Exploring Embryo Transfer: Insights from Dr. Levi Holt

Hosts Joe and Vince discuss hot summer farm conditions, bull development, and social media pressure before introducing the episode’s focus on embryo transfer. Guest Dr. Levi Holt of Green River Embryo Transfer and Holt Farms Angus (Livingston, Tennessee) shares his background as a veterinarian, Angus breeder, and how he bought Dr. Herb Brown’s ET practice in 2019, expanding from pickup-truck work to a new facility and mobile lab offering conventional ET, IVF, donor housing, and on-farm services. The conversation covers why repro work is rewarding despite failures, what drives consistent ET success (cow families, fertility, nutrition, mineral and herd health), conventional vs IVF goals, approximate embryo costs, donor freshness and breeding back, recipient management and heat-detection vs timed transfer, synchronization protocols (7-day and 7&7), seasonal heat-stress effects, donor selection and acclimation, IVF in virgin heifers and risks, semen and breeding schedules, FSH dosing pitfalls, record-keeping tools, common mistakes, and practical advice for beginners.

Transcript

0:01

All righty. Here we go. Joe, what are you doing today? Welcome to Around the Chute. Oh, we got a welcome? I don't know if we've done that in four or five weeks. Um- Probably not. I just got done with a whole bunch of farm bureau meetings in the middle of the week- or middle of the day, and then just back out to checking cows and irrigating and just on those... It's not August, but it's the dog days of August. How about that? It feels like it. So for everybody that calls and asks about our bulls, I would just tell you as a blanket statement, Wyatt went down there yesterday, and, uh, is very pleased with how things are looking. So we're excited, really excited about the bulls this year. Um, what are you doing? You've been sending me bred heifers, or were those weaned heifers? They look awesome. I don't even remember. Oh. I don't know. I have been- How was the birthday cake? I, I... The birthday cake was good. I hope Amy had a good birthday. Um, it, it, it was a... I felt like it was just a solid given that I should go get her a Dairy Queen cake for her birthday. Oh. So I did, and I have partaken in the Dairy Queen cake and screwed up my diet a little bit, but I'm not... I'm, I'm, I'm still working on it. Wait a minute. So you're telling me you got Amy... Like, it would be like if you got Amy a new combine for her birthday- Yeah instead of the cake. Same thing. Yeah. It benefited me as much as... And I enjoyed it as much as she did, I hope. Yeah. So you're gonna celebrate her birthday- If she don't enjoy it, that's fine too. You know, I still enjoyed it. Is it big enough that you're celebrating her birthday- Oh, it was huge. Yeah. It was huge. Well, I saw that piece you were shoveling down here about three minutes ago. The thing was like... It's like this tall. It's two layers. Oh, my God. But no, um, I, I failed to mention this episode will be about embryo transfer, so that's pretty, uh, interesting, and I think people will hopefully enjoy it, and we can, and we can, uh, cover some things that maybe some people don't know or give a different view to some people. And, um, Levi Holt will be our guest tonight, and we will, uh, bring him in here in just a little bit. Corbin- Yeah where's Corbin? What's Corbin doing? I don't know. I don't remember. What'd he say, ballet? Or baseball. He's taking ballet? Ballet or baseball. He's been in it, too. So that's one thing we should address, like, why does nobody have energy right now? What is going on? It's not a very upbeat way to have a podcast, dude. It's 190 degrees. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. And humidity. I talked to Stroman. It's been 104 up there at Santa's workshop. Golly. 104. That's crazy. Yeah, I just... And it's been hot here, but not... It's been hotter. Like four or five years ago was definitely hotter. The first year we were here, we had 30 days straight of over 100. We haven't had any of that, but it's been like just this slow grind of 96 to 98 though, and some cloud cover. Hot. And so it's just humid and- It's so humid and you've been about the same, right? Yes. And we've been getting, we've been getting afternoon pop-up showers every day, and we'd cut a little jack of hay just to clean a field off. Well, we don't even really need the hay, but um, we're trying to clean the field off a little bit and it... You know, they can't decide. You, you got four days, you go cut the hay, and then you get an alert that you have a flood warning till the next day at noon. I'm like, "What, what are you supposed to do?" So we've been, we've been trying to work through that. It has, those storms have cooled things off in the afternoons though. It's really nice. Um- So do you have a nice stand of feed? Yeah, I think so. I mean, compared to other years? Yeah, I mean, I think it looks good. I don't know. We won't know till we get in it, but, um, got plenty of hay. Uh, silage looks decent right now. Um, rest of the crops look good, so. How's your fall bulls? We got all kinds of grass. We do have lots of grass. Fall bulls, they look decent. They look decent. They're coming along. Um, they look just right. Yeah. They're not gonna break any records as far as weights because I'm not pushing them, but they don't look thin and they don't look fat. They look just like they're growing and they're just coasting right along. Yeah, you kind of cruise those along, but they, they still got a long time to get there. Yes. But last year I, last year I messed around and didn't feed them right. I, uh, there was something off with their feed. We weren't doing enough or something wasn't right, and they were just thin, like thin, thin looking. And this, this group doesn't look like that. They came out of it by sale time, of course, but I mean, heck, I had a long way to go, um, till April, so. And that's the, that's the thing, like they... I don't see the point in blowing them out right now. They don't need to be ready till April, so just let them be cows. Yeah, I don't know. It's, uh- It's a funny deal what's going on with social media and, and I'm gonna tease it, right? Because I've told you that I wanna have the social media episode where we talk about how it's shaped people's opinions, and the good and the bad of social media, um, because I think it really puts us measuring in an unfair arena- Right as people. Right. Like, you're in this space that doesn't even exist, and what's funny is you agree with me. I would say that people would've said that about women, um, or young people five, six years ago. They were like, "This is a crisis in our country and our world, where they're comparing themselves against other people," and then you don't know how many filters those people have on or whatever. Well, when you see videos of cattle on the social media, if you don't know that program and you don't know the context, you don't know what it took to make that video. You don't know what- Right all is involved. But subconsciously, I think these breeders are really putting a lot of pressure on themselves and measuring against that without really knowing what it is. Um- Right and you and I have had that conversation a lot. I thought your fall bulls, um, I, I thought both sets of bulls actually were as good condition as I've ever seen, and- Well, thank you but because I'm your friend and spend a lot of time with you- like- You're gonna lie to me. No, you were panicked about them all year, all freaking year. Man, that, that fall group just- They were so long just getting there, which was fine as long as they got there, but I was worried they were never gonna get there. And they were there by sale day. They were there. They were- Yeah they probably looked the best they looked their entire life- They were fresh on sale day. And they didn't look stale. They didn't look cooked. Yeah. So that's what we hope for. We should be- Well- Go for it. Go ahead. No, f- no, keep going on that thought. No, I was changing gears. Go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say, circling back to your introduction to our guest, we're gonna cover a topic today I'm, I'm excited about because, uh, one of the things in our little pregame green room workup is, uh, Levi was telling us everybody's got a different way and stuff. And, and I would say that w- we've seen plenty of ET podcasts out there. Um, we've been a part of one in the past. Um, I've watched several of them or... And, and everybody's got a different way. And guess what? Everybody's probably right. And so we're gonna tackle this from a around the chute perspective of just chopping it up with a fella, and we'll see where the conversation goes, and I'm really excited about it, and I'm thankful, and I'm sure we'll both learn something. And, um, I'm just... I'm glad you put this all together, Vince. Well, I just hate Corbin couldn't be here to chop it up with us, 'cause I'm sure he would have some different questions than we would maybe, so. Um- I'm sure he would. And he'll... He might be at the next one, and maybe I'm not, or maybe you're not. He... Right. I mean- And he might pop in in a little bit. I sent him the info, so we'll see. Can he wear slides to it? I don't know. God, I hope not. And maybe put some socks on his feet. All right. All right, Levi Holt is our guest tonight with Green River Embryo Transfer, and he is out of, you out of Livingston, Tennessee? Is that right? I am. That's correct. Yes, sir. Levi, give everybody a rundown about Green River and, and Holt Farms. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you guys asking me to, uh, to be a part of your podcast. It's a, it's an honor and, and a privilege. Um, of course, Vince, I've, I've known you for, for a few years, and Joe, it's, uh, been a pleasure to, to meet with you and visit with you. But, uh, like Vinnie said, my, my name is, uh, Levi Holt, and my wife Caroline and I own and operate Green River Embryo Transfer. Um, and I'm also, uh, a fellow Angus breeder myself, uh, part of Holt Farms Angus here in Livingston. Um, and so yeah, run a big part of that with, with my dad and my brother and, and just a family operation there. And so, um, so we, we do a little bit of, little bit of ET work, a little bit of Angus breeding on, on the side. And so yeah, try to make a go at it. But, um, but just a little bit about me, uh, born and raised here in Livingston, Tennessee. Um, and I went to, went to college at the University of Tennessee, did my undergrad and, and vet school there. And, uh, when I graduated, I came back, came back to Livingston and worked in a mixed animal practice for, uh, about five years and, um- Just kinda got to the point that it, it wasn't really my calling and, and I, I'd always had an interest in reproduction and, and things like that. Actually grew up on a, on a dairy, and um, my dad sent me to AI school when I was 13, and I've been breeding cows since I was 14 years old. And so, um, I've always had a passion for that. And um, so whenever I, I kinda felt like I needed to go a different direction, I, I reached out to, uh, a mentor of mine, Dr. Herb Brown, who started Green River Embryo Transfer, which he did, uh, Shady Brooks work for, for years. And- Long time long time. And, uh, so Herb was, was to the point in his career that he was, he was slowing down and, and getting ready to retire. And so we had, we had talked about some different options and some different things, and, and he called me up one night and he said, "Hey, why don't... If you're serious about this, why don't you, uh, why don't you just buy my practice?" And Caroline and I talked about it and prayed about it, and um, you know, we, we said, "You know what? This s- feels like a good fit." And so I went part-time at the clinic that I was at, and went... started working part-time with, with Dr. Brown at Green River, and um, met all the clients and kinda did that for about a year, and um, started doing more and more of the actual hands-on work. And, and by the end of that season, I was pretty much doing all the, all the collections, all the transfers and everything. And so, uh, in 2019 we, uh, we finalized that purchase and, and we've, uh, we've kinda grown it ever since. And so we've, uh, we've just kind of built it from there and, and uh, it's been a, been a great run so far, and hopefully we'll continue to, to have good fortune through the future. So. Now, you just built a new facility there on the farm, didn't you? Yeah, we did. And so, so when we, Caroline and I, bought the practice, we pretty much, uh, we bought, uh, Dr. Brown's- inventory and his equipment, which was consisted of about three or four old boxes that we still carry around to this day. And, uh, we worked out of the back of a pickup truck and, and we flushed cows on farm, and we set up on anywhere from kitchen tables to offices to anywhere we could find, you know, to, to do our lab work. And so we've grown it from that, and we have, um, we've added a, a mobile lab. We've got a trailer that we pull now that's, that's all enclosed in a, you know, a good environment. We've, uh, started housing donors here at our place. Um, and then we just completed a facility last fall, uh, in October of '25, and so we've got office space and barn space and, um, you know, enclosed flush room and things like that. And so yeah, we've, we've just kind of s- slowly grown it over the past six or seven years and that's, that's kind of where we are at this point. And so we, uh, offer conventional collections, and then we've started offering IVF collections as well, donor housing, and then of course on farm collections and transfers as well, so that- So in the, in the Herb Brown buyout, you said you got three or four things. Did you get the alligator? box that I- We did. We did that, see, that's, that's awesome. We got the, we got the alligator box that, um- It, it, it's, it's pretty, pretty rough as you could imagine. But, uh, it's still, it's still holding together and we're, we're gonna, we're gonna ride it till she breaks completely I think. Joe, he, he, Herb always had this, this alligator box that just opened and then it had, you know, drawers pop out and he had all his stuff in it. I bet ever since I was a kid he had that stupid box. I mean, he did- Was shaped like an alligator? No, no, no. It was alligator skin, like, covered. Like alligator boots, but it was a- Oh, wow it was a, it was a bo- like a piece of luggage type box. He, when he, when he graduated vet school, the practice that he worked at, he went there in 19, I think it was 1978 or, or mid-'70s anyway we'll just say, and, um, he found that box in a closet in that practice. But he, there's no telling how old it was- or how long it had been there. But, uh, but yeah, he's, he, he pulled it out and we're, we're still using it to this day, so. I mean, what would somebody have an alligator box for? I, I know he found it- I don't know, but it was awesome but- I don't know. But it, it, it's got, it's like a ca- they call it a cantilever box, and so you open, the top opens up from the middle, and then it's got two trays that kind of pull out, almost like a tackle box. Yeah. And there's all kinds of different, uh, little storage compartments in it. And then, you know, it's probably six or eight inches deep that you can store stuff down in the bottom of it. It's neat. Vince, did he steal that from your mom's jewelry box? Is that what that was? No. No, I don't think so. I don't think Mom ever had alligator- I mean, I don't know what else would that be for I don't know. There's nobody who's got, like, hula poppers and worms and stuff in. It's not a fishing box. It, it, it was a c- I'm surprised he didn't convert it to a fishing box 'cause Herb's quite the fisherman. That's true. He, he is a, he is a diehard fly fisherman- Yeah so it's lure, it's not a tackle box. That would be the perfect fly fishing box. It would. He could have, he could put the little vice down in there that, where it holds it and he could tie his own. He needs to. He might repo that. So, Vince, you said something... Might have. Uh- You said something in your introduction that I actually think we should rewind to, Levi. You, you said you started AI in cows at like 13, then you got turned loose at 14 and you were kinda hooked. What is it about artificial insemination, ET, genetic progress, that sort of thing that, man, when you get into it, it's just like, it's hard. It is hard. The failure is so... There's so many things that can go wrong, and it's so expensive, and it's late nights FSH and late night heat detection. But man, it's like when we get the bug, you're just a part. What do you think that is? You know, I, I don't, I don't know what that, what the hormone or the endorphin or whatever you wanna call it, I don't know what that would be. But, uh, you know, I- I attempt to play golf as well, and so- I, I kind of equate it to a golf shot, right? Like, you can play 18 holes of golf, and you can just have 17 of the worst holes that you can imagine, but you have that one hole where you just, you hit a perfect drive, and you hit a great approach, and, you know, you... It's enough to keep you coming back, is, is the best way that I can describe it. Um, you know, there's nothing to me like going through the whole process, and th- on a conventional side, right? And, you know, you do all the work, all the setup, and all the breeding, and then you just have this perfect flush with a beautiful set of embryos. Like, there's nothing in the world that gets me excited like looking under a microscope and seeing that. And then, you know, whether you transfer those fresh or you put them in later, like, seeing the preg results from that, like, it, it, it is just a high that you can't really describe. Now, the failures will drive you absolutely insane. Right? I mean, you know, that, that's what really just frustrates us all to no end. But, you know, it's those, those days where, you know, you go out and you, you stick 80% of them pregnant on one service AI, or you get, you know, 75% pregnancies on a fresh conventional transfer, whatever you wanna call it, you know. Like, that, that is... That's what, for me as an ET guy, like, that's what keeps me coming back and, like, helping producers and... You