Every ambitious farmer is interested in maximum yield from their flock and animals with superior qualities. From a dairy cow, a farmer is basically looking for the highest milk yields and annual calvings. To achieve this, some of the considerations a farmer looks at include animal size, longevity, fat production, udder characteristics and milking aptitude among other needs.
The goal of a cattle farmer should be to only have the best performing animals. To achieve this goal, a farmer selects those with desirable qualities and culls (get rid off through slaughtering) weak ones.
One way to undertake that selection process, is using consistent and well kept records for each animal. Once you identify best performers, there are several technologies you can use to ensure the animal’s good genetics are combined with the best bull available to obtain even a better performing daughter and or obtain about 30 such daughter calves born within a year.
Artificial Insemination
All this is possible thanks to Artificial insemination (AI). AI was developed in the late 1890s in Russia; and in Kenya in 1939. With AI, you can obtain the best sire (bull) in the world and produce a better cow from your best cow.
It is worth noting that it will take you a minimum of 2.9 years to harvest the results of the improved genetics in this better cow if you get a heifer calf. This is because 9 months are required for pregnancy and a minimum of 2 years are required to get the new growing better heifer to mature, get pregnant and give birth in order to start producing the improved milk production.
One drawback is that if you get a bull calf instead of a heifer the above time will increase to 3.9 years as your cow has to get pregnant and calve down again. On average, you may expect to get a heifer on the second pregnancy but its true that you could be unlucky and still get a bull thereby delaying the desired genetic progress by about another year. This can take even longer.
Sexed-semen technology
But the good news is that there is now sexed-semen technology that gives almost 100 per cent chance of getting a heifer after AI. This technology was first marketed in 2000 in Britain and in Kenya since 2007.
However you have to be willing to pay extra above the usual AI cost, it is also only available for selected but top of the world bulls.
The conception rate can reach about 80 per cent in heifers, first and second calvers but it decreases in the older cows and therefore it becomes more expensive. The cost of the semen alone can range from about Sh4,500 to Sh10,000 or more but for those cows that repeat you would have to buy another dose. Therefore it is recommended to use the semen in the heifers and the 2nd and 3rd calvers. Farmers who have gotten the Holstein Friesian daughters from this sexed semen have reported getting highs of about 40-45 liters per day.
Embryo Transfer
Therefore the extra cost incurred using sexed-semen are lower than the costs associated with getting a bull calve born after feeding the mother for 9 months of pregnancy and the delayed milk production for the same period that would have been obtained from if a heifer had been born.
Embryo Transfer (ET) is another technology that a farmer can embrace to continually get superior breeds.
You can buy the best embryos available from the suppliers and have them transferred by experts into your cow (s) that do not perform well including the Zebus and the Borans.
Most farmers may not be aware that imported or local embryos produced from elite cows and sires are now available in selected agro centres. Farmers interested in ET for their animals, they must be ready to pay more than what they did for AI or the sexed semen technology.
A farmer should be ready to part with between Sh45,000 to Sh60,000.
The good news is that the technology allows a farmer to obtain an elite cow in a shorter time especially if it’s a female embryo than you would with AI from your poor performing cow (s). The costing also makes economic sense. Compare this cost with that of purchasing an elite cow at Sh250,000 and remember that such a cow may not even be available for purchase to you as recognised breeders may put you on a long waiting list.
For farmers with a cow(s) that they consider especially good or extraordinary, they can use Multiple Ovulation and Embryo Transfer (MOET) where you can have the cow(s) injected with a hormone to produce many eggs at a go.This is called superovulation.
Then, this cow called donor cow, is inseminated with the best sire available to fertilise these eggs. The resultant embryos are harvested and transferred to surrogate mothers called recipient cows to carry the pregnancy to term. The cow can be supeovulated every two months without affecting its fertility.
Such a cow may give upto 30 calves within the year then after only 2.9 years you get high milk production from the heifers born from the one good cow you had.
Surrogate mothers can be any other cow especially borans that are identified as suitable mothers. The embryos produced above can be transferred fresh after they are collected and processed from the donor cow or be frozen and transferred at any other desired time.
Remember that obtaining your own embryos from your extraordinary cow is cheaper than buying embryos. If your cow meets the acceptable standards and you use the licenced ET experts you could sell your embryos to other farmers. These surrogate mothers will also have to be injected with hormones as in estrus synchronisation to make their reproductive tract ready to receive the embryos at the desired times.Note that these surrogates will not transfer their inferior genetics to the calves born from this embryo transfer.
The technology called Estrus Synchronisation also allows you to get your cows pregnant at the desired times in order to avoid pregnancy delays caused by reproductive problems. You can also use this technology when you want to time your animals to give birth during the rainy season when feeds are available or the feeds are cheap or during the best milk price periods. The animals are put on a hormone protocol similar to that in MOET that will make the animals come on heat and ovulate at about the same time so that they can be inseminated at the same time within a period of about 10 days. The technology you choose depends on the costs and benefits of each, number of animals involved and the availability of the technology in your locality.
The writer is a veterinarian surgeon and works at the Ministry of Agriculture in the field of animal production
