Trouble getting cows to stick!!

[irh]

We've been having alot of trouble with A'Iing the last three years, been doing this 20 years now. We give all the shots, mineral, just added Multimen to shots also.  What the heck else is there to do?  Is this semen getting weakin down, all for the love of money?  Ready to buy a bull, at least I would have calves on the ground.

 

[ZNT]

There are just some cows that don't stick to A.I., and just have to be bull bred.  In your case, it sounds like something different.  Have you changed the genetics in your herd at all?  More clubby genetics in your cow base?  What bulls are are you using?  Who owns those bulls?

 

[CAB]

I assume that you have cked your semen quality, if not, I would think that it would be a good idea to ck it just in case your tank has been compromised sometime.

 

[Biomurph]

That is never fun.  If you are using a good mineral, I would look into your vaccination program.  For many years (25 or so) we used a modified live vaccine (Bovishield Gold) and a few years ago, we had problems with AIing and notice that many of the cows were cycling at weird intervals.  We then switched to a killed vaccine (Triangle 10) and we have had awesome success AIing since the switch.  There are rumors that the modified live vaccine could be causing abortions....not sure about it but making the switch saved us a lot of money on semen (although I still like the immunity of the modified live vaccines).  I agree with the earlier comment of also checking your semen quality.  Best of luck figuring it out....as I said, this is not a fun problem. 

 

[drl]

a couple other ideas to check, make sure you don't switch what they are eating right after breeding heifers otherwise you will lose a chunk of pregnancies, like feeding at home then hauling to pasture after AI

Might want to check your thaw unit to check temperature and make sure no stray voltage in water bath, that will screw up semen

 

[pds]

We had this same problem last year with AI and embryos not sticking and cows not catching for 2 or 3 cycles after AI with the bulls. We did a lot of blood work to find out that our selenium levels were very low. This year everybody gets a shot of muse with lut and cyders and so far (knock on wood) everything is sticking. 

 

[JTM]

I had the same problem a few years back. I went through all kinds of things including testing blood on the cows, the water, and the pasture. Some of the things that happened were that we gave calves a live vaccine while they were still on the cows. The cows had never taken a live vaccine. So we believe that this created problems with our cows through the calves nursing. On top of that, we later found that our blood urea nitrogen levels in our cows were high due to our pastures being to lush in white clover and not enough fiber. We also found there was too much iron in our water or something like that. I have no idea what help the situation but we now only use killed vaccines, we supplement our cows with some low quality grass hay or straw at this time of the year when the pasture is lush.

 

[paj315]

Had a similar problem last year . 20 straws of semen only 2 cows bred and 3 embryos from 2 flushes . Had our embryologist check a straw of the semen and found there was low sperm count and very low mobility. After talking to several others who used the same bull found out they had the same problems . My advice is bite the bullet thaw a straw and check the quality . Next step would be pull blood to see if they are deficient in something. Had another cow that would breed and then slip her calf found out she was low in selenium gave her a shot and she stuck next service and had no problems . That's where I'd start

 

[OH Breeder]

Do you do a Lepto vaccination? I try to do one every year with AI.