Glenda Pereira: 00:09
Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. We today are co-hosting.
Colt Knight: 00:14
Glenda, you forgot to say that we were gonna kick the pig.
Glenda Pereira: 00:18
Well, you said that last time, and so I thought we’d start off with co-hosting responsibilities today, and, I guess, kicking things. JKJK. So today, we’re co-hosting, like we mentioned. So Colt and I are in the studio. I hope you don’t hear the jackhammering.
Glenda Pereira: 00:43
If you’ve been to Orono recently and on main campus, there’s a lot of jackhammering going on. So sorry about that, everybody.
Colt Knight: 00:52
Yeah. Like, right outside of the window. They’ve got the big excavator with the pneumatic hammer going to town outside.
Glenda Pereira: 01:01
But today, we’re actually gonna be doing some promo for an upcoming event that Colt is hosting as well as talking about some programming we did this past year, specifically artificial insemination.
Colt Knight: 01:16
Mhmm.
Glenda Pereira: 01:17
So this is the other AI. When I tell people AI and they’re not in the livestock space, they think artificial intelligence.
Colt Knight: 01:27
It’s so confusing.
Glenda Pereira: 01:29
Yeah. It’s artificial insemination.
Colt Knight: 01:31
Because for the last thirty years, AI has meant artificial insemination, and now AI, artificial intelligence, has pushed its way into our everyday being. And now we have to clarify, which
Glenda Pereira: 01:48
Is okay.
Colt Knight: 01:49
And whenever you go to meetings or anything, you have to sit through the joke about how AI is the original AI, and it gets tiresome. Yeah. It’s haggard at this point.
Glenda Pereira: 02:07
Yeah. Yeah. But it’s still something that we find a lot of use from. And just this past week, we had a field event where we were talking about how to make the most genetic gain, and you have to use AI. I mean, there’s really not a better way to make genetic gain and really maximize what your animal’s potential is if you’re not using artificial insemination, just because the genetic tools that are at your fingertips are incredible.
Glenda Pereira: 02:48
So, yeah, let’s kind of start at the beginning. Why did we start this AI topic? Why did we want to do some programming? Because we’ve been talking about this for a while now.
Colt Knight: 03:04
So one of the key components of Extension is a needs assessment. It is like when we audit livestock producers and ask them what their needs are for education from the university. Traditionally, we’ve had handwritten surveys or digital forms, and you all, as producers, know that you don’t like to fill those things out. And so a lot of times, we just get word of mouth or when we do farm visits or when people call us or email us. And something that was coming up more frequently than not was, I would like to try artificial insemination.
Colt Knight: 03:48
Can you give us a technician name? Or can you give us the contact info of someone that can come to our farm and do it? And then once they try it, they’re like, that seemed like I could do that. You know? And so Glenda and I thought, well, why don’t we do some artificial insemination trainings?
Glenda Pereira: 04:08
And more importantly, too, there’s always the issue of cows. So finding cows, and so we’ll talk about swine and cattle, but specifically for cows, you know, most trainings that are offered tend to have a cow component, but that can be difficult. And we were kind of in the middle of all the avian flu stuff too, which just brings another issue to biosecurity on farms. So we had the opportunity to apply for money to find simulators
Colt Knight: 04:44
that Shout out to the Mitchell Center.
Glenda Pereira: 04:47
Right. Was just gonna mention. So the Mitchell Center, we applied for a grant through the Mitchell Center here on campus. And we were able to get these simulators, which help us get closer to what the actual live animal artificial insemination will be like, which has always been a challenge. Right?
Glenda Pereira: 05:06
And so we’ve talked to our colleagues from across the country, and they have the same challenges: finding herds, finding cows. Right? Because you have to hold back cows that you cannot or do not breed, etcetera. It can be challenging logistically. So we had the opportunity to find funds to have simulators.
Glenda Pereira: 05:23
So thank you to the folks at the Mitchell Center.
Colt Knight: 05:26
And the National Pork Board.
Glenda Pereira: 05:27
And then, so I was gonna say we got two simulation models. And so we have a couple of more people to thank.
Colt Knight: 05:34
Bangor State Fair and the Maine Beef Producers Association. So
Glenda Pereira: 05:38
So together through all those folks, we were able to successfully obtain the materials needed to conduct this artificial insemination training. And without those tools, you know, I think we would have been not as close to successfully training these folks as we were. Yeah. So some of the components we mentioned. So we got a dairy cow simulator.
