Imagine running an artificial insemination (AI) program that allows total cycle synchronisation of heifers and cows, eliminates the need for heat detection and produces higher early pregnancy rates, with higher weaning weights for calves.
Welcome to the world of fixed time artificial insemination (FTAI) - a technique that is gaining huge momentum among beef producers in South America and holds much promise for Australian producers, with trials in Queensland backing up South American successes, according to experts in the field.
Just how Australian cattle producers could benefit from FTAI technology was highlighted in Rockhampton last week, during a visit by South American cattle reproduction physiology specialist, Professor Gabriel Bo, from the Institute of Animal Reproduction in Cordoba, Argentina.
Prof Bo has played an integral role in the research and adaptation of FTAI in South America and is working with Australian researchers.
Growth in FTAI use in South America has been staggering.
In 2001, in Argentina, 100,000 cattle were bred using FTAI.
This jumped to 1.6 million head by the end of 2007.
In Brazil it's a similar story, increasing from 100,000 head in 2002 to 1.5 million in 2007.
"We had been working with AI to improve genetics of cattle, but in the late 1990s we started research into trying to apply programs that allow us to do artificial insemination without having to do heat detection," Prof Bo said.
"FTAI allows females to cycle at the same time, so we can AI them all at the same time, reducing the amount of time and labour required in an AI program, and also ensuring a higher early pregnancy rate.
"It allows you to gain a lot of time in the breeding season and get females pregnant earlier in the season, because for every heat that you miss in an animal, you're losing 21 days, and that's about 15kg of meat at weaning age that you are going to lose."
Protocols used in FTAI include treating females with eCG and fitting them with a progesterone-releasing device, Cue-Mate, for an eight-day period to bring all the animals into synchronised heat.
The treated females are then brought back into the crush for a hormone injection to induce ovulation and are returned the following day to be inseminated within the ensuing 18-24 hour period.
Prof Bo said research showed that using FTAI prompted improvement in early season pregnancy rates from 30 percent to 50pc, and was just as effective with lactating cows, as with heifers.
Besides making an AI program more efficient and time saving, Prof Bo said one of the biggest advantages of FTAI was that it allowed producers to get more cows pregnant at the start of the breeding season.
"We also found there was a weaning weight difference of around 30kg in favour of FTAI calves compared to others," Prof Bo said.
"A spring-born calf will always be heavier than a summer calf.
"But giving eCG is not the solution to everything.
"If heifers have not started going through puberty, you won't get the same pregnancy rates because they are not ready to get pregnant.
"There's no miracle to this – we still have to make sure heifers are developed and cycling.
"Factors that affect pregnancy rates in heifers include age and body condition score, but we are now looking at uterine diameter size.
"We found the females with the larger uteruses had a higher pregnancy rate."
Prof Bo said getting South American cattle producers to implement FTAI in their herds had proven easier on properties that had never done AI before, than on farms that had been doing it for 30 years.
"It is about changing your mindset and really, the key issue is to decide what animals are going to be treated and be part of the program, and which ones will not," he said.
In Australia, Prof Bo has been working with a number of researchers, including Qld's Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries principal research scientist, Dr Brian Burns, on FTAI in northern Australian Bos Indicus herds.
Bioniche Animal Health Australasia has also been heavily involved in the research.
Dr Burns recently completed a Bioniche-funded trial involving 43 lactating Droughtmaster females aged three to 12 years at Robert and Donna Rea's Lisgar Pastoral Company's Home Hill property.
"All the cows were inseminated within a 24-hour period and the mid-March pregnancy tests returned a 56pc positive in-calf result," Dr Burns said.
University of Queensland-led research involving 66 purebred Brahman heifers at the DPI&F Brigalow Research Station (Theodore) tested various oestrus synchronisation treatments.
Dr Burns said the research objective was to gain a better understanding of why Bos Indicus and Bos Indicus- infused genotype herds experience low and highly variable AI results.
The findings would contribute to the design of an effective FTAI synchronisation program to accelerate genetic improvement strategies in these genotypes.
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