Reproduction
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Brent Credille, DVM, PhD, DACVIM -Producer-level surveys of cow-calf operations across the country have shown that a minority of herds adopt management practices that promote herd efficiency and profitability. The easiest way to improve herd profitability is to focus on optimizing herd efficiency. The goal of this article is to provide producers with management practices…
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Pedro Fontes, Ph.D. -Like other assisted reproductive technologies utilized in the beef industry, the main goal of embryo transfer programs is to maximize the genetic merit of the herd. There are two main approaches utilized in the beef industry to produce embryos: (1) In vivo and (2) in vitro embryo production. In this article, Dr.…
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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…
Posted in: Reproduction -
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…
Posted in: Reproduction -
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…
Posted in: Reproduction