Glenda Pereira: 06:03
It is the bovine simulator.
Colt Knight: 06:05
And it is actually a Hereford, because I specifically didn’t buy the Holstein one. And
Glenda Pereira: 06:15
Because a Hereford. And then we got the swine one too. So that’s where the National Pork Board folks tie in. So we have both models. Because for other livestock species, caprine and ovine,
Glenda Pereira: 06:31
we don’t tend to do as much artificial insemination in those two species.
Colt Knight: 06:37
It is not a simple process. In sheep, it is a surgical procedure. And so we typically don’t see that as an on-farm technique. That is something that you have to get your veterinarian involved with.
Glenda Pereira: 06:52
Yeah. So we focus on swine and cattle. So we have simulators for both of those. And then we got all the rest of the equipment to be able to pull off the trainings. So this past year, we held three, four trainings that were focused on two audiences.
Glenda Pereira: 07:08
We had youth, which we modified the training for. And then we had a full-on adult-geared training. And we’ll have one coming up at the end of the year. So if you’re listening to this right now and you want to get practice for AI. This is not an AI certification class.
Glenda Pereira: 07:31
You will not get a certificate, but you will be able to practice. And really, that’s the goal. Right? We want to give you some of the tools that you’ll be able to implement on your own farm and to learn from. So when’s that gonna be, Colt?
Colt Knight: 07:45
December 6 at the Maine Cattlemen’s College, held in Augusta at the Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry.
Glenda Pereira: 07:55
Yep.
Colt Knight: 07:56
And here shortly, we will have our registration page open. I would say by the time that this podcast is aired, there will be a link for registration for that.
Glenda Pereira: 08:04
Yeah. So we’ll tag that in the show notes. So save the date, December 6, where you will have an opportunity to train.
Colt Knight: 08:12
It is an all-day training focused on cattle reproduction. Doctor Moda is gonna come in, and she’s gonna talk about in vitro fertilization techniques. Glenda and I are gonna talk about artificial insemination, not just the hands-on stuff, but we’re gonna go over hormone regulation and anatomy and physiology. But we’re also gonna have a hands-on component. So we’re gonna have a real liquid nitrogen tank there with semen straws, and we’re gonna have our simulators there.
Colt Knight: 08:43
And so everyone will get hands-on practice from start to finish, plus the theory of why we do what we do.
Glenda Pereira: 08:52
Yeah. And so it’s funny you say that because I teach animal genetics and breeding and selection. And when people take that class, they often think, oh, we’re gonna learn artificial insemination and breeding. And everything we learn in that class comes before because there are so many things that need to be right. And you have to have a goal for your breeding program.
Glenda Pereira: 09:16
Really, yes, artificial insemination can be difficult if the cow’s not in heat, if your semen does not have good quality, if you do not have nitrogen in your liquid nitrogen tank, there are all things that can go wrong. But really, there is a whole component. So that’s what we teach some of. We do not really do a deep dive, but we teach some of reading a
Colt Knight: 09:39
reproductive physiologist to be an AI technician. You do need to know, Doctor.
Glenda Pereira: 09:44
Understand all the components.
Colt Knight: 09:45
Some of the things why we do the practices. Because if you do not understand those, you might get lax in some of the practices, which will end up either killing the semen or you’ll end up not depositing in the right place. And then it is a comedy of errors. Right? So everything adds up. So we have to reduce those mistakes to have success.
Glenda Pereira: 10:06
Yeah. So let’s start with some of the background before we head to the AI piece. So we talked briefly about this genetic gain. So in a herd or on a farm, you have to have a goal to where you’re going, whether you’re raising fiber, meat, milk, whatever you’re doing, where do you want to go? And there are many different paths to get to where you want to go.
Glenda Pereira: 10:42
But one of the ways that you can achieve that goal is through selecting the type of genetics that you have on your farm.
Colt Knight: 10:48
And 80% of all genetic improvement on the farm comes from the sire side.
Glenda Pereira: 10:57
Yep.
Colt Knight: 10:58
Because the sire can have more offspring.
Glenda Pereira: 11:03
Exactly.
Colt Knight: 11:04
And through the use of artificial insemination, we can pick the top-tier sires.
Glenda Pereira: 11:03
Exactly.
Colt Knight: 11:04
And we do not have to just go locally. Yep. You know, if you have to have a bull, you’re only gonna be able to source that bull locally because it would probably cost too much to ship him in from Wyoming or what have you. And that’s why artificial insemination is so important. So we can select those top-tier sires.
