Relief AI Service
Available now, 7 days a week.
*NEW* Relief AI service
At Shepton vets, we now have a new relief AI service, lead by Mya Norris, one of our vet techs.
Relief AI is available 7 days a week, please ring in cows for AI by 9AM.
If you are interested in-
- AI cover
- Synchronising groups of animals
- Help serving large numbers of animals during busy breeding periods
We have a fixed price per animal that includes everything from fertility meds to beef semen.
AI (ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION) FOR YOUR BEEF HERD-Start to finish service
We have this year launched our ‘Start to Finish’ Synch and AI service with our dedicated technician Mya. It has proved a useful add-on service to many clients. Being able to provide a Start to Finish service takes a lot of the stress out of getting some cows in calf, especially when you want to manipulate timings. Synchronising animals means we manipulate the timing of oestrus and therefore service, this could be done to an individual or a group of animals.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF USING AI IN YOUR BEEF HERD?
No bull.
-This can totally remove the need for a bull on farm. Some smaller beef farms may not want the cost, health and safety, or handling considerations required for a bull on farm.
-Loan bulls can present logistical and infectious disease challenges with TB testing and the risk of introducing transmissible diseases. AI removes these risks.
Quality.
-Improved genetics. Bulls present half the genetics of your herd. With AI you can pick and choose the traits you require. Are you breeding replacements or animals to finish to a desired spec? You can have access to high quality proven bulls leading to faster genetic improvement of the herd.
-Semen quality, every ejaculate of semen processed in an AI collection unit is rigorously assessed with each straw delivering a high dose of high-quality semen. In contrast, it has been demonstrated up to 25% of beef sires exhibit either permanent or temporary periods of sub fertility or infertility.
Quantity.
With AI you can serve as many or as few as you like without having to consider workload with bull : cow ratios. We often see too high expectations especially with young bulls, which can become injured, as well as not getting high enough fertility when spread across too many cows. This can lead to extended calving periods.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF SYNCHING ANIMALS?
- You can tighten and take control of your calving period dates.
- Catch up the late calvers.
- You can for example ‘front load’ a group to the start of your calving block. This is useful for heifers to allow them to be focused on, rather than calving with the herd. It also allows them greater time to recover and get back in calve the next year round, well within the block.
- It allows you to fixed time serve animals without the need for frequent observation and heat detection. Especially useful when reliant on AI.
- You can AI a group of animals to a different Sire not on farm, this can be useful for heifers if their sire is still the only bull on farm.
WHAT RESULTS CAN WE EXPECT?
Where body condition score, environment and nutrition are optimised we can expect 65% of animals to hold to their service from a synchronised program, roughly the same as a single natural service.
Sexed semen (male) is increasingly used and whilst typically has a slightly lower conception rate (approximately 5%), with improvements in technology in sorting this is always improving.
Timing really is everything and we find where synchronisation programs are adhered to there certainly are better results. Let us take care of timings for you with our start-to-finish service.
WHAT’S INVOLVED?
- A Vet visit to scan animals and give the first treatment (PRID and GnRH injection) this ensures only eligible animals are started on the program.
- You remove the PRID and inject on day 7, full instructions given.
- Our dedicated AI Technician Mya will visit and AI your cows 9 days after your initial visit.
SEMEN USED
Blackhaugh Plato (Angus) and CBL Stanley (British Blue), both easy calving, high vigour, good growth rate bulls from Cogent. Alternatively, we can use any semen you have on farm, or, order in any other Cogent semen (including sexed male) to be stored in our AI flask.
If you would like any further information, please call us on 01749 341 761.
