Under the microscope

Today we flushed one of our pure British Blue heifers. This is a process of flushing out fertilized eggs from the heifer so they can be implanted into surrogate cows. By doing this we increase the productivity of our pure breeding stock. This is a shot of one of the speciality guys who come to do the job for us. He is looking under the microscope to see how many eggs have actually fertilized and are of the quality good enough to be implanted into surrogates and go on to grow into calves. We now have to wait at least 4 weeks before we find out if all three or indeed any of the surrogate animals are in calf. To find this out our vet will have to come and scan them.

[Kathy]

WOW, a lot of work, but if all three are fertile, well worth it, yes? Do they also leave an egg in the original heifer so she can have a baby? Very interesting photo and job that he has!! FAV!

[Bep]

Very interesting, Shirley.

[Maggiemae]

You get the purebred babies without any effort from the actual mother. Sounds like farming to me!

[Tony]

Wonderful advances in breeding using this technique.

[Tunia McClure]

Didn't know about this technique. Thanks for the lesson in fertilization.

[Peter Grave]

Very interesting Shirley.I guess the cost of the procedure is worthwhile otherwise you wouldn,t do it. Did you ask the bull how he feels about it ?? lol

[sally agnew]

Interesting narrative and image, thank you for sharing :)

[Ann Williams]

It's amazing how much science there is in farming now. I had heard of this procedure but not in detail - thanks for sharing.

[ShirleyB]

@cashew @gijsje @maggiemae @tonydebont @tunia @peterlgrave @hermann Thank you all for taking an interest in my pictures and the lovely comments. Kathy, we do not leave any eggs in the original heifer because the eggs are flushed out but you can't feel of see them so it would be impossible to leave one. As to inserting an egg back into her, she would not be at the correct stage of the fertility cycle to accept the egg. When she cycles next time she will be put in calf to an easy calving bull and will then have a calf of her own. Peter, it is fairly expensive but if you get a number of top quality animals from a flush it makes it worthwhile but it doesn't always work out. We couldn't ask the daddy how he felt because sadly he died last year.