A.I. & BREEDING

When reproductive technologies became available, dairy producers quickly embraced them, including artificial insemination (A.I.) and embryo transfer (ET). Today, producers remain engaged and readily utilize these technologies to create the newest, best genetics as quickly as possible to advance herd progress.

If you have an open employment position on your dairy, your first step is likely to review qualifications in résumés or applications and then extend interviews, and in many cases, you don’t extend interviews to every candidate.

To supplement a 160-milking cow herd and diversify business, Ian Crosbie has ventured into new territory as he breeds animals from the farm’s Holstein herd with Japanese Wagyu to produce snow beef.

“Pregnant.”

Hearing that word during herd check is music to every dairy farmer’s ears. And it should be.

Some dairy producers who are breeding for beef crossbreds are only looking at two things: the price of semen and getting an animal that is as black as possible.

As an industry, we talk a lot about certain cows or groups of cows being “hard breeders.” Yet rarely do we talk about the fact that, often, human decisions are the reason cows aren’t able to become pregnant efficiently, not necessarily the A.I. program.