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Heat synchronization

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Our AI reps son used it last year on 200 cows and had real good luck. Don't recall the protocall for sure but know it did not require any shots. Granted this was on some highly maintained cows.
 
It would sure be easier if it required less handling through the chute. My AI guy is digging through his files to get back up to speed on it. It seems that most have gone to using CIDRs but have more work with it, too.
 
Maple Leaf Angus said:
It would sure be easier if it required less handling through the chute. My AI guy is digging through his files to get back up to speed on it. It seems that most have gone to using CIDRs but have more work with it, too.
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I have used MGA on heifers only. I guess people don't use it on cows as much is because of the calves eating too. :???:

I had pretty good results, around 50% on one breeding if I remember correctly.
 
You can use it on cows, just don't expect the same results as you do with heifers, you have cows that are less than 60 days post partum, low grade uterine infections, stuff like that, so the response is less than with heifers. I have done it, feed more than .5 mg/ cow to make sure that all of them get enough to not break through, even with heifers I feed .8mg/head to make sure that everyone gets enough. More will not hurt them, not enough and they will come in heat. Had this arguement with a feed saleman, he had a whole bunch of heifers fail to cylcle cause he had them on .5 mg for 180 days. DUH. There is a program that is an Excel format that will give you expected costs per pregnancy using MGA, Prostoglandin, Prosto+ GnRH, CIDRS etc, I could probably send it to you email as it is an Excel format spreadsheet. The costs for CIDRs are unreal, that is using fixed time AI, a study we did proved that you could pay someone $5.00 per animal to heat detect and be money ahead of using CIDRs, GnRH and Prosto. Breeding off of a progesterone heat is not good. You could stuff a CIDR up a steers butt and get him to come in heat, even though it is never going to be fertile. My personal opinion of the poke and hope method of AI.
 
SW.......You about summed up my opinions of poke & hope AI! :lol: :lol: While we've not been able to AI for the past several years we have done a lot of our PB cows over the years.......I do use prostaglandins but nothing more and only breed on visual signs of heat..........PROPER heat detection and breeding timing is the secret to successful conception rates and we expect high 70"s-80% first service conception. When you are dealing with your next year's income you'd better take the time to do the job right!
 
Have been using MGA synchronization on both cows and heifers for over 15 years, was written about in Beef magazine back in the 90s. Over the next week I am breeding 400 heifers in four herds all using MGA. My worst conception rate over the past years has been 60%, I have hit 100% in a herd of cows last year, but they were hand selected. My average over the past 15 years has been 76% on both cows and heifers.

The protocol we are using is 14 days of .5 MGA, then 19 days later a shot of prostaglandin, then breed on heat. An alternative I have had success with is 14 days of MGA, 19 days later the Prostaglandin, breed on heat, then at 70 hours breed everything that has not shown heat and give them a GnRH shot. Last year on two herds of 100+ cows each, using this program I hit 85%, and had both done in 3 days of actual breeding.

Have been using CIDRs since before they were legal in this country, started using them when breeding elk. There sure were a lot of pump diaphragms that came into the country for three years from north of the border, and from south of the border for that matter, but most of those were in boot boxes. If you can put up with the extra labor, they work well, but that is an indivdual call. I have found that a key to making them work is washing and disinfecting the applicator and disinfecting the CIDRs just before insertion. That has sure cut down on infections and a couple of vaginal prolapses that occured early in the learning process of using them. Last year bred 600 cows and heifers using them, had a 75% conception rate on the whole group, and that included one herd of 160 that we time bred and thanks to a shipping mixup did not have the GnRH. In talking to the rancher this afternoon, he said we hit 54%, so that pulled the average down a bit.

One problem in overfeeding the MGA is that the product is fat soluble and is stored in the body fat of the animal. When this happens, especially in long term feeding as in feedlot heifers, it continues to be released over a longer period of time, in some cases as much as 20-30 days after the feeding has stopped. If you are expecting to breed them 19-23 days after stopping feeding, you will be breeding on the sub fertile heat off the MGA. Had one customer who also thought more is better and fed them 1mg for 14 days. They were in good (fat) shape and did not start cycling for 35 days after the program was supposed to end. That was an easy one to win when she threatened to sue me for ruining her heifers.
 
Pretty much all we do is use CIDR's up here in synch programs-there's a couple new protocols that eliminate that extra trip up the chute. We've hit close to 90 percent poking and hoping so we must be good at poking or hoping or both. There's been a couple projects not work so well but the herds I do every year were between 60 and 70 percent on fixed time A'I.My own herd we use the old ride and pull or else CIDR's depending on what pasture we are in at A"I time. It's alot easier to show a crew how to set up a CIDR program than to find good heat detectors that can handle the cows after they find them. I raised two of the best but I don't lend them out much.
 
It sure sounds like the dairy here could use someone like some of you. If any of you know of someone in Central Indiana doing a good job and looking for year around work PM me
 
we used cydrs and had about 70% on heifers cows was at 40% the cows were time bred this year were going to heat check and breed that way.Cydrs sure take alot of labor away..
 
Don't waste your time. There is such better ways nowdays.. You can't control the intake and trust me it can be a wreck....There are alot of options that work really well dollar wise too...
 
Northern Rancher: Please share your protocal using CIDRs. I will be AIing about 50 cows and would be most interested on any advice on how to increase my conception rates. I ran about 70% on cows last year and hope to do a little better. One thing that hurt me was I had some late calverss from a bull problem that were only 35-45 days postpartum. I did manage to move some of them up over a month though.
 
Lots of folks here use Ciders and are happy with the results.

We used them once, and that was last year.

I do know, that when you get MGA added, you should try to be there
when they mix it up to make sure it does get mixed really good.

BTW, if anyone still has their cattle in feeding them to AI, Vigortone does have MGA in the mineral that you could mix right with your feed. It works really well doing it that way. But you can't free choice it.
 
WB if you are averaging 70 percent you don't need any advice from me-besides the vet association in Saskatchewan has made it au verbotten for lowly A'I techs to discuss synch techniques-I have to refer them to their closest clinic so they get the ceremonial gouging on the synch drugs and CIDR's-I'm lucky our own vet is a good guy but there are some pirates out there. Alot of success and failure comes down to little things that can make a big differance-accurate syringes-if you don't own one buy a bunch of small plastic ones and put one dose in each one-cleanliness-we rivse our cidr gun three times between cows-water is cheap change your rinse bucket-on time-with the protocol. CIDR's are the holy grail for an A"I tech-I can plan A"I programs months ahead-there's not too many guys have enough cows to make it worthwhile to camp there for 3 weeks and heat detect. WB-if you have a good relationship with your vet-or a good Pfizer rep they can probably help you out with the new prortocols.
 

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