Kudos to Don Nevill and Son of Clare, Michigan

Michigan Cattleman’s Association was pleased to announce that beef from a well- known Michigan cattleman was fed in the “White House” during the last 4^th of July celebration in our nation’s capital.

Don Nevill began his Angus herd with the family dairy farm when he was 14 years old (he won’t tell us how many years ago that was).    After he started Nevill Fence Supply, their dairy was closed down and the beef cow herd began ramping up.

Don is a past board member of Michigan Cattleman’s Association, which many of us feel is the most effective farm producer support organization in the state.    We decided to join MCA after our second year as an exhibitor at Spring Beef Expo and meeting their dynamic manager, George Quackenbush, who explained to us ways that MCA coordinates with efforts of the national beef checkoff run by USDA.

We were also influenced by Earl Souva of Great Lakes Sire Service (Bronson MI), which is one of the leading custom semen collection and bull housing facilities in the Midwest.    Earl is a recent past president of MCA who originally invited us to participate in Spring Beef Expo.     His business is qualified to ship semen around the world, which is a potential support benefit to Michigan purebred breeders.

Dairy replacement heifers hit $4,000 - For Beef Farmers

Now why should any beef producer care how high dairy breed replacement heifers are selling?   Because the beef cull market  (for “spent” cows)  establishes the floor value for both dairy AND beef replacement cows.    When dairy cows are at their highest-ever prices in history, you will know that cull prices are also at or near peak prices, helping to subsidize the purchases, so the beef cow replacement prices will not be far behind dairy cows.

Record high deacon calf prices  (bulls AND heifers)  FIRST reflect flat prices for all major feed commodities (hay, haylage, corn, corn silage, soybeans) as feedlot operators are still willing to buy light feeders at good prices;  so many calf feeders feel confident they can recover the calf prices and continue to pay $1000 for Holstein (dairy) bull calves and a hefty premium for any beef cross calf (most of which are currently born from lower-valued or slower breeding dairy cows).

It has been said before:   we have 50% more  people  than there were in 1962, but 25% fewer beef momma cows than 1962.    Prices for retail beef finally responded to this during the Covid pandemic, and have not fallen back since then. Even cattlemen who used to lose money raising calves to sell as feeders  (unless they had cattle that could do it on grass alone)  now can make enough profit to stay in business.   However, the replacement female supply is not very large, as market prices divert many to feedlots…  thus regrowth of the national cow herd will be a slow one  (especially if we continue to have blizzard winters, drought summers, and forest fires out west where the cheapest rangeland sits).

Good herd fertility genetics and reproduction management is the cheapest strategy for you if you wish to grow your cow-calf herd.    The dairy industry struggles with this thanks to decades of genetic focus more on fast maturity of production and less on reproductive ability.   If you follow advice from people like Dr Allan Williams, you will breed for longevity in your cows.

QUICK HAY CROP AFTER WHEAT HARVEST

 

Byron Seeds offers “Teff Grass”, which is also known as “Israeli wheat”.    When your grass pastures are in summer heat dormancy, this stuff will grow vigorously and produce a crop of fine stem, soft leaf hay that has great palatability.

In planting after wheat, you get the benefit of a crop that will help suppress the weeds that show up in the wheat stubble.    As an annual, you will get one cut and once you get a heavy frost, it will kill out, but leave you with a clean field for your next spring row crop of soybeans or corn.

Or, as it is unrelated to any grass or legume, there is no allopathic effect to inhibit a following spring seeding on well-drained soil.

Byron has an incredible variety of seeds—corn, soybeans, small grains, sorghums all types, brassicas, “Synergy X” alfalfa blends, higher energy grass varieties, and cover crop mixes.    There is so much creativity built into their offerings.    Ask us for the “summer annual” book.

