Anyone involved in Sexed semen trial?

blue5000

Just wondering if anyone on here is involved in this, what sort of conception rates are you getting? Heard of one place where only 1/3 of them held to first service.

Mulumpy

blue5000 wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone on here is involved in this, what sort of conception rates are you getting? Heard of one place where only 1/3 of them held to first service.

My neighbour took 30 heifers only 7 held first time

mahoney_j

Not for me,if I was in winter milk u might be tempted.too much of a risk of calving date slipping

whelan1

ai man was telling me of one local farmer-spring calving- who used 280 sexed semen trial straws, that is some gamble

blue5000

It will be interesting to see how it pans out. If it works then for a dairy farmer to get a 20% replacement rate only about 25% of the herd needs to get a dairy straw, the rest of the dairy herd could then get an easy calving beef straw, or just run a hereford/angus bull after about 3 weeks of ai. Sort of an own goal from ai stations?

Whelan if I was you I wouldn't be too anxious to get rid of them angus sucklers:)

delaval

We took 60 for heifers only looks to be successful so far minimal repeats.
Our pack was fresh sexed, frozen sexed and fresh and frozen unsexed all in groups of 25% and ai'd at random. We were not allowed to do this ourselves had to pay for an arm service.

This has the potential to dramatically change the face of dairy farming.

Blue mentioned using 3 weeks ai with dairy stock he is absolutely correct in my view. Dairy heifers are so expensive to rear that we should only invest in the heifers from the most fertile mothers.

Pacoa

Sort of an own goal from ai stations?

Not if its only getting 30% conception. Its subsidised this year at about 30 euro a pop but whats the normal price gona be when they roll it out? 40 or 50 yoyos?

delaval

Pacoa wrote: »

Not if its only getting 30% conception. Its subsidised this year at about 30 euro a pop but whats the normal price gona be when they roll it out? 40 or 50 yoyos?

I wonder is the poor conception rate a lot to do with heifers being indoors and maybe not in ideal condition?

Timmaay

If the pack is 25% of each of the 4 different combinations, surely the only result that everyone is interested in is the 25% of sexed fresh, which is where the breaktrue in conception rates will hopefully made. Delaval, do you know which heifers got these fresh sexed straws, and how did they specifically do in terms of the conception rate? Or maybe I took you up wrong, and that group of 60 were the 25% that got sexed fresh straws?

Timmaay

delaval wrote: »

I wonder is the poor conception rate a lot to do with heifers being indoors and maybe not in ideal condition?

I assume also they were quite picky about the farmers that were in the trial, Ie lads who normally AI their heifers anyways. Heifers are certainly harder to pick out if they are in heat in my view, due to them playing alot more and jumping etc, and then of course you tend to look at them less. If any of those farmers normally just run a bull with the heifers, then changed over to AI and did the heat detection 1/2 arsed then undoubtedly mistakes would be made.

whelan1

Timmaay wrote: »

I assume also they were quite picky about the farmers that were in the trial, Ie lads who normally AI their heifers anyways. Heifers are certainly harder to pick out if they are in heat in my view, due to them playing alot more and jumping etc, and then of course you tend to look at them less. If any of those farmers normally just run a bull with the heifers, then changed over to AI and did the heat detection 1/2 arsed then undoubtedly mistakes would be made.

alot of farmers having alot of trouble this year detecting heats in heifers

delaval

Timmaay wrote: »

If the pack is 25% of each of the 4 different combinations, surely the only result that everyone is interested in is the 25% of sexed fresh, which is where the breaktrue in conception rates will hopefully made. Delaval, do you know which heifers got these fresh sexed straws, and how did they specifically do in terms of the conception rate? Or maybe I took you up wrong, and that group of 60 were the 25% that got sexed fresh straws?

60 straws is all we got for trial then divided in quarters as above. When I get a chance I'll check. Guy who looks after heifers is away on holidayand I will check when he returns but will only e certain when we scan.
Bulls now running and very little action.
We recon conception rate not affected in whole group, but this doesn't mean that a sub group my e affected, if you follow:P

mf240

whelan1 wrote: »

alot of farmers having alot of trouble this year detecting heats in heifers

Hard to beat a bull for heifers.

whelan1

mf240 wrote: »

Hard to beat a bull for heifers.

yup, i know where there are some angus ones;)

delaval

mf240 wrote: »

Hard to beat a bull for heifers.

A bull with heifers great opportunity lost as they should be your best genetics.

whelan1

delaval wrote: »

A bull with heifers great opportunity lost as they should be your best genetics.

agree but if you are not picking up heats you are losing time

Timmaay

All heifers traditionally always get easy calving AAs here, I had a job convincing otherwise ha, but had afew 200ebi heifers that I couldn't pass up the chance!

mf240

delaval wrote: »

A bull with heifers great opportunity lost as they should be your best genetics.

They have all there lives to have dairy calves. Often tempted to let beef bull off with the cows from day one and buy a few heifers every year.

whelan1

mf240 wrote: »

They have all there lives to have dairy calves. Often tempted to let beef bull off with the cows from day one and buy a few heifers every year.

no. never ever buying in stock ever ever again.....you know what you breed and what they have been fed , promised the sun moon and stars when buying never works out

freedominacup

mf240 wrote: »

Hard to beat a bull for heifers.

