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Lutalyse shot in heifers

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jtg

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I was wondering about the results people were having with giving a shot of lutalyse and then turning the heifers in with the bulls. This would be without feeding mga. How many bulls do you need as opposed to natural breeding. Should you increase your bulls to heifers ratio. Also does it synchronize them very well and is it worth the money and time running them thru the chute? If you do it when do the heifers recieve their shot in relation to putting them in with the bulls? I would greatly appreciate any feedback on this from those who have tried it.

Thanks for the info. :???:

JTG
 
jtg said:
I was wondering about the results people were having with giving a shot of lutalyse and then turning the heifers in with the bulls. This would be without feeding mga. How many bulls do you need as opposed to natural breeding. Should you increase your bulls to heifers ratio. Also does it synchronize them very well and is it worth the money and time running them thru the chute? If you do it when do the heifers recieve their shot in relation to putting them in with the bulls? I would greatly appreciate any feedback on this from those who have tried it.

Thanks for the info. :???:

JTG
Click to expand...

Why would you give them Lute before turning the bulls in?

They should all get bred within 21-24 days anyway.

By somewhat making several cycle at once the bulls may have more than they can handle in one day.
 
I Lutalysed my heifers the day I turned them out with the bulls, and I will definately do it again. I didn't feed mga. Out of 28 bred heifers, I'm half done. Their "due date" was March 1.

I used three bulls (a 2 year old and two yearlings). Looking back, it wasn't necessary to put that many with them, but I had an extra bull and didn't know what to expect with the yearlings. I did take one of the yearling bulls out and put him with the cows after a week.

The heifers weren't in a very large pasture (200 acres) and only had one water source and so that may have helped.

I would definately recommend trying it. I love the fact that half of my heifers are done so early in calving.
 
We do all of our AIing with just lutalyse... Run lots of bull power. because one bull might get stuck on one hiefier and miss the others... I would kinda watch the progress to see that everything that comes into heat gets covered.. We have locked a hiefier up away from the bull after we were sure she was bred.....
I don't know the condition of your cattle, but last year out of 47 hiefiers all of them came into heat the first shot except 8... And if you wait 10 days and give the ones that didn't come into heat another shot you should get them all...
 
Wyoming Rancher- did you notice a higher amount of opens or any other negative trade off? It seems too simple of a system to sync. the heifers without any bad things. Don't get me wrong the simplier and yet effective the system the better I like it.

JTG
 
I had a 90% pregnancy rate and the bulls were out for two cycles. For some reason I've never had a fantastic heifer pregnancy rate in the past, and so 90% was actually good for me.

I know other people get higher rates, but I've never figured out how without increasing costs. I guess I could feed them up more, but I don't believe in feedlot developed heifers. Actually the opens were some of the heifers I'd seen cycling when they were calves (5 months old).

It seems like grain-fed heifers have "fraudulant fat", and after calving as twos, my experience has been the condition just melts off of them. If they do breed back, it usually takes until they are coming fours before their body adjusts to my forage, and they look good.

Just my observation!
 
One way to make it better if your resources allow is to heat detect your hfrs. for 5-6 days before giving the Prostiglandin. You have three choices at this point: identify the cycling hfrs. and don't give them the prostiglandin when you do the other hfrs. Wait 7-days and give them the prostiglandin, or have a bull handy in a pen and breed them before the rest of the hfrs. which is only a day or two ahead of the rest.

I've been going to try this and see what happens; Give the prostiglandin shot 21 days before I wanted to turn the bulls in. That way they would all cycle on a natural heat on their own.
 
In 2005, my heifers were in good condition, proper feeding and mineral program, from weaning on. I put 35 heifers with one active bull. They calved out in 32 days @ 100 percent calf crop and two easy hand pulls.

In 2006, I decided to use cyidrs(sp) and AI I had an outstanding 80 percent conception rate, and calved out those 80 percent in 9 days (-35* too) no losses, just some short ears! the other 10 will be calved out in the next 10 days or so from natural service. My calving interval will still be well under 45 days.

My opinion...... drugs are great but can never compensate for poor nutrition or herd health. Heifers weight is probably more important than age, for breeding. Whatever you do, make darn sure you keep checking your bulls, daily if possible for the first two weeks, preferrably the first cycle. :wink: 45 day breeding season is plenty long enough!
 
I have been heat detecting for about 7 days and then giving the prostigladin shot for the last 3 years now and have had really good luck.

97% of my exposed heifers have calved in a 50 day calving window with a high percentage in the first 14 days.

One of the reasons I do it this way is that I feel like it spreads out the workload of the cleanup bull over a little wider window versus other synchronization programs.

Brian
 

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