 

Mich Livestock Service, Inc       “For the Best in Bulls”      and high energy seeds
(989) 834- 2661                   Ovid, MI 48866               www.michiganlivestock.com

OUR FAVORITE ‘MATERNAL” ANGUS BULL

 

Mark Curry        (989) 984- 7027         Route Service and Sales
Sue Palen           (989) 277- 0480         “Cattle Visions” order desk / products program
Greg Palen         (989) 277- 6031         Certified Seed Specialist /  refresher AI training

Mich Livestock Service, Inc     “For the Best in Bulls”      “High Energy Forage Seed”
110 N Main St   (PO Box 661)   Ovid,  MI  48866                      phone (989) 834- 2661
email:  greg@michiganlivestock.com        website:  www.michiganlivestock.com         (Facebook)

 

K R  SYNERGY  7023    (page six at bottom, Cattle Visions 2025 catalog)

This guy has been around for several years and remains popular in the Angus breeding world, and while described for superior performance (for example, 115 weaning ratio)  the proportions of his phenotype as translated into females shows the “maternal” physique and an ability to make milk.

     
If you have online access, check out the photos of his females on his page in the Cattle Visions website, Angus section.    His trait profile has some indicators of maternal ability also, and he has been a consistent semen producer (good libido in a bull often translates to fecundity in his females).

 

Make breeding into a new profit center

 

There is a $1000 profit per salable fresh heifer in current market prices over the costs of rearing a dairy heifer.     When everyone is chasing the highest deacon calf prices,  the opportunity in raising salable replacements just gets bigger and better.

The cycles in agriculture (prices and cost) always seem to favor that farmer who is able to pursue a counter-cyclical management strategy.    In Dairy, that has always been the dairyman who produces more heifers than he needs.    Today it pays the best it has ever paid in my lifetime.   Is your breeding strategy up to the challenge to help supply the endless demand for replacement dairy cows?    All it takes first is a shift in favor of “longevity” selection and “adaptable physique” mating.

Let us help you make that transition.    You might even save money in the process short-term, but more importantly, will increase farm income longer-term.

 

Mich Livestock Service, Inc        ph (989) 834- 2661         “For the Best in Bulls”
Triple-Hil Sires, Masterpiece Sires, No Bull Solutions, Blondin Sires, AG3 Genetics, AI Total
New Generation Genetics (Brown Swiss), Sustainable Genetics and Reverence Farms (Jersey)

There is no PRODUCTION without prior REPRODUCTION

 

Poultry farmers know this—“no eggs, no income”.    Swine producers know this as well—“no sows nursing piglets, no pork chops to sell”.     Sheep flocks are pushed to lamb twice in fifteen months.   Beef cow-calf operators know this very painfully at today’s calf values—“no calf, no income”.    Why when it comes to Dairy, has the production industry been so casual about reproduction?

Remember when Monsanto was promoting the eighteen month calving interval, and some of the rBST users were bragging up 1000-day lactations (cows who only calved once in their life)?

Today’s replacement heifer shortage  (in spite of widespread use of “gender selected” semen)  and the record-setting prices that are now double what springing heifers brought as recently as three years ago,  brings me to review all the high technology adaptive concepts that have been promoted to trusting dairymen, in the constant chase for “more milk”.

It really all began with the development of Predicted Transmitting Ability, the ranking of sires primarily on first-lactation milk volume.   Heifers who “peaked” the highest gave their sires the magic +1000 PD Milk rating, even if it took them 500 days to calve back—only the first 305 days’ milk multiplied by “ME” (Mature Equivalent) factors counted “genetically”.     In each generation bred this way, average conception rates fell, average calving intervals fell, percentage of stillborn calves increased, and incidence of post-calving metabolic disease rose.     The Genetics industry blamed your bad luck on nutritionists and veterinarians, instead of taking responsibility for the accumulating inbreeding effects from “single trait” genetic selection they promote.

Breeders who continued to base their breeding programs on strong maternal lines with strong natural fertility and competitive longevity could not compete with a genetic ranking system that was biased in favor of sire stacks of +1000  PD Milk bulls.    Today, under Genomic theories, cow values cannot produce enough “data” to alter the sire-centric pedigree-bound calculations.

How  do  we  reclaim  profitable  levels  of  fertility  in  our  dairy  herds?

The industry error is to act as if “selection” and “mating” are one and the same.   Cull rates, and  75 years of herd observations in the “aAa” breeding guide, prove these two functions different.     By ignoring this, basing all selection on intragenerational sire comparison, the half of your herd genetic profile descended from your cow lines  is being mismanaged.    Your best cows are not being given the chance to produce the best possible offspring.    Your worst cow is treated as if she will breed exactly the same as your best cows.    New cull cows are being reproduced.