Glenda Pereira: 11:25
Yep. Especially because it is compounding interest almost. So if you think about the current genetics on your herd, right, they are influenced by, like Colt mentioned, the sire. But if you bring in outside genetics, and especially a bull that is top for their current evaluation right now, then when you bring that bull in through AI, through artificial insemination, you’re gonna improve your genetics slightly, and then you’re gonna continue doing that. But let’s take one of the more common examples within dairy: net merit.
Glenda Pereira: 12:07
It is a value that we give to an animal, and it translates to the profitability over their entire lifetime. It is a dollar value. So net merit of 400 means that a cow or a bull that has an evaluation for 400 dollars means that their offspring are likely to make 400 dollars more above the general population. And so when we think about genetics, we always think how does it relate back to the population. And so on your farm, let’s say across your farm, your current net merit value of all of your cows is at 200.
Glenda Pereira: 12:45
You bring in a bull that is at 600. You might be able to make that within one or two generations. And so that’s why we talk about it being compounding interest with artificial insemination and genetic gain, because you’re always gonna be improving. Because that sire that is external from your state or wherever you’re located is always ahead. Right? Maturity impacts that.
Glenda Pereira: 13:09
So for a bull to be reproductively able to mate cows, and with artificial insemination, at the rate they are selecting which sires to use within our population, it is much quicker because they’re genotyping all those sires. They know what those sires are gonna perform essentially. And so they can weed out the really good ones for a trait and the really bad ones for a trait, and then it can really help you keep right on track to make your goal. So that’s just an example of how we talk about why genetic gain really is maximized with artificial insemination.
Colt Knight: 13:45
And on the non-dairy side, because most of the dairy industry is purebred Holstein, on our beef cattle and our pigs, something that we can really take advantage of is crossbreeding to increase the heterosis or the hybrid vigor. And realistically, if we do a good job selecting genetics on a year-to-year basis, every year the sires should be better than the previous year. And so with artificial insemination, we can always use the most up-to-date genetics on the sire side and make improvements. We can also use crossbreeding to improve genetic performance. So our F1s, where we take one purebred and breed them to the next.
Colt Knight: 14:30
Or then we take that first generation or F1s and breed them to another purebred sire of a different lineage and get F2s and really maximize the heterosis and maximize the genetic performance of those animals. And, you know, we have small farms in Maine. And so we cannot do that with live sires because you could not afford to buy a new bull or a new boar every single year, or keep the different breeds separate. Yep. You know, and so that’s where artificial insemination saves us money.
Colt Knight: 15:04
We do not have to have a boar on-site. We do not have to have a bull on-site. We do not have to keep separate breeds, keep our pens all separated out. So we can really make a lot of improvements with artificial insemination and save money at the same time.
Glenda Pereira: 15:19
Yeah. Stay tuned for a crossbreeding episode because I have so much information about crossbreeding, but that is something that we can capitalize on, especially for health and fertility. So the hybrid vigor is maximized for health and fertility. And so with crossbreeding, what we have to do and why it is important to use purebred populations is because we have the most control for which traits are gonna be inherited from a purebred bull. Because during meiosis, there is a lot of crossing over of genetics and we cannot force which genes are transmitted from the sire to the offspring.
Glenda Pereira: 15:57
But anyways, that is a topic for another day and we’ll talk more about that. So let’s move on to, in the class. So some of the theory that we talk about in the class includes the estrous cycle. Right? So that is kind of critical to understand how all those hormones come into play when your animal is in heat.
Glenda Pereira: 16:15
Because if the timing’s wrong, you can have the most expensive semen on the market. You’re never gonna get your sow or your cow pregnant because your timing’s off.
Colt Knight: 16:25
Yeah. We go over which hormones are produced by which gland or organ in the body and at what time they are produced and what those hormones control within the body and how it regulates the estrous cycle. And once we understand that, then we can understand that we can manipulate the estrous cycle. So how can we synchronize estrus in our herd, or how can we bring animals into estrus that were not in estrus, and so on and so forth. Yep.
Colt Knight: 16:55
But it is really complicated how all the hormones interact. But once you understand the basics, it is really clear why we use what shots we do and when we use them and so on and so forth.
Glenda Pereira: 17:07
Yeah. And for a cow, for example, their estrous cycle is a twenty-one-day period. So every twenty-one days when they’re cycling, you can expect a heat event or an estrus event. And really that is not the so when you actually see a cow being mounted, or when she’s what you think is the most vocal, that’s not when you should be breeding. You should be breeding on the AM-PM rule.
