Come to the Te Mania Angus cattle yards on Friday October 21st to see how we use Fixed Time Artificial Insemination (FTAI) to join all our females.
The crew from Southern Cross genetics will be at Te Mania Angus cattle yards in the afternoon and we hope to see you there from 3pm. (The A.I. will finish for the day at 4.30 pm)
Joining with Artificial Insemination (AI) means that superior high accuracy sires from all over the world, can be accessed. These high accuracy, proven AI sires give producers more confidence that the performance and phenotypic characteristics of the offspring will be realized, compared to offspring from low accuracy natural service sires.
Beef breeders need their cows to get pregnant and deliver and wean a healthy calf to ensure they achieve maximum economic gain.
FTAI is becoming more widely used as technology has improved and cattle producers can inseminate all of their cows or heifers on a single day at the same time.
Cliff Lamb from the University of Florida explains, “The development of FTAI has allowed producers to improve the genetic traits of their cattle and shorten the lengths of both the breeding season and subsequent calving season, which can lead to increased overall profitability of cow-calf production systems.”
It’s all about the schedule with a Fixed Time AI programme.
At Te Mania Angus, we do two rounds of AI then a natural mating with our sires.
To start with, each group has a CIDR implanted with a CIDROL injection, then seven days later the CIDR’s are removed with a dose of PG. The heifers are AI’d 53 hours later and the cows are AI’d after 63 hours.
14 days later CIDR’s go in again and are removed seven days later and a KMAR is applied for heat detection, with another AI for any cows on heat two days later.
All the groups are then split with their calves and a bull goes out with around 120 females, he only needs to serve about 15 – 20 in the mob. The bull stays out for four weeks to ensure a tight joining period and improved fertility pattern. We foetal age at pregnancy test and then sell all the late ones. It makes for a very busy calving period next year!
Please RSVP to [email protected] if you can come to our “Afternoon in the Yards”