Milk yield is half sire genetics, half cow physical capability  and “aAa” focuses on the physique.

Taking Care When Handling Semen to Optimize Conception

  Mark Curry    (989) 984- 7027         Route Services and Sales
Sue Palen       (989) 277- 0480         Office Coordinator/ Products program
Greg Palen     (989) 277- 6031         “aAa” Breeding Guide / Certified Seed Specialist

Mich Livestock Service, Inc    “For the Best in Bulls”    “High Energy Forage Seed”
110 N Main St   (PO Box 661)   Ovid,  MI  48866                    phone (989) 834- 2661
email: greg@michiganlivestock.com             website:  www.michiganlivestock.com

 

Sending and receiving ”vapor phase” cryogenic shippers
Your farm tank is charged with liquid nitrogen, at a temperature of -320 degrees F.    Our truck inventory tanks are also liquid tanks, so when you buy semen it is at -320F temperature, and the general processor recommendation is that the canes should transfer from supply tank to your tank in less than ten seconds.    When dealing with 1/4cc straws (sexed or imported semen) the recommendation is less than eight seconds.     Here is where problems start:  the neck tube of your tank only has nitrogen vapor which rises to -140 degrees F.    As canes or straws come out of the neck, they rise above -140 degrees F, which is the minimum safe temperature for semen transport—thus the “less than ten” and “less than eight” second rules.

Most semen today is shipped via UPS or Federal Express in “Doble” or “vapor phase” shippers (DOT rules do not allow parcel carriers to handle “wet” nitrogen tanks).    Thus shipped semen is only at -140 degrees F during transport.    When we receive shippers here, we pour them full of liquid nitrogen before extracting semen, in order for protective liquid (-320F cold) to be in the straw cups when they move to our storage and transport.    Without this step, it is easy for the semen arriving via UPS to be damaged just removing it from the vapor shipper.    For most of us, if we order semen to be shipped direct to our farms (bypassing someone like us) you run the risk of damage in handling it from the shipper into your semen tank.    Again, the risk is greater if the semen (like gender selected) is packaged in the smaller diameter 1/4cc straws.

Pulling straws from your tank in order to breed cows
If you look in the neck of your semen tank, you will see there is a line of frost a couple inches down in.    This is the line above which canisters should not be pulled, it indicates how high the “safe” -140F temperature for stored semen is for your tank.    Using tweezers to extract straws inside the neck of the tank, preserves your remaining inventory at safe temps.    Pull a canister above the neck of the tank will progressively damage your semen, reducing conception rates.

Here is what happened to one of our suppliers
They sent semen on eight bulls to an independent AI service in Arkansas by UPS, in vapor tanks.   As cows began to be bred, conception rates were falling.    Retrieving the unused semen, we had it evaluated by Hawkeye Breeders’ lab in Iowa.     As part of the test, we separated straws out of TOP cups from straws in BOTTOM cups, same bulls.    Uniformly, the semen looked better from BOTTOM cups (which stayed in the body of the tank) but looked poorer from TOP cups.   It was easy to infer that these inseminators were poorly trained in semen handling and storage;  but it could also indicate that they had no nitrogen available to reliquefy the shipper before removing the canes when received.   

Avoid  overstocking  canes  in  your  own  tank
When it is time to breed a cow, you will go to your tank to pull out a straw of semen.    Again, as we think about the “ten second” (1/2cc) and “eight second” (1/4cc) rules, ask yourself how easy you (first)  find the  individual cane  with the chosen bull;  then (second)  extract a  single straw from that cane, returning the cane back down into the canister and the canister back down into the body of the tank.    If you hear a lot of sizzling when returning cane and canister, consider it may be taking you too long  to do this.     How much of that extra time is used up trying to find the right cane, pulling the cane away from other canes in the canister, and drawing out a straw from it?     Over time, you are creating the same damage to straws in the upper cups of canes that we could document from the semen testing experiment we did with Hawkeye Breeders.

It has become a strong suggestion from semen suppliers to avoid ordering in quantities other than 5 straw multiples, so that no one in the delivery chain has to separate straws out of a cup and transfer them into another cup.    This is part of the industry effort to maintain conception.

