embryo transfer

I was talking to a guy this weekend who said he heard that embryo transfers weren't working as well as they should.  He had heard that the calves take on traits from the surrogate mother and had lost traits from genetic parents.  Has anyone heard of these problems?

No. The recip will provide life lessons to the calf, so if you have a goosier recip, sometimes the calf will be likewise. Otherwise, we had a recip that was an AM carrier that raised nice calves naturally. We have used her as a recip, and she brings in a nice one...until last year. Had a BC Lookout calf that she ratioed 65 with. He was just a dink. I wish the egg were out of the recip instead of the donor. I bought those eggs, and suffice it say, I won't be buying anymore.

There is no indication that the recip is going to influence the embryo.  However, with that said there will be maternal traits that influence the calf such as; passing on antibodies, milking capability influencing growth, docile versus crazy, etc.  I know a lot of guys who have me put eggs in holsteins they use as recips and the calves are just as good as the neighbor using angus recips.  There are a lot of theories out there about this but there isn't enough solid evidence to validate the theory.