Glenda Pereira: 17:34
So roughly, you know, ten to twelve to sixteen hours after you see that spike in estrus activity or, like, you know, vocal activity, estrus activity, what we call it. So that is important too. You know, the AM-PM rule; estrus detection.
Colt Knight: 17:55
Yeah. Super important. Yep. Timing of artificial insemination, because we want to sync ovulation and artificial insemination at the right times. And as you know, there is a wrong time to do that.
Colt Knight: 18:10
Because the semen is not actually mature when it first enters the female. It needs some time to mature. The eggs, so to speak, need some time to migrate down the oviducts into the uterus. And so we have to hit that timing just perfect if we want to maximize the efficiency of our artificial insemination.
Glenda Pereira: 18:30
Let’s talk estrus detection quickly.
Colt Knight: 18:32
I think we should go in-depth because estrus detection is the most difficult part of artificial insemination in pigs and cattle, in my opinion.
Glenda Pereira: 18:42
Well, just a couple, let’s do the Cliff Notes because we could have a whole episode on this, because we’ve both done a lot of work on monitoring equipment for behaviors. But really what we’re talking about is if you’re using the eye test, which fails 50% of the time. Why? Because we need to sleep. So we’re not watching our animals twenty-four hours of the day.
Glenda Pereira: 19:03
But the eye test, if that’s all you have, is a good way to just
Colt Knight: 19:07
And when you say eye test, you’re talking about looking for the vocalization, looking for the mounting behavior, looking at the swollen vulvas.
Glenda Pereira: 19:14
Yes. Yep. But something that’s cheap and readily available to everybody is using some type of paint thing. So whether it is a tail-mounted Estrotect patch or Kamar, the scratch-off, or tail paint.
Glenda Pereira: 19:35
All of those methods can be really useful because every time you check it, you should always put more paint. You know, do not just put paint one day and then not put paint the next day, because guess what? Those cows are gonna lick each other. They’re gonna rub up on something. It is gonna come off, and you’re gonna
Colt Knight: 19:52
For folks that are not familiar, what we’re doing is we’re putting some kind of scratch-off sticker or paint on the tailhead of the cows or heifers. And then when the other cows and heifers are mounting her as part of the estrus behavior, what we’re doing is we are monitoring the animals that are being mounted. And then that is a sign that those animals are coming into heat.
Glenda Pereira: 20:15
Yeah. Yeah. And just make sure you keep up on seeing if the tail paint is really well placed because it can come off, and then you might think she’s in heat and she’s not actually in heat. So
Colt Knight: 20:31
So those will tell us that she’s been mounted.
Glenda Pereira: 20:33
Right. Exactly.
Colt Knight: 20:34
But it does not tell us when
Glenda Pereira: 20:35
she was mounted.
Colt Knight: 20:36
The when is the more important part of the equation. Right?
Glenda Pereira: 20:40
Yeah. And that’s why a lot of time, you know, sexed semen is a really great tool that we can use. But if you don’t have a if you’re not using a synchronization protocol or if you don’t have a good way to know when she exactly had the highest heat state so you can breed her off of that when she’s ovulating, I tend to tell folks just use conventional semen. Do not go sexed because it is sometimes three times the cost. And so make sure you’re getting your estrus detection rate I am sorry.
Glenda Pereira: 21:10
Your estrus detection and your estrus detection rate really high. So with activity monitors, for example, we can get estrus detection rate, which is simply: 10 cows were in heat. We saw those 10 cows. We know when to breed them. So activity monitors, and those are wearables and things, can get pretty close to ninety percent.
Glenda Pereira: 21:31
So nine cows were in heat. I am sorry. Ten cows were in heat. It detected nine. Whereas people, visual observation tends to be right around 40 to 50 percent.
Glenda Pereira: 21:41
So you only see half the cows that were actually in heat. And again, it is just because of the frequency.
Colt Knight: 21:46
And that is really important on the dairy side of things, because watch for heat and breed. That is a technique, watch and breed.
Glenda Pereira: 21:52
Yep.
Colt Knight: 21:53
Is probably the most common that you’ll see with most dairies. Yep. And then now that we have some of these technologies coming on board, they work amazingly well. And they are just, in simplest form, an ear tag with an accelerometer. And an accelerometer measures G forces in three different directions, forward and backward, side to side, and up and down.