Avoid  thawing  multiple  straws  at  once  when  group  breeding
With straw technology it only takes 40 seconds to fully thaw a 1/2cc straw in 95 degree F water, less than 30 seconds to fully thaw a 1/4cc straw in 95 degree F water.    By contrast, if straws are left in thaw bath for longer than 15 minutes, the activated sperm cells begin to suffocate.   Now that so many Ov Synch “timed breeding” groups are done, especially in larger expansion herds, we see lower conception rates mostly related to expecting an inseminator to breed many cows at a time with no assistance in moving cows to chutes or loading AI guns before walking alleys.    Too many of them will thaw an entire cup or cane of straws at once.   Can they really get ten (or even five) cows accurately inseminated in less than 15 minutes??      

Try  to  locate  semen  tanks  and  AI  equipment  close  to  the  breeding  area
Having to carry a loaded breeding gun the length of a barn or free-stall pen in all but summer temperatures, can expose the thawed semen to “cold shock” which has been known for years to damage seasonal conception rates.    Live sperm cells expect to be at near body temperature.

SUCCESS COMES FROM MASTERING THE BIG PICTURE

My brief time on Michigan Hay and Forage Council taught me this:
Everyone does not agree that  “One Size Fits All”…     Even among “experts”.

 

Behind most long-term successful businesses you will find owners who developed a philosophy that created a perspective of the “big picture” and a moral compass to guide the decision-making process.

In Beef cow-calf production, even if your goal is a successful show season (which is maybe a month long across spring summer and fall) the success of your breeding program is that it meets all needs—reproduction, live calvings, cow longevity and calf marketability, manageable input costs, most of which comes from underlying farming decisions.    Genetic selection of animals responds to the genetics of soil life and plant diversity, insuring a more profitable herd.

 

Mich Livestock Service, Inc    “For the Best in Bulls”   “High Energy Forage seed”

BUILDING BETTER SOIL is what, and when, you choose to plant

The soil is a “living” organism, in the sense it is capable of growing something 365 days a year, either above or below ground  (as with cover crops).

Only growing a monocultural (grain) crop, which from planting to harvesting takes up to 125 days in Michigan latitudes, leaves the soil barren of crops for 240 or more days—  eroding, incubating weeds, while starving the soil biology.

Rotating crops with winter covers and spring-harvested forages, is the first step in regenerating the water holding capacity and tilth of your soils.  Yields will increase.

 

BUILDING  BETTER  SOIL   is returning your livestock to the land

Assuming that we have returned all the animal fertility to the soil by spreading a manure stockpile (or a liquid from a lagoon) is only 30% to 40% true.

Nothing stimulates soil life as much as the real-time passage of livestock across the land.    In the days of wagon trains moving west, the immense growth of grass in the prairies (which annually saw the passage of buffalo and year-around all the species lesser in size) was so dense, and so TALL, that you could not see wagons moving.    (They followed paths of Indian hunters to avoid being totally lost).   It is not just manure fibers, but urine and its retained enzymes, it is hair, it is sluffed off cells, anything falling off the buffalos’ (or cattles’) backs fed some element of the soil life.   

The separation of livestock from soil contact  (accelerated since 1968’s sweeping farm bill beginning subsidies for exportable row crops)  has been part of degrading soil structure, tllth and productivity.

 

If you don’t mind building fence, send your momma cows to pasture, where they will get sunlight vitamins, eat fresh grass, attain healthier levels of body condition, improve circulatory health from exercise, and regain muscle tone to calve easier.

Allen Williams, PhD (Genetics and Reproductive Physiology) thoughts

Allen grew up on a multi-specie farm in South Carolina;  attended Clemson University intending to return to the family farm.   Instead he was recruited into grad school on a research fellowship and ended up a tenured professor, teaching at Clemson for fifteen years.    He came to perceive that the trend in Agricultural colleges was to research and treat “symptoms” -- rather than the causes – of farm management issues, including lack of profitability.    Leaving Clemson to return to the farm, his college colleagues told him he was making a “disastrous financial mistake”!   He saw that attitude as an indictment of the Ag college viewpoint, that anyone trained as they do could not “make it” actually farming!!!   Today he is a recognized leading voice in “Regenerative Agriculture” concepts and consults worldwide.

