animals.

You keep viking red would you recommend them for spring calving grazing here i allways felt they were too high production suited to tmr

 

[Serup]

You keep viking red would you recommend them for spring calving grazing here i allways felt they were too high production suited to tmr

I'm probably very biased on this subject
Grazing systems is not my strongest expertise, and i don't know what you are comparing them to.
But they have good fertility, feet and legs and health, and some variation in size between breeding lines, so it is possible to adjust for what you need.
I only have mine on grass in the summer, but not for intensive grazing.
They do well on lower feed intake, as they don't milk till they die as holsteins. They take care of themselves first, and produce milk after. They just make more if you feed them more. Mine eat a lot of forage.

 

[Farmer Keith]

Large scale embryo beef is surely a non starter as far a public perception is concerned???

About time we left some American agricultural methods in the US in my opinion.