know, I love those phone calls. You know, we, we hear a lot of the other ones as well, but those are the ones that really make you feel like you're doing a good job. Like, that's the, that's the crazy part about reproduction, is that- The, the great days just keep you coming back and make you feel like you're ma- you have made the right decision on doing artificial insemination or, or ET or whatever, because it's, it's hard, right? I mean, it's- Yeah it's difficult. It's so much easier to go out there and open a gate and turn a bull in and say, "There it is, guys- That's right we'll see you in, in 60 days," you know? But, um- So Levi, if you have, you have a bunch of different customers, and I'm sure if you look at it on a trend line, there's good flush, bad flush, good flush, bad flush, like up and down, up and down, but the people who are consistently higher on the graph, who are your customers that see the most successes, what are some things that they consistently do? Yeah. So the guys that, that kinda come to mind when I think about that are guys that have, have been doing it for several years, right? So they've had a, they've had a good AI program for several years, they've been doing ET for several years, and they've kind of identified those cows or those cow families that excel for fertility and c- you know, foot quality and, and, you know, just the different traits, whatever that is. But for the most part, like fertility's pretty heritable, right? So if you've got a cow that, that is a good donor, she, she's pretty consistent, you know, good chances are her daugh- her daughters are gonna, are gonna follow suit. And so a lot of times what we see on those guys that year in, year out consistently do well in an ET program, they have identified some of those cows and then they are also daughters and granddaughters of those cows have become donors as well. And so that's, that's probably the biggest thing that I see. Now they're good managers too, right? Like they're, they're great managers. Their, their mineral programs are great, their herd health's in check, nutrition's on point. Like, so there's so many, so many different factors that fall into a good reproductive program, and they've got all those things down, you know, as much as they can control 'em. Um, but then a lot of it is, is just heritability and, and cow families I think that, that really play into it. And you can beat your head against a wall because this is your favorite cow, but if she just don't flush, she just don't flush. Yeah. I mean- And that's, that's one of the worst things is like i- it's one of the things that you hate to say, but like sometimes some cows just don't wanna be donors, right? That's exactly right. Just, yeah. That's exactly right. So conversely you'd say your, your customers who are on the bottom end of that trend line are probably trying to make the outlier that, you know, we really need eggs out of this cow 'cause we don't have any daughters or any- Right descendants. Oh, yeah. And so you're squeaking out a one two average and then it just goes on down the line, right? And, and it's always the cows that like we really gotta have something out of this one, right? That's the ones that seem like it's always the, the, the ones that make you want to pull your hair out. Right. So what are some questions that you would ask of a new client that comes to you and says, "We have a new program, these are our goals. Um, you know, we want to do ET or we wanna embryo 'em." How about that? That's usually what they say- Yeah something like that, right? "We wanna embryo these cows." Yeah. And you're like, "Well, we gotta go over some terminology first." But, but lay that out. Um, how do those conversations go? Yeah. So, so like you said, we, we kinda start with, with each individual producer's goals. Like, what, what are they looking to do? Are we, are we looking to select for, you know, certain traits of interest or certain sex, if you will? Like, are we only wanting heifers? Do we only want... Do we only want bulls? You know, what- whatever that would be. And then from there we kind of- Guide them or advise them, if you will, um, on which direction we feel, uh, that fits their, their scenario the best. And so like I mentioned before, we've, um, we've been doing conventional, conventional flushes and conventional collections for, for years. Uh, we started down the, started offering IVF services now as well, and so it's kinda give- given us another tool, uh, in, in our basket, I guess, to, to offer those producers and, and help 'em achieve their goals. And so for instance, if, if we have a, let's just say we have a guy that, that calls and he's got, let's just say he's got 50 registered cows and, you know, his goal is to make replacement females and he wants to be able to sell some bulls private treaty, um, but he wants to do it as, as low cost as, as he can, and he's not really concerned about, you know, labor. He's got plenty of labor, plenty of time. Like we're probably gonna steer that guy in a, in a conventional setting, you know, where we can, you know, if he, if he's able to artificially inseminate, shot, shot schedules are not a problem for him, you know, we're probably gonna guide him more towards a conventional, conventional route where, you know, we can make those embryos a little bit cheaper for him, um, and hopefully get a, a, get a as good or better conception rate on those embryos when we transfer. You know, conversely, if we, uh, you know, if we have that guy that, um, is wanting to try to make as many embryos as possible in a short timeframe and he wants, he only wants heifers, like that guy's probably, and his, his labor is limited, that guy's probably gonna be more on an IVF scenario where we can run those cows every two weeks. We can sort for heifers, um, and probably a little less, little less labor intensive on the shot schedules and things like that. So, um, that's just kind of some overview examples, I guess you would say of that. Well, first of all, I don't know who this guy is that has all this extra labor running around. And if he needs to share some, I'll be glad to take it. Um, so, uh, that's something you touched on the IVF thing. Are you doing that on farm or is it strictly at your facility? So we, we have done, uh, we o- o- obviously we do it in-house, um, and we house a lot of those donors, you know, for guys, but we will do it on farm as well. So like- Okay we do have a minimum number, like we gotta have at least, at least five head for us to come out and do it, you know? And then- Right you know, there's other logistical things that you guys ha- that we have to agree to as far as shipping incubators and all that kind of stuff. Right. Whereas if it's in-house, we can kind of spread that cost out over, you know, multiple clients, whereas if it's on farm, those clients are responsible for that solely. But, but yeah, we do, we do offer on-farm services on that side as well. So Levi, well, you brought it up a couple times, I mean, obviously with your, your new and established customers, budgets are always a concern. Mm-hmm. And I know that we don't wanna button up this podcast and have one of our, our listeners say, "Well, what's it cost to embryo a cow?" Um- maybe just give us some round numbers because you have your established clients, you have housing, you have... There are a lot of variables, but maybe give us an idea of what a conventional egg would cost and what IVF egg would cost. Yeah. So, um- I, I really haven't put a pencil to it now because, um, one of our, our main, uh, follow- our main FSH distributor, Vetikinol, um, sent us, sent us a wonderful email a couple, couple months ago that they were increasing their prices again. And so I haven't really- God almighty I, yeah, I haven't really figured it, uh, figured up that total since they've, they've done that on us. But, um, but yeah, I think a couple years ago there was a, there's another ET firm, uh, Ashby Genetics, Ran- Randall Hinshaw's group out of Virginia, they did a study several years ago, and I think at that time they figured that an IVF, uh, calf on the ground was about three times more expensive than a conventional, uh, calf whenever it was born. So I know that doesn't really answer your question as far as great, like, round numbers, but most of the time you can figure on a, on a, uh, IVF produced embryo somewhere in the 2 to $300 per embryo, uh, ballpark. On the conventional side, it really just depends on how many embryos that that donor makes. So I would say the bulk of our, the bulk of our conventional embryos are probably 150 to $200 range per embryo, um, would, would be what that would cost you. You know, um, obviously there's, that's gonna change whether we're going on farm to do that and you guys are, you know, not paying donor housing, stuff like that. You know, start adding donor housing and things in, that's gonna go bump that up a little bit. But they need And would you say, Levi, that's, that's a 680 to get average or something? Yes. Yeah. And then you start getting to the 10, 12s, 14s, those good cows- Yeah you send that reward back because we have sunk costs. FSH, bottle