Allan has a regular column in Stockman Grass Farmer magazine.   I am taking his online course  “The Basics of Sound Genetics”  and wanted to share some of his introductory ideas with you.

Adaptive  Stewardship

In Allan’s grasp of Genetics  (the “Genetics” industry is basically trait statistics, not biology)  we are forgetting that genotypes do not have a rigid response in all environments,  but “adapt” to the environments we provide (from our view, either positively or negatively).    The emerging science of “Epigenetics” is his current focus, and his term “Adaptive Stewardship” pushes us to be more proactive in creating an environment in which the genetics of soil biology, plant variety and animal breeding have a productive coexistence.

Compared to the North American continent when settlers first arrived here, ALL our farmed and pastured land is a “degraded” resource  --  supporting less bioactivity in the soil, fewer varieties of plants, and thus animals that tend to need energy supplementation to reach market stages.

Degraded ecosystem

In specifics, the ratio of mycchorizal fungi to bacteria is way off the optimum.    Fungi produces the “glue” that holds soil structure together, and aids in the transport of nutrients into the root zone of our plants.    The loss of this fungal balance in soils has led us to an increasing volume of chemical fertilizer use, increasing the cost of every crop we grow.

The goal in “Regenerative Ag” is (1) to redevelop bio-active soils with high organic matter, (2) a soil structure that provides proper water cycling, (3) an increased diversity in beneficial plant species, leading to (4) improved and ,more predictable animal performance.     These are steps beyond the concepts of “Sustainable Agriculture”, in which we focus on practices that keep us in business through controlling cost of inputs (in commodity agriculture, profits flow to lowest cost producers rather than those who keep buying inputs seeking higher volume production).

Both Sustainable Ag and Regenerative Ag are clearly different approaches than what is seen as “spend your way to prosperity” mainstream agriculture thinking (as extolled by most land grant universities whose research focuses are financed by industrial Ag vendors).    In the mainstream of agriculture, the typical consultant will say things like  “at current crop values we can’t afford to feed the SOIL so let’s focus on feeding the next CROP”.     Given a strong trend in farming over the recent fifty years toward more annual row crops and less perennial forages and permanent pasture, farmers struggle with more soil compaction, less rainfall retention, more weeds, losing organic matter, and with the separation of livestock into concentrated feed lots, losing biological balance in the soil.    Thus our animals have more health and insect trouble, as nutrient density in their feed decreases linearly with the relentless chasing of higher crop yields via chemicals.

Summary quotes

“Nature will humble you, and if you are fighting nature she will defeat you.”    In the linear study of individual traits (plant or animal) we have tended to pursue these too far, into extremes.

Wendell Berry, KY farmer and sage, writing in New York Times in 2018:
“Agricultural choices must be made by these inescapable standards:  the ecological health of the farm, and the economic health of the farmer.”     [Farmer suicide rates have increased each year since 2018, clearly Mr Berry’s standards are not being followed.]

Masenobu Fukuoka, Japanese researcher and eminent farming observer:
“An object seen in isolation from the whole is not the real thing.”    [This is applicable to current tendencies in ag research to break the big picture down to fractions of the total issue.]      

What does all this mean?

To focus on animal genetics alone, instead of starting with soil biology, is to limit your success.

Among recent announcements from Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding

Mark Curry    (989) 984- 7027      Route Services and Sales
Sue Palen       (989) 277- 0480      Office manager/  Product order desk
Greg Palen     (989) 277- 6031      Approver “aAa” Breeding Guide analyzer  (since 1994)

Mich Livestock Service, Inc     “For the Best in Bulls”    “High Energy forage seeds”
110 N Main St   (PO Box 661)   Ovid, MI  48866                phone (989) 834-2661
email: greg@michiganlivestock.com       website: www.michiganlivestock.com

“We are no longer using Mature Equivalent (ME) factors in genetic evaluations”

This is quite a profound statement, as I will prove in the following.    Ever since the AIPL (USDA) changed the “one size fits all” dairy ranking from “Net Merit” (focused on accelerating lactation milk volume) to “Lifetime Net Merit” (adding in “Productive Life”) and, fifteen years later, proceeded to change over to “Genomics” (reading the DNA instead of waiting for progeny data)  the Genetics industry has claimed all success for the rising per-cow milk production across the mainstream Dairy world.

