Embryo Transfer

Every great production ranch has a good master plan. Cloning your best animals has been a popular trend in recent years. In fact - it is so recent, there is not a lot documented information about the results and the long time impact on the industry. I am still sitting in the waiting room, to see what the long term cloning results are going to be. Although the principles around it have divided a lot of cattle raisers, there are some pretty smart folks involved in it. So, I feel like the future will unfold and time will tell us if this is a good alternative. In the mean time, embryo transfer seems to be a good vehicle to help a ranch recoup the value of a superior animal.

Embryo Transfer allows you to give fertility shots to your best production cow (to produce more eggs) and then Artificially Inseminate her with the bull of your choice. She is then flushed and her fertilized eggs are placed in recipient cows that will carry the pregnancy. The process is expensive and the success rate is poor (about 50%). But, the results can achieve multiple calf per year out of your best cow. This is a practice that is used a lot in the cattle industry and the breeds using the most are also the breeds that are making the greatest improvements.

My ranch master plan is to keep several of the best bulls I can raise, buy or borrow and naturally breed about a dozen of my best cows each year with each bull. A few years ago, I was struggling to get longhorn cattle that would be 60" TTT or at least project that much. Today, I am trying not to naturally breed any cows with a TTT number of less than 65". Hopefully, next year that number will be raised to 70". Also, each year I will flush my best production cow to the best bull available to me. This year the cow to be flushed will be Creekmore’s Awesome.

Creekmore’s Awesome is just that - she is Awesome! On 07-04-09, she was 72-1/2" TTT and she has a ton of total horn. She is cow that I bought from Bob and Pam Loomis and she is currently bred to Cowboy Chex (that shouldn’t hurt!). Bob and Pam bred her to the famous Coach bull for a heifer named BL Awesome Blossom. Before BL Awesome Blossom was five years and 10 months old, she won all three classes at Guthrie. Her TTT was 76-5/8". This makes her a instant selection to be my best production cow to be flushed. The bull selection I intent to flush her with is just as awesome as she is. This also fills a need for using about 15 to 20 of my good production cows that no longer meet my 65" TTT minimum. So, she is not just another 70" cow being flushed, she has a past history of being an awesome producer.