FSH costs the same whether you get two eggs or you get 52 eggs. Yep. That's right. So- That's right. So- I mean, if you can, if you, if you're worried about a budget, listeners, I, that's the one thing I would say and- Don't flush. That's, that's a good one. Yeah. Uh- But it, it's a useful tool, but you gotta know them cows that don't average eight to 10, they could get quite expensive quite quick. And then, uh, and honestly for my program, Levi, that's, that's what I've done. I mean, we'll spot flush these cows and identify, and if you can't make 10 to 12 for what we do. Yeah. We don't sell females, we just sell bulls. But for what we do, if you can't make 10 to 12, we just, we just breed you. Yeah. Because it just starts getting too expensive. Yeah. And, and I think, I think that's a, that's a good point because, you know, when you, when you start bumping up past that average of which the national average on a conventional flush is, is about six, six embryos per flush, and it's been that way for 25, 30 years. You know, we've not really moved the needle on that. I think the IVF side, you know, that number fluctuates a little bit, but it's probably still in that six to eight range on the IVF side as well. But, you know, you get those 10 to 12 embryo cows, um, you know, those numbers start dropping and we've had some cows where guys that they've, they've done really well and guys have less than $100 an embryo in 'em on the conventional side. And, you know, you're, you start doing that and you're talking about the price of a straw of semen, right? So it's, you know, it, it come, becomes way more economical at that point. Right Well, the, um You know, the, the thing is, like you said, when people come to you and say, "Well, this... What is my options?" Or whatever, you know, one, uh, one thing that drove me towards IVF was the fact that I could keep my donor fresh. I could breed her back, then work her a time or two, let her go be a cow, have a calf, work her a time or two, breed her back, work her a time or two. I really like that. I hate the fact Of how they collect them, they're poking holes in her ovaries. I mean, common sense says it just can't be good for them. Um, but I do, I, I guess it's that trade-off, right? You know, do you want your cow to stay fresh, not get stale, not have problems getting her bred back, or do you want her to have perfect ovaries the rest of her life? I mean, I don't know. Um, but I've really liked that aspect because, I mean, you know as well as I do, you leave a cow, a donor cow open so long and you keep pumping her full of drugs and it's not gonna be very long that she don't wanna breed back. Yeah, and, and I mean, I think, uh, kind of circling back to, to Joe's question there earlier, you know, that was one other thing it made me think about it when you, when you started describing that scenario, those guys that, that really have good success year in, year out, seems like they flush those cows one time in the breeding season and they breed them right back. They're not keeping those cows open- Right all day. But there again, like you said, if, if that cow doesn't breed back on that, that first cycle, right, she's... You've, you've lost a month on her, you've lost two months- Right and she's, she goes from the front end of your calving season to the tail end of your calving season. Yep. So yeah, it, it, it can be, it can be a sticky situation if those, if, if everything doesn't go right. And so I think that is, that's one of the things where IVF has the advantage is that, hey, we don't have to, we don't really have to worry about, all right, I'm gonna flush this cow on, you know, December 1. I've gotta get her bred back by the 20th or else she's gonna be too far out of my window the next year, and then so on and so forth. Like, we can go ahead and breed those cows and we can still get some production out of them. Um, you know, but, but there again, it, it really just depends on, on your goals and, and what, what, what the, uh, what the end goal for the situation is. But, uh- Right but yeah, uh, there, we've seen, had a lot of guys that have, uh, have kind of fallen into that same train of thought where, you know, hey, it's, it's worth a lot for me to get my donors bred early. Um, I'm willing to take maybe just a little bit lower pregnancy rate on a, on a frozen IVF egg and, and keep my donor in production and keep her fresh. Right. And I like having, you know, the day you come transfer, I like having both in the tank because some recips are gonna work for IVF, some recips are gonna work for a conventional. And, you know, we generally have one, at least one cow that we're running fresh conventional, so we'll have some fresh eggs to transfer as well. So it gives, it gives me a- You know, an array of different options that I have so my re-sip heats are not wasted hopefully. And, you know, that's a whole nother thing too. You know, we've focused and talked all this stuff about donors and, you know, I think where I, where a lot of people miss the mark is on re-sips. Um- 100%. Um, you know, that's the, that's the thing. It, it seems like that's always the place that people think, "Well, I can, I can skimp a little bit here. It's just a re-sip," right? Yeah. They don't have to be on the best mineral, or they don't have to be the best uddered cow or, or whatever, you know? And so, um, but, but when you really think about it, like that should be completely opposite. Like- Yeah you're putting your best genetics in those animals and you expect them to raise the best calves that you have, they should be getting pampered and have the best care that you can possibly give them. Um, and, and I'm glad that you kind of brought that up, Vince, about the, you know, about the heat times and stuff because that's something I did want to touch on. You know, like for us In our protocols, we, we like to have our guys observe heat, record times of when those recips come in heat, and then we try to match those, those embryos up with the recips' heat time. So whether it's a, an IVF embryo or a conventional embryo, like, we're gonna try to match that up. And then even within that, if we know stages and grades, we'll try to match that up even, even further just to try to dial it down. Now, that's what we've always done. Um, there's a lot of firms out there that just do a, a timed, uh, transfer, which is where they, they go in so many hours after they pull the seeders and luteolys those or, or estro mate those recips, and they give them a shot of GnRH and then we just- we assume everybody's in at the same time. And so, um, their- those protocols are successful as well, but for us, like I said earlier, this is what we feel like has been the best. We- we've had the best conception rate doing it this way. And so there again, if we've got a guy that's able to, to watch heats and, and, and knows that, knows when those cows came in heat, uh, we feel like that's a better option. Now, there are some scenarios where guys are like, "Hey, I, I don't have time. Like, it's worth more to me to run 'em through and just give 'em a shot of Cisrelline- Right or whatever, and we're just gonna go that way." And so we do that some, but, but our preference is to, to heat detect and then transfer based off those heats. So is that other deal you're talking about, is that kinda like a timed AI scenario but for embryos? It is. It's, it's very similar to a timed AI. Um- Hmm you know, and, and guys are just basically doing the same thing. And so in, in that scenario, Vince, like, like where you, you have IVF and conventional eggs, they're, they're trying to time those recips where they're acceptable for both, right? Uh-huh. So we're, we're working on a seven-day or a seven-and-a-half day heat at that point when we transfer. Right. I gotcha. Hmm. Yeah. Levi, maybe map out what is the most successful, um, option for a, for a flush transfer scenario. Yeah. So, so for us, like, let's just, let's just take Vince's scenario, for- Uh-huh for example. So when we go, when we go to Shady Brook, we know that he's gonna have frozen IVF embryos in the tank. He usually has one to two donors that we flush conventional fresh that day, and then he'll have a handful of frozen conventional embryos as well. And so what we do is we synchronize those recips, um, to be in heat that are acceptable for IVF embryos, so we're talking seven- and eight-day heats And so those early heats, we're gonna use those for his frozen IVF embryos. We're gonna have later heats that are gonna be seven to six-day heats, and we're gonna use those for his conventional embryos. And so when we show up there, we're gonna flush his cow, we're gonna see what we've got, and we're gonna have him to sort those resychs to where he brings those, most likely those later heats that fit his fresh conventional embryos, 'cause that's what we wanna get in first. We wanna make sure we get those embryos in. And then we're, we're gonna have him, we're gonna have him give us a priority list and he's gonna say, "All right, I want these three IVF matings in first." So then he's probably gonna bring us his heats that are acceptable for IVF embryos. And