Colt Knight: 22:17
It is the same thing that is in your cell phone that triggers it to tell you that you’re in landscape or portrait mode. Yep. It is just measuring you flipping it. A pedometer is just measuring the swinging motion of a leg. And it gives you and so the accelerometers gather all this data while they’re in different activity levels.
Colt Knight: 22:37
So when they come into heat, they have a much higher activity level, and we can use some pretty complicated algorithms to pick out those different behaviors to tell us that they’re in heat. Yeah. And those algorithms work really, really well in dairy cattle. They are getting better in beef cattle. And wearable technology in pigs — pigs like to tear technology off of their bodies.
Colt Knight: 23:05
So we’re probably not gonna see a lot of wearable technology in pigs, but there’s actually video camera technology in pigs that works even better than the wearable technology. And in the barns of the future, it is gonna be real time. Yeah. Real time.
Glenda Pereira: 23:21
I’m excited for that type of AI, artificial intelligence, which is really just recognition of things and through repeated, repeated
Colt Knight: 23:28
There are some dairy barns that are using it commercially. Or not dairy, but
Glenda Pereira: 23:32
There are dairy barns.
Colt Knight: 23:33
But pigs on the video side.
Glenda Pereira: 23:35
Yep.
Colt Knight: 23:35
The dairy, they’re using it on the wearable side.
Glenda Pereira: 23:38
There is some really cool video monitoring stuff. It is still in
Colt Knight: 23:43
The infancy.
Glenda Pereira: 23:44
Yeah. Yeah. I know pig barns are a little bit more advanced than other
Colt Knight: 23:50
Mhmm.
Glenda Pereira: 23:50
Livestock species. But, yeah, it is getting there.
Colt Knight: 23:53
They are not as open about it, though, the pig folks, as the dairy or the beef cattle folks are with their technology. But it is impressive. Yeah. It is impressive because it monitors their growth rate.
Glenda Pereira: 24:03
Yep.
Colt Knight: 24:04
Everything.
Glenda Pereira: 24:05
Yeah. Some pretty cool stuff. Alright. So before I am gonna re-listen to the topic at hand: heat detection. Heat detection.
Glenda Pereira: 24:12
Yes. So once we know when the cow’s in heat, we can then make a decision. So like I mentioned, in cows, anytime you really see her at her peak heat state, you want to put semen in her anywhere from, I would say, ten to sixteen hours after that. So that is why we tend to use the AM-PM rule. I saw her really being vocal and kind of in this excited state in the morning.
Glenda Pereira: 24:38
I’m gonna breed her in the afternoon because that is when she is gonna ovulate. So the follicle is gonna release the egg, and she is gonna have that egg travel into, and if you are using artificial insemination, that is why it is important to deposit the semen right after the cervix. We do not recommend going into one of the horns unless, you know, you are a really senior and practiced technician, that you know your anatomy. And
Colt Knight: 25:07
I think there have been some impromptu studies on that, and I do not think horn deposition is all it is made out to be.
Glenda Pereira: 25:13
Right. And if everything is in place, right, if you did it at the right time, that egg is gonna travel down and that semen, if it is good quality — you know, you are checking your liquid nitrogen levels —
Colt Knight: 25:23
Mhmm.
Glenda Pereira: 25:24
You know, the genetic companies really do a good job at making sure that the semen quality is there. It is all the other stuff. Right? Transportation of the semen to wherever it needs to get to, and that is why liquid nitrogen tanks and management are really critical. But all that stuff, if it is properly managed, the semen and the egg will make fertilization happen.
Glenda Pereira: 25:49
So estrus detection, estrus timing, what is the next thing that we want to talk about? I think maybe
Colt Knight: 25:56
Well, to go back to estrus detection in beef cattle, it is the same as it is in dairy. Most beef cattle producers are gonna use timed artificial insemination.
Glenda Pereira: 26:05
That’s what I was gonna ask. Do we want to do protocols? Yes.
Colt Knight: 26:07
We will talk about that next. But on the pig side, it is so much easier because pigs exhibit physical signs of heat that are very, very similar to cattle. They are more vocal. They mount each other. Their vulva swells up.
Colt Knight: 26:24
But when pigs are in standing heat, you can actually lean on their back, and they will just stand perfectly still, arch their backs, and their ears will just pop up forward, and they will just stand there. Yep. And that is called standing heat in pigs. And then once we recognize standing heat in pigs, much like cattle, we want to breed them twelve to twenty-four hours later depending on whether they are a gilt or a sow. And the general rule with pigs is we are gonna breed them once a day or every twelve hours until we get three doses of semen in.
