Making BETTER Bovine Babies

Emily is a young and ambitious vet as well as a commercial and seedstock cattle breeder from Theodore in Central Queensland. After five years working as a vet in a mixed practice (where she was constantly chasing the cattle jobs), Emily is now heading back to the family farm where she and her partner will start taking over the reins as part of the family's succession planning and pursue her passion of breeding better cattle. As the Young Graduate Representative on the Australian Cattle Vets Executive Committee, Emily is a great ambassador for veterinary graduates and also an advocate of encouraging young people (especially women) to consider the myriad of amazing job opportunities in rural and regional Australia.

Julie Pocock was born into the repro world with her family owning a Simmental stud in SE Queensland. In this podcast she shares her journey as to how she became a Territory Manager for Vetoquinol (which she describes as the best job in the world) and also shares many tips as to how get the most out an assisted breeding program. Julie continues to run the family stud along with her husband and input from her parents and has much personal experience from running AI and ET programs.

Vetoquinol's Sophia Edwards answers many common questions about Artificial Insemination in beef cattle I from the fundamentals of an AI program, what is Fixed Time AI, costs and benefits through to the different protocols and getting started.

Imagine using controlled mating through Fixed Time Artificial Insemination (FTAI) to improve your bottom line by $90/pregnancy.

In this Podcast, one of Australia's most engaging repro veterinarians, Dr Enoch Bergman tells Vetoquinol's Rebecca Arnott how this result was achieved via a Meat & Livestock Australia funded Producer Demonstration Site (PDS) project run in conjunction with Swans Veterinary Services and the WA producer grower group ASHEEP.

Run over three mating seasons, between 2017 and 2019, the testing of FTAI in the heifer joining programs of 10 local beef producers measured conception rates, dystocia rates, calf and heifer mortality rates, rebreeding weights, and the weaning weights of the calves from the heifers. Those enrolled in the FTAI integrated group were superior to those of their naturally mated siblings on average for each parameter and in most individual instances.

Enoch highlights results from an economic analysis of the averages, which demonstrated a benefit of just under $90 per pregnancy without factoring in either genetic improvement or the ongoing benefits of the improved calving distribution observed within the heifers enrolled in the FTAI program.

This Podcast was recorded at the end of Beef Australia; hence the croaky voices!

In our inaugural Podcast, Vetoquinol's Rebecca Arnott talks to Dr Penelope McGown about the fundamentals of bovine reproduction; that being the hormones of a cow's oestrous cycle.

Understanding the role and interaction of each of these hormones, including Oestrogen, Progesterone, Prostaglandin (PG), Gonadotrophin Releasing Hormone (GnRH), Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) and Luteinizing Hormone (LH) will help you understand how assisted breeding programs accelerate the rate of genetic gain in a herd.