Hard to make any case for using a bull on heifers

Other than for mopping up.

delaval

whelan1 wrote: »

agree but if you are not picking up heats you are losing time

Yes, but the question is why are heats being missed?
It's certainly not the heifers fault!!!

whelan1

delaval wrote: »

Yes, but the question is why are heats being missed?
It's certainly not the heifers fault!!!

had no problems here, heifers where having mad heats, just the lads in my group where saying it was hard to pick them up this year, i had been noting them down for a while before serving

delaval

whelan1 wrote: »

no. never ever buying in stock ever ever again.....you know what you breed and what they have been fed , promised the sun moon and stars when buying never works out

Surly with the EBI score system and a good level of research done it should be very possible to purchase genetically superior animals to add to the commercial herd.

whelan1

delaval wrote: »

Surly with the EBI score system and a good level of research done it should be very possible to purchase genetically superior animals to add to the commercial herd.

maybe in some cases, but i have been stung too many times

Timmaay

Three problems I had this year while trying to buy in replacements. Firstly chaps simply not having a clue about the EBI, or downright being annoyed when you mention it ha, I had one lad go on a 5min rant to me about how utterly useless the EBI index was ha. Next was farmers claiming they are closed herd, disease free etc etc, then you go look at them and they have all different bloody tag numbers etc etc. Finally, chaps saying the heifers were all "high" ebi, I'm sorry, 100 isn't high anymore ha! But farmers in fairness to them will hang on to theirown high ebi cows and let on the ones they don't want, and this is the biggest problem, in most cases you are buying some elses 2nds!

I did get lucky in the end, and am very happy with what I got (afew cross breds, average ebi 170ish), but the chap was only selling them as he was badly stuck for fodder. I snapped them up quick enough also, I saw that the better sounding heifers were all sold very quickly.

Surely the biggest reason for breeding yourown replacements as well is survivability, from looking through our herd profile over the last few yrs, I see a strong connection between the how long a dam and her daughters/ granddaughters all survive, whereas with a hell of alot of poor cows that go after 2/3 lactations, her daughters will follow suit and need to be culled also!

blackdog1

Just out of interest if you have such high ebi animals why are you buying replacements. Surely you would replace these from within your herd because if you have high ebi you should have a very high conception rate? Or are you trying to expand quickly?

Timmaay

We have always used AI here, so that certainly helped the EBI index of ourown herd, only reason I bought in was we did not have the replacements coming through, alongside some serious slippage of the CI in ourown herd. Mostly management problems caused this, myown fault, my career interests lied elsewhere other than farming and my dad wasn't in the best of health. Big batch of replacements will calf down next Dec/Jan/Feb, so that it for me buying in unless its unavoidable again.

blackdog1

I just asked because you were so negative towards lower ebi herds. I myself took over my own herd 10 years ago . Went for dutch and french holsteins smaller framed but just as much much milk. My main problem before I took over was heat detection before we never tail painted or anything. Now my heat detection is a1 .last year I brought in 32 heifers out of a 70 cow herd and will have the same again and this year. My point is 90% of fertility problems are down to heat detection and bad management of cows not ebi index. My main problem with ebi is it focuses too much on fertility and alot of the animals are minus in real terms in milk so instead of milking a 1200 Gallon heifer you get 800 if your lucky. Also you must realise the UK is our biggest market for export of heifers so to get top price you need to have good quality milking animal's they dont care about ebi. Last year I was could get 1600 to 1800 for incalf heifers. Also my cows when fat this year make between 1200 to 1600 . So if you farm right you can make a good living fom lower ebi animals. Im a winter and spring herd currently milking 27 litres a cow on 2 kgs of nuts a day. Thats with half the herd calved since the winter. Dont always listen to teagasc. Theres more than 1 way of farming

Pacoa

if you have high ebi you should have a very high conception rate?

Now theres a can of worms.

Timmaay

Ha ok, agreed fully, the ebi index is no substitute for poor management of cows etc, but in terms of buying in replacement it sure as hell takes alot of chance out of the equation, in general a farmer who is striving for high ebi cows will have a better herd. Some of ourown cows are still negative ebi and I wouldn't dream of culling them because of it.

And yep the overall ebi might put too much emphasis on fertility, but loads of bulls out there high on both production and fertility, likes of pbm/ksk/jkf, and any of the JE bulls, so that shouldn't stand a problem. Like everything, it depends on your system, if you have high yielding HOs with serious fert problems then those high fert, low production bulls could well suit.

bogman_bass

Pacoa wrote: »

Not if its only getting 30% conception. Its subsidised this year at about 30 euro a pop but whats the normal price gona be when they roll it out? 40 or 50 yoyos?

where is that figure coming from?

Pacoa

Heard of one place where only 1/3 of them held to first service.

My neighbour took 30 heifers only 7 held first time

This is where it comes from. First few post on this thread. I'd be surprised if this ends up as the overall conception rate, just a few individual cases.

whelan1

have many people many repeats from these straws , i have had a few in the last few days

whelan1

spoke with ai man there, said alot of repreats:cool:

blue5000

Just bumping this up, apologies. Has anybody used the beef bulls?

Mad4simmental

Anyone have calves on the ground yet? How did the % work out? Any suckler lads use it? Thanks.