Colt Knight: 27:01
Now, on a practical level, if you are good at it, you will probably get them bred ninety-something percent of the time with one dose of semen. But with two or three doses, our litter sizes increase drastically. Yep. So to speak. Because whereas cows are ovulating one egg, pigs are ovulating a lot of eggs.
Glenda Pereira: 27:23
Yeah. Because they are a litter species. Yep.
Colt Knight: 27:24
So if we can get more semen in over a period of time, we can get more fertilization to occur. So litter size is what it is all about in pigs.
Glenda Pereira: 27:34
Yep. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 27:36
But the
Glenda Pereira: 27:39
The cool thing and fun fact about pig semen
Colt Knight: 27:43
There is a lot of stuff. I think I know where you are going with this.
Glenda Pereira: 27:46
Yeah. You cannot freeze pig semen. It is really sensitive. So that is different than cow semen. So that is another thing to consider on your farm.
Glenda Pereira: 27:56
Know?
Colt Knight: 27:56
Pig semen is shipped fresh.
Glenda Pereira: 27:58
How to handle it? Stored at
Colt Knight: 27:59
about 64 degrees. And it will last, when it is not blazing hot summer temperatures, it will last ten, twelve days. Yep. And all you have to do is rotate it gently once or twice a day. Yep.
Colt Knight: 28:13
And it is perfectly fine. I’ve seen pig semen people use it in a pinch when it is two or three weeks old
Glenda Pereira: 28:23
and still get fertilization.
Colt Knight: 28:27
They either come in something that looks like a clear toothpaste tube or just a little bottle. Yep. A little plastic bottle. Looks like an enema bottle or something.
Glenda Pereira: 28:38
Yeah. It is pretty cool. Pig semen is really unique.
Colt Knight: 28:41
And pigs have a corkscrew-shaped penis.
Glenda Pereira: 28:44
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 28:44
And the cervix on the sow is the reciprocal of that. So you can actually buy AI rods that have a corkscrew on them. So you can literally thread the AI rod into the sow’s cervix. And so you know exactly where you’re at. No palpation required. Super easy.
Colt Knight: 29:04
Pig AI is the easiest on the farm, unless maybe you do chickens. Whereas cattle, we actually have to palpate and feel around. And it is really difficult to pass a rod through the cervix on a cow.
Glenda Pereira: 29:17
Yeah. You have to.
Colt Knight: 29:18
It is an acquired skill. Yeah. I can teach an eight-year-old AI in pigs.
Glenda Pereira: 29:23
Right.
Colt Knight: 29:23
Yeah. Yeah.
Glenda Pereira: 29:26
So, since we’re kind of here, we’ll just talk quickly about synchronization protocols. So a couple of things I always recommend. One of the things that you have to think about is infrastructure. So if you’re gonna be giving shots to animals, is there a place on your farm where you can handle them appropriately? Because some of these protocols, you know, like a double Ovsynch protocol in cows, whether it is beef or dairy, require, like, every seven days or more frequently.
Glenda Pereira: 29:59
It requires you to harness them somewhere, you know, in a chute or tie them up somewhere and give them a shot. So you have to make time because, again, like we said, if you’re gonna do a synchronization protocol but it is not timed correctly, well, you’re wasting your time and your money. So think about these things ahead of time before you implement a synchronization protocol. And then, of course, you have to work with your vet because they’re gonna have to prescribe you these hormones. So those are just a couple of things to keep in mind.
Colt Knight: 30:30
And on the beef side of things, we usually use a timed AI protocol.
Glenda Pereira: 30:35
A timed artificial insemination.
Colt Knight: 30:37
Protocol. And then we will breed the entire herd with artificial insemination. But then we put the cows in with a bull. You do not really see that in the dairy world. And we call it a cleanup bull.
Colt Knight: 30:51
So anything that we missed with AI — and if we do a good job, we are probably 85 percent on AI in beef cattle. Some people are better. Some people are worse. But still, we do not want 15 or 20 percent of the herd to go unbred.
Colt Knight: 31:06
So we will put a bull in for thirty or forty-five days. Yeah. Keep the calving interval tight.
Glenda Pereira: 31:13
Right. Exactly. Yep. So that is another thing to consider. When are you gonna be calving out?
