Flushing to multiple sires

What are everyones thoughts on flushing to more than 1 bull per flush?

I have always wanted to try flushing to more than one sire, and I may try it someday when I am doing a flush that I will not be selling any embryos from. I think it would be a great way to compare sires, providing you were able to implant all the embryos and get pregnancies from each sire. In my case, we sell more embryos than we implant so it is necessary to flush to one sire at a time. We have to Parentage verify every ET calf by DNA, anyways so there should not be any mix ups. I know some breed associations do not allow this, but I would sure love to give it a shot.

you can get better conception rates because there is more of a competition between the sperm

crown33 said:

you can get better conception rates because there is more of a competition between the sperm

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would the same competition be there with 2 straws of the same bull?  how do they know they are from different bulls?  do they swim more and are more exhausted to break through the zona pellucida?  do they coordinate their activities?  if they compete, how does one pick the right ratio if one is subsidized?

crown33 said:

you can get better conception rates because there is more of a competition between the sperm

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How does this work? Is it similar to a bunch of guys in a bar close to closing time?

I have some Rodeo Drive /  DMCC Dr Pepper sired eggs from the same flush out of HC Pure Lace 1U. The cow was sired by ( drum roll now) HC Justin Time !! <party>

i work for a vet who does a lot of embryo work and he said every now and then some people will flush this way..he said that there is more competition and that more eggs will get fertilized then. to see what calf is from which bull---dna testing will have to be done on that

I hvae seen this done before on a farm where I used to work.


  What we found was the Calves seemed to often be sired prredominantly by one sire with only a few resulting calves sired by the other.

Maybe that was luck of the draw as we are only talking about a few flushes, but that was my experience.

I've seen some heat wave/milkman combo flushes before, not a big fan of the 2 sire thing sounds more exspensive and more work with all the extra dna

I did this year ago. I had two straws of one sire and two straws of another sire. I have two calves that I am almost positive are from one of each of the sires. We dropped 17 eggs # 1 on first flush. I was advised to use three straws for a flush. ? It was our first time flushing and so I followed advice.

Shady Lane said:

I have seen this done before on a farm where I used to work.


  What we found was the Calves seemed to often be sired predominantly by one sire with only a few resulting calves sired by the other.

Maybe that was luck of the draw as we are only talking about a few flushes, but that was my experience.

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This is because one horn makes more eggs than the other, and they probably horn breed one bull to one horn and the other horn to the other bull. If you do it that way you can keep your eggs separate and use different setups to do the flush, and normally the semen stays were you put it, but occasionally it will swim back into the other horn. You also can't tell which will make more eggs.

The place that does our embryo work strongly suggests 3 straws so that's what we use.  I had located only 2 straws of some hard to find semen and was going to flush the cow with that and then another straw of a different bull.    Luckily, I found 3 straws of what I was looking for so didn't have to do it.    The problem for me was twofold ..  all the calves would have to be DNA tested to be registered and I don't know how saleable the embryos would be because you can't identify the sire until the calf is on the ground. 

I have been asked to breed to 2 bulls for flushes many times, it works if you do things correctly and are ON TIME

I only breed the donors ONE time, but I horn breed them fairly deep, at least a long ways past your normal A-I point.

I put one comple straw into each uterin horn LATE in the cycle, at least 6 and often longer after all standing is done.

Doing this allows the semen to have less travel distance, gets it past all the mucus build up in frint of the cervix on these superovulated donors, and allows for more viability time when they do get to the ovaduct.

There was a picture or two on here a few weeks ago of a coule ET calves for Dusty -- that cow was bred to Carnac and Vegas for the flush. There was no doubt that the resulting eggs from each sire were correct. Pretty neat stuff.

There has been several donors here that I onlyhad one straw of semen for - period! When that happens, I make sure the timing is right and simply horn breed her with 1/2 straw per side. I have never seen the need to breed more than onceif you get the timing right AND you have excellent semen quality to start with.

These places can do what they want, it's thier privoledge, but it is for the most part not necessary to breed them more than once and for certain, no drugs are needed at breeding. We don't always get every egg to be good quality, but we do get along very well on fertilization, with minimal input!

The 2 sire breeding works, but unless you use two different sire lines -- especially on purebreds, you may still need to do the DNA to be sure. I give it 95% or better accuracy if done like I do it here!

Good luck to all!

Terry

i have seen something like this done in hogs, take a good white-line sow and AI her with a white boar and a hamp boar, when the piglets come then you can easily tell who sired who.

i guess with the flushing, it would work on a red cow bred to a red bull and a homo black bull  :-\



JWW

if your showing steers, do you really care who they're by anyway? 

simtal said:

if your showing steers, do you really care who they're by anyway? 

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If you're selling you kinda need to know.  People want to know that they're a heat wave.....