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Reproduction

  • 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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