Reproduction
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Pedro Fontes, Ph.D. One of the most important management practices for a cow-calf operation is the establishment of a controlled breeding season. There are a number of benefits that producers miss out on when they fail to adopt a controlled breeding season, benefits that will be discussed in this article.
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Pedro Fontes, Ph.D. Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist – The 2023 sire directories from genetic companies are now available to beef producers. In addition to including a wide variety of new sires, these directories also include updates in their estrus synchronization protocol sheets. These updates include new protocols that are now validated and endorsed by […]
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Dylan Davis and Lawton Stewart As winter slowly approaches and producers are planning their winter supplementation, the question comes in each year; can I feed whole cottonseed to my bulls or will it make them infertile? This article will go over the impacts of cottonseed on bull fertility and describe how to safely take advantage […]
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Francine Henry, Jason Duggin, Pedro Fontes, Lawton Stewart Over the years, commercial cattle producers have only had visual appearance and individual measurements known as phenotypes to use for heifer selection criteria. Now producers can evaluate the genetic differences known as Molecular Breeding Values (MBVs) between heifers well before their first potential breeding season. Having genomic […]
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Pedro Fontes, Nathan Eason, Andy Carter, Jason Duggin – Estrus synchronization programs have the ability of inducing cyclicity in postpartum cows and can be used in combination with natural service breeding to increase the percentage of cows and heifers that become pregnant early in the season. This publication describe different estrus synchronization protocols that can […]
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Pedro L. P. Fontes, Ph.D. Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist The Relative Age Effect is a term commonly used to describe how children athletes born early in the academic year tend to perform to a higher level than those born later. For example, softball athletes born between May and August are 40% more likely to […]
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Pedro Fontes, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist – There has been a remarkable increase in beef semen sales over the last few years. While artificial insemination (AI) is a powerful tool that has really helped the beef industry make genetic progress, thisincrease in beef semen sales not necessarily reflects an increase in the […]
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Pedro Fontes, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist – We now know that a variety of factors such as nutrition, semen quality, AI technician, and vaccinations (to name a few) can influence the success of an AI program. In this article, Dr. Pedro Fontes discusses how long-term commitment to estrus synchronization and AI influence […]
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Pedro Fontes, Ph.D., Assistant Professor and Beef Extension Specialist – Cattle producers commonly evaluate reproductive performance by determining how many cows became pregnant during the breeding season. Although pregnancy rates are important, when females become pregnant within the breeding season is also a key component of cow-calf profitability. In this short article, Dr. Fontes discusses […]
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Dr. Pedro L. P. Fontes – Reproductive Physiologist As we approach the upcoming breeding season, cattle producers are starting to plan their breeding programs for this spring. While estrus synchronization can eliminate the need for estrus detection, identifying females in estrus can help cattle producers further explore the benefits of artificial insemination and embryo transfer. […]
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Pedro L. P. Fontes – Reproductive Physiologist – Cow-calf producers have traditionally struggled to capture value when marketing calves with superior genetics for terminal traits. However, today, this scenario is changing. Cattlemen that produce genetically superior calves that will perform well in the feedlot and produce superior carcasses can take advantage of value-based marketing opportunities […]
Posted in: Reproduction