then from there we're gonna finish up with whatever, whatever heats we have left, we'll thaw either an IVF or a conventional embryo to whichever fits that, that resych heat time. Does that make sense? Does me. Uh, abs- absolutely. No, you did a good job with that. And actually I'm scratching my head now because- Typically I bring my oldest CLS first, and now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like, well, that four is actually turning into a five as we go later on in the day, which if I started with the earlies, the fours are still gonna stay fours, and the sixes are just gonna get older and, and we could even work on 'em as fives if we got going quicker, and we could go to sixes or... And, and this is an operation, so you know we don't hardly do any IVF, so we're, we're dealing with a quite a few fours nowadays. I don't know why. Um, and, and then some fives and sixes. Um- Yeah but what about a synchronization protocol for recipient females? Um- Yeah. So- Maybe walk through that. Yeah. So, um, traditionally we have always done a, I think, I think the, the, the, the name of it, you look up in your AI books, is just a seven-day co-sync. So it's a seven-day CIDR. Um, give a shot of GnRH when we CIDR those cows, pull the CIDR in seven days, Lutalyse or EstroMate, and then we heat detect based off of that. Um, what we have started doing in the, the last couple of years, we've had some guys that really wanted to do the seven and seven protocol, and so we, we, uh, have started implementing that on some, some herds and operations as well. I know, I know Vince has, has had a lot of success with that, and, and we've been really happy with it there at Shady Brook and at other places as well. But same concept, um, you know, following those protocols. And generally way, the way we base that is, um, we set our transfer date, and then we work backwards. And so if we are, if we're transferring conventional embryos, we're trying to work with seven-day heats ideally. And so we go back seven days, and then we allow 48 hours from the time that we pull the CIDR and give a prostaglandin until that cow shows a heat, so if that make, if that makes sense to you. So we're going to set our transfer date, we're gonna back up nine days, and that's gonna be our CIDR pull date, and then from there we're gonna work back to either a seven-day or a 14-day protocol, whether you're doing a, a seven-day or s- a seven and seven. So for a, let's just say a seven-day, um- cedar protocol, it, it ends up becoming 16 days from the time you start to the time you transfer, right? Yeah. And so if we're doing the seven and seven, that number turns into, like, 23 days, right? Because we're adding another week. I would like to recom- I mean, I would like to say that Scott does not like the seven and seven. He's always under protest when I wanna do the seven and seven. Just needed to mention that. He, he's coming around, though. I th- I think he- he's coming along. And so what, what we have found, and this has never been your s- this has never been your scenario, Vince, but, um, cows that are a little thin, uh, work, sim- seem to respond better to a seven and seven. You've never had that problem, Vinny, but, uh, some, some places have. Listen, my, my dad always told me, he said, "You eat seven days a week, so your cows should eat seven days a week." That's what he always told me. I think you spoke to it, though, a little, Levi. I mean, if you're a smaller producer, let's just say, and you have a big variety of embryos, maybe some purchased embryos, maybe you're doing a fresh transfer, maybe you've got some stored embryos and you have a variety, you probably wanna be on that seven-day co-sync so that you get a variety of heats. But if you're doing a big fresh transfer and you can tailor make it and backfill with those banked eggs, I think a seven and seven with a whole mess of cows in the center of that bell-shaped curve probably makes sense, right? Yeah. I mean, uh, and, and that's one thing that we have seen is that it seems like the, the cows coming off the seven and seven are You have more heats on the front end or they're... And it's a tighter window, right? So you don't have the s- the strung out three to four-day heat window like you see sometimes with a, with a seven-day. It's more of that 48 hours, um- Yeah you know, that's, that's where we see 48 to 60 hours. And- And I see a lot more heats with the 77. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, I would agree. Um, you know, I think we, we've started using it on our personal recips the past couple years, and generally we'll say, let's say we set up a group of 40, um, you know, we're gonna have 35 to 38 heats within that window. Um- Yeah that's, that's pretty consistent over the past two or three years. Yeah. That's what I liked about it. That and, and the window was so tight, so you didn't have a lot of strung out stuff. Go, Jeff. We did... We talked pretty good, I think, about recips, unless you have anything to add, either one of you guys. But I did, uh, you cracked the window on the lifer donor, Levi, and, uh, unfortunately some people can't breed 'em back. And unfortunately- The 12-year-old heifer? No. No? No. She's gonna have $120 maternal- and a $353 C. Um, but if you have one of those and you make her a lifer, and maybe, maybe you have a different set of goals, you're trying to establish that bank so that next fall you aren't caught with a bunch of cows not knowing when they're gonna calve and not having the right donors set up. And, and I'm gonna just step on Levi's expertise a little and say I think one of the most successful parts of an ET program from my perspective is having a quality bank of embryos sitting there to help, too. Because if you don't have those and the pressure's on, I'm telling you what, that's when you're gonna have the wrecks. Now, let's just say you have that donor that you're- freshening every six months, or maybe, God forbid, you leave an open, leave her open a year and she's sucking a calf. What is your ideal management on a cow like that to maintain some kind of consistent nutrition but not get her too doggone fat? Yeah, I mean, I think, um, I mean, you guys know well probably more so than I do, um, when it comes to managing those cows, is that every, every cow's different, right? So some cows can look at a blade of grass and they're gonna gain weight. Some cows you can, you can feed 'em 20 pounds a day and, uh, of whatever grain you want or concentrate, whatever you wanna do it, and, and, you know, they're gonna maintain. And so, um, really knowing that cow and, and her metabolism and her genetics, uh, really plays a, a big part into that. I mean, there's, there's some cows, guys, that, that come into, come into here and, you know, we... If we had a dry lot to stick 'em in with a flake of straw, like that's probably what we would do. I mean, it sounds cruel, but, you know, to make that work and to make that successful, you cannot let those cows just get stale and gobby fat. And so being able to manage that and, and knowing what those cows need and, and how they flesh really is a, is a huge benefit to that. Um, you know, if I, if I have to pick, you give me a thin donor that is coming up in her plane of nutrition over a, over a fat stale donor any day. Like we're- Absolutely so I mean, that's, that's the, that's the goal. If, if you've got a, a long-term donor, if you will, um, one that you're gonna work for a while and is not gonna get bred back for at least six months or, or, you know, maybe even a year, um, we cannot really push on those things and, and have success. You'll have... You, you could have it early, but, you know, that's the other thing. It, from a conventional side of things, the more, the more times they see FSH, um, that tolerance is gonna change to that. And so eventually we're gonna have to increase that FSH dose and keep increasing that FS- FSH dose and that's, you know, that's gonna have consequences as well. And so, um, being able to keep them in a, a good body condition, a good working body condition, um, is kind of the key to prolonged, getting prolonged life out of them And FSH makes them gain weight It will, yeah I mean, and that just, it just compiles the problem. Yeah. I mean, it just- I got, I got a client that calls it fat stimulating hormone. Hey, I, I must have some of that. You gotta wear gloves, Vinnie. Um, so Levi, maybe, ooh, a- and, and we talked earlier about going 30,000 foot and, and I'm gonna... I feel like we're getting a little bit more technical, but I'm gonna take another 30,000 foot approach for some of our, um, newer listeners. They come to you and say, "Hey, Levi, uh, genetics program type aside, I wanna go buy a donor." What are some things you tell that person, questions to ask when they go to source a new donor? Yeah. So a lot of it's gonna depend on the age of the female that they're looking at, right? So if we're looking at a mature cow, has she ever been collected before? And if so, can I see a copy of her, their flush records? Um, if she has not been collected before, was her mother collected before? And that, that kind of falls into