What Percent of Beef Cattle Is Bred Artifically

Angela Gonella-Diaza, UF/IFAS Beef Cattle Reproduction Specialist, NFREC Marianna

The profitability of the cow-calf operation is direct related to herd reproductive efficiency. The efficient moo-cow is the one that calves every year at most the aforementioned time. As is shown in graph below, to calve every 12 months, a cow must be bred and became meaning within 85 days post-calving (280-day gestation + 85 days = 365 days). However, afterward calving, the cow requires xxx to 45 days for uterine involution and post-partum recovery. This means that, if everything is right (no diseases, good body condition score, no calving problems), the cow only has 55 days to get pregnant to calve on an almanac basis, which should exist your goal!

Figure one: The calving interval period of a beef moo-cow in an annual breeding program. At 24-hour interval 0 the cow became pregnant, and after approximately 280 days of pregnancy she gave birth to a calf. After calving, the cow requires 30-45 days to recover (uterine involution) and prepare for breeding. After recovery, she must become meaning in less than 55 days to attain a 12-calendar month calving interval.

This is not an easy task! Every cow-calf operation is unlike, merely there are several reproductive programs available: natural breeding, timed natural breeding, artificial insemination, timed artificial insemination, embryo transfer, etc.  Ideally, all of these take place during a set breeding season, but could accept identify throughout the year. Regardless of the reproductive program you choose, you should e'er evaluate reproductive efficiency. You may ask, why is it so important to appraise the reproductive efficiency of your cows? Allow'south utilise an case to respond this question.

Allow'southward imagine that in a herd without a controlled breeding season (i.e., bulls in with the cows through the year) yous have four different cows; they are all similar (engagement of birth: 01/01/2008; puberty achieved at 12 months and became meaning at 03/22/2009) except for 1 thing: the calving interval period. Equally you can see in the graph beneath, cow number one has a 12-month calving interval, which is ideal! This means that during her life, she raises a dogie each year, and after 12 years of life, she produces 10 calves. Cow number two has a xiii-month of calving interval, and she also produces 10 calves during her life. Even so, she took 12 years and ix months to evangelize her 10 calves. Cow number 3 has a fourteen-month calving interval and took xiii years and 6 months to produce 10 calves. Finally, moo-cow number 4, has a calving interval of 15 months, took 14 years and 3 months to produce the aforementioned ten calves.

Figure ii: The touch on of the calving interval in the number of calves produces per moo-cow.

Imagine the increased expenses for cow #4? How much more would it costs feed this moo-cow for an additional ii years and 3 months to produce the aforementioned 10 calves? This is why it is imperative to evaluate the reproductive efficiency of the herd, and promptly choose animals with low reproductive efficiency.

For moo-cow-dogie operations, institution of a defined breeding season allows the concentration of conception, thus facilitating the general management of beef herds. This is considering, unlike farms where the breeding occurs throughout the year, farms with an established breeding season concentrate calving in only a few months of the year. This may not seem that important, but it provides pregnant benefits for efficient management of both costs and labor.

In my opinion, one of the most of import aspects of having a breeding flavour for your operation is that you can quickly place which cows to choose. When you have a specific period of the year when your calves are born, you lot can easily summate the number of calves produced each yr and also which cows were not bred. Too, if y'all employ pregnancy diagnosis (rectal palpation, ultrasound [Figure 3] or blood exam) you can identify the cows that remain open after the convenance season, and cull them immediately or afterwards weaning, and then y'all won't need to wait until after the calving season.

Effigy three: Ultrasound images of pregnancy diagnosis in beefiness cattle. Left and center images are gray-calibration ultrasound images of a xxx-solar day and threescore-day fetuses. Right is a Doppler ultrasound prototype of the corpus luteum, used to make an early pregnancy diagnosis (xx days after AI).

Besides, cows that become pregnant in the showtime two months of the breeding season are the most productive and desired females, because they have boosted post-partum recovery time earlier the side by side convenance season, thereby improving the probability of re-establishing pregnancy. Also, because these females give birth in a more favorable season of the year, their calves are healthier and accept college weaning weights.  The heifer calves born early in the flavor are more probable to integrate into the established breeding season of the herd (Figure 4).