Primary to their salesmanship has been “accelerating” young cow production with goals of seeing increased lifetime production.    Now, with the discontinuance of “ME” factors, we can see these two goals are no longer compatible, as they might have been in the 1970s when leading Geneticists believed:  ”select for more milk based on PTA values and all other desired traits will just naturally improve alongside”…  but too many of all those “other desired traits” went sideways.     Their measurement of “more milk” was based on standard 305 day lactations (as reported by DHIA), multiplied by “ME” factors to equivalate what matured (fourth and later calving) cows typically produced.

These ME factors, depending on breed, added 33% to 40% to the actual first lactation yields of cows…  20% to 25% to second lactation yields…   across the board, “one size fits all”, whether that young cow calved back in 365 days or took 500 days;  whether she ever lived to maturity!

Generations of extra credit were given to hard breeding, shorter herdlife cows

There is no doubt that, as cows avoid conceiving for an annual re-calving  (as those grazing in seasonal calving windows always needed)  and extend their lactation, the odds of getting her rebred—and the odds of avoiding metabolic diseases on that next calving --  both decrease. 

As we learned through generations of cows where fertility declined in every generation, and led to widespread use of Ov Synch reproduction in dairies today, the measuring of production to a standard of “first 305 days” disadvantaged bulls like Paclamar Astronaut who, although +1466m at 99% Reliability in his own generation of sires AND the greatest source of milk proteins in his generation  (= Penstate Ivanhoe Star,  Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief,  Paclamar Bootmaker,  and Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation), transmitted too much fertility  (bred back too easily)  for his sons and-- more importantly-- grandsons, to compete on PD Milk;  a measure based not on daughters compared to their dams  (the original purpose  of ME factors, enable immaturity to compare against maturity intergenerationally)  but on daughters vs unrelated herdmates, which USDA-AIPL began in 1962.     The pace of genetic change traded “milk” for “fertility” very fast.

Today it is hindsight;   in the earlier days, it was purebred breeders  vs.  extension/AI studs

Many of the more experienced breeders, including those involved in breeding the “best” sires into the 1960s  (as the bulls mentioned above were all born)  cautioned that a single-trait focus on higher PD milk sires would steadily shrink breed bloodline diversity.    Today we know that pedigree “inbreeding” began to rise from the beginning of the “index” era, and is now climbing faster in the “genomic” era.    In the AI industry there are only two bloodlines left--  “Elevation” and “Arlinda Chief” – representing 25% of the total Holstein genotype.  

Beginning in the 1970s, regional AI cooperatives began young sire programs to compete with national breeding companies (ABS, Curtiss, Carnation) who had the first access to herdsires of leading breeding herds.    With the support of USDA- AIPL and University extension geneticists designing the sampling programs, this system promoted PD yields over the broader selection of type plus production plus longevity of production on which “breeder” selection focused.    Who generated the bigger numbers?   The single-trait selection approaches based on the indexes, in which obsolete “ME” factors continued to inflate the deviations between sires.

Earlier maturity of production proved to be associated with earlier aging of the cow physique

Speed through dozens of generations.    Cows who set the highest “peaks” in the days of in-barn “challenge feeding” got more energy supplements, made a bigger 305 day record, got it inflated by the ME factors, allowing their sires the highest PD Milk values.    Breed higher-peak sires to daughters of other higher-peak sires was the genetic progression for AI stud contract matings.

At each step of dairy industry transition, the genetic theories based on hand feeding cows in stanchion barns (where no physical uniformity of cows mattered in their management) never changed, including the use of ME factors (made obsolete by the 1974 “Modified Contemporary Comparisons”, inaugurating Predicted Transmitting Ability, or PTA which now factored in sire pedigree values for “contemporary” herdmates as well as the bulls themselves).

By the time a widespread shift in favor of crossbreeding to combat obvious signs of inbreeding depression was occurring, basically a market rejection of “indexes”-- the “Lifetime Net Merit” came into being.    For the first time we now had sire indexes for Stillbirths as part of Calving Ease, Somatic Cell Score, Daughter Pregnancy Rates, and thus Productive Life to counter the shortening average herdlife of commercial dairy cows.