Glenda Pereira: 31:18
For beef cows, it tends to be different because, you know, in most dairies, we have a space where it can be indoors. So you can calve out in the winter.
Colt Knight: 31:28
You need milk year round.
Glenda Pereira: 31:29
And we tend to, you know, kind of raise the calves. Whereas in a beef operation, it tends to be calves are raised on the dam. So, you know, calving in the middle of a snowstorm does not really fare well for that calf and that dam. So seasonality is another thing to consider. And how do we control that estrous cycle and decrease the time of when those cows can be in estrus?
Glenda Pereira: 31:56
And that is what you were talking about, synchronizing them, putting the bull in. So then, you know, after this date, no more cows are being bred, which then means that they can start calving, I do not know, March or April, depending on where you live in the United States. So then they have a successful calving that is not in six feet of snow.
Colt Knight: 32:13
Yeah. And on the pig side of things, commercially, those pigs are raised in environmentally controlled barns, and so they keep them pregnant all
Glenda Pereira: 32:21
the time.
Colt Knight: 32:22
So it does not really matter what time of year for them, and everybody is wanting to buy ribs and bacon three hundred sixty-five days a year. So there is no seasonality to that. On the beef side, we need them to calve either in the spring or the fall so that we hit our markets. Plus, we have environmental conditions on our side. And so timed AI is critical on the beef side.
Colt Knight: 32:47
Not so much on the pig side. Yeah. Unless you live in a small population like Maine and then you only want to have one litter of pigs a year.
Glenda Pereira: 32:55
Right.
Colt Knight: 32:56
Then it becomes more crucial because, you know, we do not want them to be born in the harsh, nasty weather. Yep. But we also do not want to feed them over the wintertime. Right. So, yeah, breeding them in the right time of the year is important.
Glenda Pereira: 33:09
Yeah. And that is why — another tangent — but you can make so much genetic progress with species like swine and poultry because you have multiple, essentially, pregnancies during the year. And so by the time that you have those performance trait values back, it is quick. Right? With dairy cows, you gotta wait two years for milk production performance.
Glenda Pereira: 33:31
With beef cows, you know, if you are using weaning weight as your measure for how well the sire is making this offspring, you gotta wait at least thirteen months. I am sorry. A yearling weight, not weaning weight, but both. So I guess weaning weight would be six to nine months and then
Colt Knight: 33:48
Plus gestational interval.
Glenda Pereira: 33:50
Right. Plus the gestation interval. But it is a long time. Whereas with pigs, you know, in a year, you can know how that sire performed because you just
Colt Knight: 34:03
On two litters.
Glenda Pereira: 34:07
Get it quickly turned around. So it is pretty cool. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 34:03
Pigs are fun because you can have two and a half litters a year on average.
Glenda Pereira: 34:07
Yep.
Colt Knight: 34:07
So one year you could have three and then, or two, and then next year you will have three. And then the next year you have two, and the next year you have three. So you can really crank it out on pigs.
Glenda Pereira: 34:16
Yep. Yeah. The generation intervals.
Colt Knight: 34:18
And they are ready to eat in five or six months. You know, on the cow side, they are just weaning them out at five or six
Glenda Pereira: 34:26
months. Right.
Colt Knight: 34:26
Right.
Glenda Pereira: 34:26
Yeah. So we talked quickly, and I do not want to dive more deep into synchronization protocols. There are so many online. Like I mentioned, find one that works for you. Can you be confining cows somewhere where you can handle them?
Colt Knight: 34:43
And stick to the recipe on those. Right. There is no room for fudge factor on those protocols.
Glenda Pereira: 34:48
Yep. Yeah. They are pretty clear-cut and dry. And like we mentioned, make sure the timing is right. You know, if it says, breed sixteen hours after this one hormone was administered, do that.
Glenda Pereira: 35:02
If you do twenty hours, twenty-four hours after that, you have missed your window. So follow the protocol as strictly as you can. So we talked, I think, about almost everything. We talked estrus detection rate. We talked hormones.
Glenda Pereira: 35:15
We talked a little bit about anatomy. So corkscrew for swine. And then for cattle, we have a cervix, and it is pretty cut and dry. You just have, if you can figure out how to get through the three rings of the cervix, you can deposit the semen appropriately. Was there anything else that we missed and what folks can look forward to from our
Colt Knight: 35:38
So if someone wanted to attend one of our AI clinics, what could they expect to do and learn? Yeah. And I think the most critical part is they are usually two days. In the future, if we can source some live animals, there will be three days. But right now, it is just two days with the simulators.