" data-medium-file="https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/phag/files/2019/07/Gonella-Fig-4-Cattle-photos-300x53.png" data-large-file="https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/phag/files/2019/07/Gonella-Fig-4-Cattle-photos-1024x179.png" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-34966" src="https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/phag/files/2019/07/Gonella-Fig-4-Cattle-photos.png" alt="Productive cattle photos" width="1542" height="270" srcset="https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/phag/files/2019/07/Gonella-Fig-4-Cattle-photos.png 1542w, https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/phag/files/2019/07/Gonella-Fig-4-Cattle-photos-300x53.png 300w, https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/phag/files/2019/07/Gonella-Fig-4-Cattle-photos-768x134.png 768w, https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/phag/files/2019/07/Gonella-Fig-4-Cattle-photos-1024x179.png 1024w, https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/phag/files/2019/07/Gonella-Fig-4-Cattle-photos-1080x189.png 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1542px) 100vw, 1542px">

Figure 4: Having a well-established breeding flavour helps identify the best cows to go along to amend reproductive efficiency. From left to correct: photos A and B were taken in the "Agropecuaria Las Tinajas" in Puerto Berrio, Colombia (South America). Commercial Brahman cows were timed artificially inseminated (TAI) using Angus semen. Picture C was a commercial moo-cow and dogie at the UF/IFAS North Florida Research and Education Center, Marianna. The calf was born during the calving flavor (Dec of 2018 to February of 2019), and the cow was bred using TAI on March 23, 2019, and was ninety days into gestation in this photograph. Picture D was taken at Southern Accent Ranch about Okeechobee, Florida, owned by Allen and Nicki Smith. The picture shows a group of high quality, uniform calves that were recently weaned. Their reproductive program consisted of estrous synchronization plus AI later heat detection, with re-synchronization and a second AI 28 days after the first one. They have successfully used this plan for the past ten years.

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Have habitation bulletin

• It is very important to evaluate the reproductive efficiency of your herd. Cows with low reproductive efficiency require more time and money to produce a desirable number of calves. Having a well-established convenance season helps to quickly place the all-time cows to keep, and the cows with lower reproductive efficiency to choose.
• Managing cows to breed and calve in a short and defined season can be accomplished with avant-garde planning and coordination. Established breeding seasons make nutritional direction more efficient and less costly.  Alternative cows with lower reproductive efficiency allows other management practices to be applied more easily (pregnancy checking, vaccinations, single weaning date, improved marketing options, etc. The end effect is a more profitable cow-calf operation.
• If you are interested in moving from a year-round breeding program to a defined breeding season, you lot tin can exercise it slowly and progressively over a 2-3 year period. If you lot crave more data, do not hesitate to contact me or your county extension agent. We tin advise you on the best form of action to fit your operation.

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Dr. Angela Maria Gonella-Diaza was born in Colombia, in a region where agricultural production is significant for the local economy. "My family has a farm for more than than threescore years, where rice and cattle are produced; thus, basically, I was surrounded by cows since I was a picayune girl. I went to the vet school in Bogota (Republic of colombia). During that menstruum, I worked a lot in in vitro embryo production, and when I finished my program, I worked in some dairy farms most Bogota (Upper-case letter of Colombia). Only I loved the inquiry since I was very young, so in 2008 I started my Primary in Reproductive Physiology at the National University of Colombia. My research was focused on the reproductive efficiency of Romosinuano and Brahman breeds. Then, I worked for two years in a private vet School, teaching Theriogenology to undergraduate students earlier I went to Brazil in 2013 to starting time my Ph.D. at the University of Sao Paulo. I remained for most six years there, first doing my Ph.D. and then a postdoc in the Department of Animal Reproduction. My research involved the identification of molecular patterns of receptivity in the reproductive tract of beef cows".

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Source: https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/phag/2019/07/12/improving-the-reproductive-efficiency-of-beef-cattle-herds/

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