But by the time Genomics was introduced twelve years ago, the periodic shortage of heifer replacements led to a market for gender-selected semen, and average commercial cow life settled unchanged into an average herd life of 2.3 lactations.    Today, 80% of all cows milked have their “peak” lactation total in their second calving, leaving most herds mid lactation after their third calving.   80% of all Holsteins leave herds prior to reaching the mature age and production level predicted by the tradition of “ME” (mature equivalent).    Most of the sire bloodlines who offered production gains into physical maturity  (such as Paclamar Astronaut represented—that “Y” chromosome Dr Chad Dechow at Penn State University says is now lost from the commercial AI sire population) are essentially lost from Embryo donor herds being used by mainstream AI studs.

What can you do to get a profitable lifetime bred into your replacements?

Given herd replacements now cost twice what they did three years ago, at the same milk prices—a different breeding strategy is clearly needed.

We have built our dairy sire programs around a strategy that will succeed in breeding for a “longevity of production” as the mainstream PTA approach focused on “Productive Life” has failed.    By the time CDCB discontinued using “ME” factors, the damage to dairy genetics was already done.     However, breeding cows with competitive longevity of production still exist, and Zoetis’ genome research into “wellness” proves that cows who reach functional maturity still produce 30% more milk than first lactation cows.   That means you can breed for a full lifetime cow and accomplish it.    A 30% gain as a cow matures exceeds any theorized gain by the highest PTA Genomic values on the newest young sires.    

If you are struggling with profitability after focusing genetic selection on marginal gains of young age productivity, give us a call.     Getting just one more calving from each cow will increase your herd production cheaper than any other selection strategy that is practical.

Breeding for Longevity is quite possible !
Just requires a different strategy than you may be getting from other advisors

I analyze (aAa system)  for a 2600 cow dairy in central Ohio that recently sold a semi potload of short bred heifers to a larger dairy in Texas, receiving a check for six figures…  which covers a lot of fall expenses.     They do not use Ov Synch AI or gender-selected semen, they do not even raise GMO crops!    How did they have a surplus of heifers?   Because a quarter of their cows have now calved four or more times! -and are producing at mature levels of milk (30% more than their heifers).

You can get the same results.    

If you currently spend money on Genomic testing, our strategy will even be a lot cheaper!      Ask yourself if what you are currently doing is working in this way.
If it isn’t give us a call.

MIch Livestock Service, Inc   “For the Best in Bulls”    “For high energy forages”

Ph (989) 834- 2661    email: greg@michiganlivestock.com       text: 989 277 6031

 

Storing, shipping and handling embryos

Most semen today can be shipped via Federal Express or U P S in special containers known as “vapor phase” shippers.    These specialized tanks  (MVE calls them “Doble” tanks)  have liners that absorb the liquid nitrogen, and release nitrogen vapor into the center chamber where your semen is placed.    Upon arrival, the correct procedure is to add nitrogen to the center chamber and then transfer the shipment into standard liquid nitrogen semen tanks.

Why add liquid nitrogen into a vapor shipper on arrival?     Liquid Nitrogen is 320F below zero while Nitrogen Vapor is only 140F below zero.     Sperm cells are a simpler cell than an embryo (which has gone through a week of cell division before freezing) and are safe at vapor temps.  However, moving semen canes from vapor temps into the ambient air temp can raise semen temps enough to cause crystalline shifts in the fluids.    This can dislodge essential acrosomal caps on the heads of the sperm cells.    It is the acrosome that enables fertilization of the ovum (merely having “motile” sperm is not enough).

It is for this reason that we suggest your CATTLE VISION semen come through us, as we always have nitrogen at the office to pour into shippers to cool semen down to the liquid temps.    As an added bonus, our volume of orders from C V means you will get “free” shipping, so lowers your total cost.     Maintaining semen quality up to the point of insemination is our goal.

EMBRYOS  ARE  SO  MUCH  TOUCHIER

Optimal storage and transport of embryos is to be in the liquid nitrogen at all times.    While they are often shipped in vapor shippers, here it is essential to have liquid nitrogen to charge that vapor shipper before moving the embryos into your tank storage.

An embryo is eight days old at the time it has been collected and frozen, so have gone through much cell division and is a “layered” cell, 20x the size of a sperm cell.    All those interior walls of membrane are more fragile than the simple tail, body and acrosome cap of a sperm.    Longer storage in vapor (rather than liquid) will cause deterioration of the embryo.