Colt Knight: 35:56
We are gonna spend the first morning going over anatomy and physiology, semen handling, and then we are gonna switch gears and start practicing handling semen with a real liquid nitrogen tank. We are gonna load semen into, or simulated semen into, our AI guns or our AI straws, and then we are gonna practice depositing that into the female with our simulators.
Glenda Pereira: 36:27
Yep.
Colt Knight: 36:28
Plus, on the cow side of things, we are gonna have some female reproductive tracts laid out on trays so you can actually palpate and feel what it is like to handle a cervix. You actually can take your fingers and feel what corpus luteum and follicles are like on the ovaries. And I think that is really handy to be able to do that. Plus, you are actually gonna practice passing AI guns in real tracts.
Glenda Pereira: 36:58
Right.
Colt Knight: 36:59
So you will know exactly what it feels like when you are doing it in a real animal. Now, the simulators are not like real animals, as in nothing replaces flesh and blood, but it does give you a guide on where to put your hands, how to manipulate the tracts, and so on and so forth. So it is kind of like welding. I mean, if you do not practice on a regular basis, you will never get great at it. But you do have to practice.
Colt Knight: 37:28
And this class is a great place to come and get
Glenda Pereira: 37:34
some of that practice. Yeah. And I think, like you mentioned, even though we do not have the live cow, we can put all the components together. Right? So with a simulator, I think the sweeping motion that we do to find the cervix, that is really what we are trying to teach in that aspect.
Colt Knight: 37:49
And we have a simulator that has a 3D printed cow pelvis in it.
Glenda Pereira: 37:52
You can, yep, feel it, because that is the first thing you do when you are palpating. Right? You go in through the rectum and then you sweep the floor. You find the pelvis.
Glenda Pereira: 38:01
So I know that the cervix has to be right above there or somewhere in that area. So we are practicing that motion. And then the second component is passing a rod through an actual cervix. And we have heifers. We have cows.
Glenda Pereira: 38:14
So we have both of them, which, as you have more calves, your cervix and your parts tend to be bigger because your uterus expands as you have more calves. So those two feel different too. So we have a multitude of easy or hard cervixes to pass a rod through. And then the semen handling component, like you mentioned, that is
Colt Knight: 38:37
That is probably really the most important part.
Glenda Pereira: 38:39
Yeah. Yeah. So setting up your gun, timing it correctly, because semen, even though it is
Colt Knight: 38:43
not, it is fragile.
Glenda Pereira: 38:44
Cattle semen is not as fragile as pig semen. It still is. And so, you know, we take it from, I cannot remember. Is it 300 Fahrenheit to
Colt Knight: 38:53
It is negative 196 Celsius.
Glenda Pereira: 39:01
To body temperature. So there are a lot of things that could go wrong with your semen handling, and so we practice that as well.
Colt Knight: 39:08
And just moving it in and out of the liquid nitrogen is a real critical point. I mean, you can kill the entire straw worth of semen if you do not do it properly. Or if you are just, you know, like, oh, let me just look at this a little longer here or there. So keeping that stuff alive, crucial. Yep.
Colt Knight: 39:27
Thawing it out, crucial. Depositing it, crucial. Heat detection, crucial. So everything adds up. If you make a mistake here, you cannot just recover in the next step.
Colt Knight: 39:39
It is all critical control points.
Glenda Pereira: 39:42
Yep. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 39:43
Pigs are way easier. The pig simulator works much more closely to a real animal.
Glenda Pereira: 39:51
Right.
Colt Knight: 39:51
The pig simulator is a lot better than the cow simulator. But, you know, it is the best we have got.
Glenda Pereira: 39:57
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 39:57
Yeah. But we do have real tracts for the cows. So a lot of practice.
Glenda Pereira: 40:02
Yeah. And I think we have a lot to offer folks. So do not forget to save the date for the Maine Cattlemen’s College on 12/06/2025. Folks can sign up and come get some training on artificial insemination, and then look forward to our 2026 dates. We will have a few workshops throughout the year as well.
Glenda Pereira: 40:24
And with that, do you want to close up shop here today?
Colt Knight: 40:29
Yeah. I’m gonna get home to the new baby. Oh, Glenda wants me to tell you that if you have questions, comments, or concerns, please email us at extension.farmcast@maine.edu. We did it.