Thus, in our route delivery system, with so many of you storing embryos on the farm, we stick with the eight week recharge interval for your storage tanks, even though the newest models could hold semen safely for twice as long between recharges.     This is designed so that older models and large mouth models, typically only rated for twelve weeks holding, still have that margin of safety that supports long term storage of semen.    BUT if you are storing embryos, your longest holding tanks is where they belong.   In this way, enbryos will always be deep in the liquid volume of the tank not subject to that 180 degree transition from vapor to liquid nitrogen temperature.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE ¼ CC SEXED STRAWS?

These have a minimal of extender and a lower concentration of sperm cells than unsexed straws

Semen storage, transport, handling and thawing

 

There has been a lot of discussion on these topics  this winter.   Many inseminators are in such a hurry they put the straw directly into the AI gun unthawed, theorizing the cow’s body temperature will thaw it adequately.    Others, especially those trained by CRI Genex, are using “pocket thaw” rather than the universally recommended warm water bath.

CRI Genex (and Taurus Service) were the only major AI companies to use whole milk as a fluid extender for semen straw packaging.    “Cream” is the natural substance most able to protect the sperm cells through the critical temperatures at which water crystallizes.    Thus they could get away with recommending “pocket thaw”, knowing full well that this would damage sperm cells extended in the more common egg yolk, powdered citrate, or soybean oil fluids used by their AI competitors.   In our opinion, given you generally do not know which choice was made for the bulls you buy, warm water thaw bath at temperatures between 92 F and 98 F are your best bet, especially for late fall, winter, and early spring when air temperatures are well below a cow’s body temp.

Why was whole milk not universally used?    (1)  the cream content of commercial “whole” milk varies by 40%  (3.25% minimum to over 4% blended average);  (2)  it is the most difficult media to be able to see the motility and acrosomal retention on sperm cells, requiring more expensive magnification.   Volume semen produced in AI studs goes more smoothly with other extenders.

The bigger issues affecting conception rates over longer-term semen storage

Prior to 1968, semen was generally packaged in 1.0 or 1.2 cc pyrex (glass) ampules.   These are easier to transfer between tanks, can be stored virtually indefinitely without loss of potency, BUT required eight to ten minutes thawing time (in 40F ice water) to fully liquify.    Even after experimentation with warm water thawing, you still need two minutes to reach body temps.

From 1968 forward, the French straw system took over, using a 1/2cc plastic wand that took up less tank space (10 on a cane compared to 6 or 8 ampules) AND would thaw out in 40 seconds in warm water.    The stainless steel breeding guns offered a bit more rigidity than the plastic tubes used with ampules.     Under optimal handling, conception rates initially rose from this switch from ampules to straws, as faster freezing and thawing saved sperm cells.

However, the transfer of straw canes between tanks had to be done faster (eight seconds or less is recommended), and the longer straws are stored, the risk of exposure damage to straws in the upper cups on canes was greater.    Canisters holding the canes should not be lifted above the neck tube when extracting a straw to breed a cow.     ALSO once thawed that straw needs to be in the cow within 15 minutes  and protected from temperature drops (“wind chill”) once the AI gun is loaded.    It is also advantageous to warm the AI gun before inserting the straw.    None of these precautions were necessary in the days of ampules and ice water thawing.

Gender-sorted semen (and most imported sires) are in the even more fragile 1/ 4 cc ministraw.

What really defines an outcross sire today?

 

How do we avoid “inbreeding depression” when the new sires are all related?

How do we avoid breeding cows too big for our freestalls, too straight-legged to walk concrete alleys, too short-teated to milk out without liner slippage?

How do we avoid making cows too narrow and shallow to eat a least-cost forage-based ration?     Cows who also need hoof-trimming constantly to avoid lameness?    

How do we breed cows to get a full lifetime of production, so we are not stuck with fast cow turnover and $3500+ replacement cow auction values?

 

We know how.    Maybe it is time you ask us for a little help.

 

 

Mich Livestock Service, Inc   “For the Best in Bulls”    and    “High energy forage seeds”
ph (989) 834- 2661        email greg@michiganlivestock.com       PO Box 661  Ovid, MI 48866