the, you know, if we're looking at bred heifers or we're looking at weaned heifers or, you know, younger females that have not, say, been in the donor program yet, you know, do we have any idea of what a cow family has done or what their mother has done, you know, from a donor standpoint? Like tho- those are things that I'm gonna, I'm gonna look at and say, "Hey, you know, we didn't flush her, but we flushed her mother and she averaged eight embryos on three flushes." Like, to me, that's a, you know, that's, you know, that's valuable information. Um, you know, and, and if I've got one of those that, well, we flushed her five times and she averaged two embryos, the chance that, that, that cow's probably not gonna be as prolific of a donor as well. Um, and so, but at any time that you could, you could see flush records, like any time you have more information to make that decision is, is gonna be very much in your benefit. Okay. So what about bringing cattle from different environments? Yeah. You know, you buy the cow, oh, she makes 15 eggs a flush on, on six flushes, and you get her home and she makes two. Yep. Well- Yeah it's, you know, there's- We, we, we see that a lot. Um, and mainly in th- in this part of the world, we have guys that are buying 'em from, you know, out west, northwest, you know, even in the Dakota area. Like that's a, that's a huge change for those cows, right? Oh, yeah. Off of prairie grass, not dealing with any humidity if, you know, and, and all that kind of thing. And so coming to the southeast, being on fescue, especially if you're in the spring or the summertime, like it's, it's a huge adjustment period. And so a lot of times it takes those cows a year, a full year to adjust if, if they even adjust. I mean, some cows will never adjust, honestly. Right. And it, it really, I've seen that firsthand as well. But if you can bring those animals in as a younger female, it seems like they have a better chance of adapting to our environment. Obviously, I don't know. I've, I've got some friends out in the Dakotas and they say that the inverse is not necessarily true. Like cattle that come from the south and go out west seem to do better, um, than, than the other way if we're bringing cattle from the west to the south. Um, so I think fescue plays a, a big part in, in our adaption in this part of the world as well. Yeah. Well, you know, the other thing too is alt- you know, if the cows are in altitude and they come here. Right. Um, you know, I think, I li- I like what you said about le- you know, it takes one about a year. I agree with that. I would like to see her you know, come here bred. Then she gets to hang out the whole time in gestation. She gets to acclimate a little bit. She has a calf, she's fresh, then maybe try to, maybe try to do a little something with her. Yeah. But that's not always the case, you know? Well, and, and I don't know what you've seen, Vince, but, like, for, for my personal perspective, I have better luck bringing those cows in late fall or, you know, like January, February time, where they can acclimate through the grass coming on in the spring- Yeah into the seasoning, all that. Like, it seems like those cows acclimate quicker than if we were to bring one in, you know, coming off of prairie grass in, in the Dakotas to May when fescue's in, you know, full force here. Yeah. Like, seems like those girls take a little- Yeah, I w- I would agree with that as well. So Levi, I was wondering where this one fit, and it kind of fits here. Um, we talk about making hay when you can make hay. Are there particular seasons in the southeast that you feel better- about embryo production than others? And, and the reason I ask that is we're a fall calving operation in California. Uh, forage quality is diminishing, day length is diminishing, and we absolutely put the hammer down, like we need to make these eggs, and that kind of ties a little better back in with my banking eggs question, but, uh, do you see that down there as well, and what are some of the better seasons or, or ones to avoid for our listeners? Yeah, so, so in, in the southeast, um, you know, probably our, our peak season would be from mid to late October, the later in October the better, um, all the way through... We, we run pretty heavy as a, as an ET firm all the way through the end of June. But probably our, our most prolific times are November, December, all the way through the middle to the end of May. So really when it starts to get hot, um, we start to see some, some decreased production. And, and honestly it's more so, it's not really that first heat snap, if you will. So like May and June can get pretty warm here. Cows still generally work pretty well in those times, um, but I think it's, I think it's kind of a delayed effect, right? So like if it's, if it's hot for a week or two, we're still okay. It's when you get that prolonged heat exposure of four to six weeks or better that we really start seeing some diminished returns on our embryo production. So we don't do a whole lot July, August, September, um, and even into early October we can still see some, we can still see some heat stress events, um, in embryo quality just coming out of the summer like that, so. So do you think this year- Played a different role because you, I'm sure you were just as hot as we were early. Like we got stupid dry and hot early Yep. And then it cooled back off, which was weird. But do you see, do you, did you see any Like changes this year versus normal with that So, uh, I, I, I won't say that I saw any decrease in embryo production. Yeah. Um, TBD on the pregnancy results. I- I gotcha got several preg checks lined up there in August. Um, and so we'll see kind of what that, what that heat snap did. Um, yeah, I'm not, I'm not looking forward to it either. That's a big deal. Have, have... Now that you're doing IVF Has that prolonged, like, are you, did you run some more cows on further than you normally would with conventional? Yeah, so, so in the past, um, basically the last week of June pretty much wrapped up our season, and so we didn't do anything July and August and early to mid-September. Like, we, we didn't do anything. Um, so we actually have, we've got a set of cows that we're gonna aspirate tomorrow. Um, and so we did another set two weeks ago, and so, yeah, it, it has prolonged my season a little bit. And, and honestly, like, it was, um, it was kinda interesting to me because we were, we were a little bit slow in the end of May and June, but now we, we have done more aspirations toward the end of June and July than we did in those particular timeframes. But I think a lot of it was guys were still trying to get donors bred back and- Yeah wouldn't wanna, they didn't wanna aspirate, breed 'em and then turn around and aspirate 'em three weeks later. Right So I know people that do that all the time, and then- Sure they're like, "Well, this cow won't breed." Well, dude, give her a minute. Yep. You're just working the hounds out of her. Yeah. Yeah, very much. This cow won't breed. This cow won't breed. Levi, what about IVF in heifers, vir- virgin heifers? Yeah, so, uh, obviously we're, we're all in the Angus world right now, and so- we, we're, we're pushing, we are pushing the envelope on genetic intervals, right? So we're, uh, we're, we're trying to, we're trying to almost compete with the dairy industry, I guess. But, uh, but yeah, we, we, we IVF several virgin heifers. Um, and, you know, there again, it's all about your program, what your goals are, what you're trying to achieve. Um, I'm not gonna sit here and, and tell a guy that he can't, he can't do what he's trying to achieve because that's his goals. I have my goals. You know, everybody has their own goals and, you know, he's, he's probably looking at me thinking I'm an idiot and, you know, for doing what I'm doing. But, uh, but, but yeah, so it's, um, it's one of those things that we're constantly trying to, to push the envelope. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I'm, I'm leaving that up to you guys as producers to decide. You know, I'm, I'm here to provide a service and, and that's what we're gonna do. And so, but we, we do see a lot of guys that are, are flushing virgin heifers. Um, and I think there's a lot of scenarios where it's justified, right? Like, you know, if you, let's say you buy, you buy a weaned heifer calf and you spend a lot of money on her, like- Not- probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have an insurance policy- Right on, on that female. You know, I, I can, I can see that, you know, and, you know, there's guys that are trying to, you know, trying to, to hit the next, the next trait marker or whatever that is. Like, that's their goal, and so that's, you know, to each his own, I guess, is, is my scenario on that. But, uh, but yeah, we... And, and, and honestly, not to ramble here, but, um, before we started offering IVF, I bet we conventionally flushed probably 40 or 50 heifers, virgin heifers. No way. Really? Yep. Yep. So- And had, had good results when you say virgin heifers, are you talking about a yearling heifer, or are you talking about a six-month-old heifer, or a 10-month, eight-month-old? What are you talking about? So, yeah, so I mean, most, most of those, most of those heifers I like, I try to, I try to have guys have a, have them at least 12 months old. I, I would prefer them to be at least a year and weighing 8 to 900 pounds, ideally, would be my scenario. Now, we've done some, uh, we have done some younger, I think the youngest one that we've done was eight months, um, IVF, uh, the youngest one. But most of those, like I was talking about earlier, on the conventional side, we've, we've conventionally flushed some true yearlings as well. Yeah. Well, I had heard, you know, when, when somebody talks about doing virgin heifer mama, automatically just go to a yearling, you know? Yep. A year old, right before you breed her maybe or whatever. I heard the other day, somebody was talking about they're doing them at, like, six and eight months old. I was like, "That is insane." Yeah. That, that's on the beef side. Now, the, on the dairy side, it's even, it's even crazier than that. So they're doing them at, like, two to three months. They're doing a laproscopic- They haven't even cycled yet. Well, they're doing, they're doing laproscopic under general anesthesia, laproscopically doing IVF on those things. Those- No way those calves will have daughters in production by the time they calve in as, as a dairy cow. That is crazy. Yep. Yeah, it's, it's wild how fast the dairy industry moves. That is crazy. Yep. So a lot of the dairy guys say, "Whatever happens in the beef industry, it happened 10 years ago in the dairy industry." So in 10 years- That is why so- we're gonna be laparoscopically collecting three-month-old heifers it's possible. You, this may, this podcast may be the inspiration for it, Vinny. Yeah. That's, and I'm sure, I hope they put us, like, if the, the AI description claim to fame of this podcast is exactly that, Mandy. Love you, Mandy Ellen. She's gonna be up Vince's- Oh, I know oh, man. Um- I did that for her. Well, let me, let me phrase it this way though, Levi. Regardless of what we think of people's program goals, and, and honestly, that's not for me to decide. If you're writing the checks, that's, that's for you to decide. That's right. And we've always said that here. Um, but factually speaking, can it adversely affect the long-term fertility of that animal? Yeah. So, um, there, there is a risk associated with, with any of these procedures, right? And so if we are, if we're aspirating a, a yearling heifer and we're, we're taking a needle and we're, we're sticking her ovaries, like, there's a chance that we're gonna form some scar tissue and, and, you know, there could be some adverse effects there. And so that's one thing that- I do, I do advise people on that call me and they say, "I bought this heifer out of a sale. She's, she's a yearling. She's- obviously she's open. I'd like to get some embryos out of her before, before we do anything." Um, and so I, I generally try to recommend that they at least get that heifer bred before we tr- before we collect them because most contract or most, most agreements are, you know, you buy that heifer as an open, we guarantee her to breed or guarantee her to be a breeding female. If you do any kind of flush work on her- Yep that voids your guarantee, right? Yep. So, um, that's kind of my general recommendation to guys if they buy one. Now, if you raise one, that's a little bit different. So I mean, that's, you're, you're kind of playing at your own risk in that scenario. So, um, but yes, there, there is a risk that, that you can affect the long-term fertility on those animals. I like that you recommend that bec- I mean, that's part of the AAA rules and regulations. Yeah. And that's what... I've never heard of a sale that didn't go by that. I'm sure there are some people that don't go by that, but I've not heard of one. Yeah. Um, so that, that's really, I would agree with that too. You know, if you're, if you wanna do it, let's get her bred first and then do it. Yep. Yeah, that's, that's always kind of been my recommendation to guys. So Levi, maybe a question we should asked earlier, we're an hour in now, but who is your customer? Describe 'em. Are, is there a commonality between them or is it pretty... I, I assume it is kind of diverse, but maybe describe your customer to us. Yeah, it, it is. I mean, we, um, we deal with all segments of the beef industry. We deal with a lot of different breeds. Um, probably Angus is our predominant breed that we deal with, but we, we also work with a lot of Herefords and a lot of Simmental breeders. Um- You know, and it's, honestly it, it probably is probably 60% more production guys that are either, you know, trying to, trying to raise production females or raise and sell bulls. Um, but we also deal with a fair amount of show guys as well that are, are just trying to, to propagate those show genetics and, and make females. So, um, where we're at, we do kind of service... Our main service area is Tennessee and Kentucky. Um, when you start getting up into the northern Kentucky area, southern Ohio, we'll kind of get into some of the club calf guys a little bit. Um, and so we do a little bit of sex to male embryo stuff, uh, for those guys. But, but for the most part, um, you know, we're still in the, the cow-calf production cycle area here, with the exception of some sh- show guys who are just looking to make show females. So you mentioned sexed male semen. Are there any other newer technologies you guys are, are utilizing? Are you guys biopsying embryos and doing any of that stuff, and what's that look like for some people? Yeah. So, um, on our IVS side, we work with, we work with Bovi-Tech as a lab, and so they do offer a biopsy program where they can, they can tell you the gender, they can tell you the genetic package on that animal. They can test for, um, a variety of defects and even coat color and stuff like that. And so we've had a few guys, um, that, that utilize that. Not a ton, but we do have a few guys that have utilized that service. Um, and so it's just a- another tool for those guys to make a better decision on, on what they're doing. And so we've worked with some Black Hereford breeders that have had some donors that, you know, were potential carriers for some defects and things, and so they were able to still work those cows, biopsy those embryos, and, and make sure those, those embryos were free of any genetic defects prior to implant or anything like that So are they freezing those things after biopsy? They are, yep. They are. So they're taking, taking a punch biopsy, and I, I think they're sending that to Neogen, and then we're freezing that after they take a punch biopsy of that cell mass. What do you think that, what do you think that cuts down on the, um, conception rate? Yeah, I mean, I think... They say it's not a great amount. They say probably 5% to 10% maybe, um, you know, on the, on the conception rate of a biopsied embryo. Hmm. They're, they're... They cannot, and that's the other thing, they can't biopsy every single embryo, so they're only biopsying probably the grade ones, the highest quality. Why can't they? Well, because I think of that, of that aspect, right? So, like, if you have a cell mass and there's a lot of what they call extruded cells or there's a lot of bad cells in there, if you take that punch biopsy and you were to get a bad cell, right, then it, it may- Ah not necessarily have the genetic material that you need. And then two, if we're starting with a, a little bit lower quality embryo, we don't wanna drop the conception rate on the- Right lower quality embryo even further. Right. I gotcha. Yep. Joe? Well, do you see any other technologies on the horizon that you think are coming? I mean, in the beginning, in your opening comments, you said, "Gosh, we've kinda had these conception rates since the '60s and '70s," and, and I feel like with as much money being infused into reproductive technology and as many young people as we have pursuing repro phys nowadays, we're ripe for a breakthrough. Do you see any of that or any opportunities? So I mean, there- there's a lot of, a lot of technology that's kinda coming down the pike, um, especially when you start talking about the, the AI, the artificial intelligence, not artificial insemination, right? Um, so we could, we could probably see some advancements maybe in embryo grading or viability, um, when it starts talking about some of that aspect of it. Um, you know, there's some guys that are looking at, you know, gene editing stuff when it comes to disease traits and, you know, different aspects, uh, that, that kinda involve cloning in embryos and things like that. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think there's, there's a lot of stuff that's kinda coming down the pike. There's, um, there's a lot of research right now that's kinda looking at using ultrasound to evaluate CL quality, and more specifically, blood flow to that CL, um, and assessing the viability of that, you know, and ability to maintain a pregnancy. So those are, those are some things that are kinda in its infancy right now that, you know, when we... You know, if we were to revisit this in 10 years, like they may... could very well become standard practice at that point. But, but yeah, there's, there's a lot of different research that's going on to try to improve or, you know, change the ET industry, if you will. So it's gonna happen in the dairy industry before it happens in our industry. Yeah, probably. Pre- pretty, pretty good chance, yeah. If you, if you want the futuristic, uh, uh, future of the ET industry, just watch what the dairy guys are doing and, and you'll have it. Yeah, a lot of the big Angus producers have either a dairy background or also have dairy enterprises, so you have to- Okay expect that that's going to infiltrate the business quite well. Yeah. So here be kind of a fun one, um- Can you look at a cow, just type, just type and say, "Whew, that's a red flag. She isn't gonna flush"? What are some of those traits? There's a, there's some cows that I look at and I'm like, "Oh man, I really don't... I, I'm not gonna enjoy having my arm in this bitch." Uh- But, but you know, to, to answer that question, like some of them will surprise you. Sure. So I would love to say yes, that I could look at a cow and say, "She looks like she's gonna shell them out." But, you know, invariably the ones that you think, um, look like a donor, they've just got all the maternal characteristics in the world, like sometimes they're gonna be, they're gonna be disappointments. And the ones that you think there's no way in the world this thing's even gonna breed, let alone produce embryos- are gonna shell them out now. So I mean, it's a, you know- Hmm from a phenotypic standpoint, no. I mean, I see all types and kinds. Um, I really do think it is genetic and it's heritable on some of those, those embryo production qualities. I really do. Do you think there's a direct line correlation between embryo production and fertility? Yeah, I, I would think so. Yes, I, I think there is. It seems like those cows that breed back year after year on time, you know, if we're in AI scenario, one straw of semen or one jump from a bull and they, you know, they stick consistently every year and they're running a 365-day calving interval, tho- those girls will typically do pretty well in an ET program it seems like. You know, barring, you know, you run into a bad batch of semen or whatever. I mean, there's, there's a lot of factors there, but- Sure but yes, I mean, I think, um, you know, if you're looking at total number of, of embryos produced, whether we're talking Fertilized, good quality, degenerates, unfertilized, whatever, like those, those cows typically do pretty well I was gonna bring up the semen thing. So Joe, are, were you done or do you have a follow-up with that? I have a different one, so this is great. Okay. Um, so are you, have you seen... I, I mean, obviously semen is a huge factor, and I know people get frustrated, uh, because they did all this work and then maybe they didn't get... the semen wasn't the best. Maybe it wasn't flush quality- Mm um, semen. Have you seen, um, any kind of correlation with, say, a young bull getting collected, or maybe this was collected when he was 13 months old and now this was collected when he's four years old, one being better than the other? Or are you seeing that, you know, maybe just some bull, it's kinda like some cows aren't made to be donors, some bulls' semen just is not flush quality, but it'll settle cows. Yeah. So, so I, I would say your question is kind of two-part in my mind. Right. So, so there are, there are some bulls out there that, um, if guys tell me like, "This is the bull that we flushed our donor to today," like I'll, I'll cringe. Like I know it's not gonna be a good day. Right. Like there's- Yeah some bulls that you just, after, after three or four flushes, you know, you know that it's not good quality, flush quality semen. Um, but that is one thing that I've noticed on the IVF side of things, um, you can have a lot of variability between collection lots, um, even within the same bull. Really? And generally, um, those younger bulls, and this is not, this is not a hard and fast rule, but some, some collections on young bulls are not, the quality is not as good as if it, let's say we gave that bull another 60 days to mature, right? And so like, um, that, that semen that we collect 60 days later may be leaps and bounds better than that early release stuff that we got- Right before. Um, but even, even we s- we see that on the pure bulls on different collection codes. So like, um, and it may be environmental, right? It may be the- Right time of the year that it's collected or, you know, what, whatever his scenario is Um, you know, there are certain collections that we, we know do not perform as well as others. And so, um, like that's one of the good things with working with, with the labs. Um, you know, I, I can't speak for other labs, but I can speak for Bovi-Tech in that they track all that stuff. And so, um, we, when we turn in our mating sheets for our IVF collections, um, they go back and they look and they can see what that bull has done in the past. They can see, um, this is the collection code we're dealing with. They can narrow it down to, okay, what's this collection code specifically done in the past? And then they can make changes on their end on how they prepare that semen, um, to give it the best chance of fertilization and, and embryo development as well. And so, so yeah, there's, there's a lot of differences in age of the bull, even down to the collection of the bull. Like, we, we can see semen quality differences there. And what about if I've got a, if I wanna do 'em to one of my bulls and I'm willing to take the chance that that bull's not gonna kill my donor when he breeds her, super ovulating a cow, letting a bull breed her, have you seen, does that increase success? Does it decrease success? Yep. So, so generally, um, that would increase, increase the success of- I would think so your fertilization rates and your embryo development rates. Anytime you can work with fresh semen, um, typically you're gonna have better, you're gonna have better luck. S- So what I, what I usually recommend to guys in that scenario, if they say, "I've got, I'm gonna bring her to my bull, and he's standing right here," um, I, I like to do a scenario where it's kind of more of a hand-mating scenario, I guess you would say. So turn her in, let her, let that bull cover her once, maybe twice, pull her out. Got it. Take her out for, you know, eight to 12 hours, let him cover her again, pull her out. Don't just let 'em run continuously because those cows have so much estrogen pumping through 'em, like those bulls will constantly try to mount and cover those cows all the time. Yeah. And that's where you run into scenarios of your bull getting injured, your donor getting injured. Yeah. You know, one, one of those things, so. So Levi, that just brings me up, uh, fertilization times. Um, do you have a recommendation for a breeding schedule? So what we've, we've s- seen here, we think that late straw is getting more eggs based upon when we're giving shots nowadays or the mix of cows that we have. Um, so what sparked my mind was, well, that bull's not gonna wanna cover her when she's going out. Would you recommend those guys crack a straw of semen for the late... Um, what's your protocol kind of for breed times with regard to a heat on a donor female? Yeah. So, so for us it, it really depends on, it, it kind of depends on when, um, when that donor comes in heat. So in, in our protocols we have, we have our guys pull the CIDRs and give, we give two shots of Lutalyse, one, one in the morning and one in the evening and we pull the CIDR on the last day of shots in the evening with our last dose of Lutalyse. So our cows are generally gonna come in 24 to 36 hours after we pull that CIDR. And so if we're pulling in the afternoon, most of our cows are gonna come in heat the following afternoon, sometimes even through the night. And so, um, a lot of, a lot of times we like to have those guys breed the following morning, 12 hours later and 24 hours later. So like let's say we pull, we pull the CIDR on a Monday afternoon, those cows should be in heat Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday night, maybe even Wednesday morning. We like to have them breed Wednesday morning, Wednesday night, Thursday morning because just because those cows are in heat on Tuesday night, not all of those follicles are gonna ovulate at the same time, right? So we've got, we've got follicles that are gonna ovulate say Tuesday night, Wednesday morning all the way to Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday night. And so that last breeding on Thursday morning, you're kind of catching those tail end ovulations of those, those later follicles. So we, we recommend three breedings, um, at 12, 12 hour intervals. One straw of semen with each breeding is what we like to do. What about if it was sexed semen? Yeah, so we, we've kind of been all over the board on sexed semen as far as what we, what we prefer as a protocol. For years, um, we delayed that first breeding and did, um, we bred twice. We did 18 and 26 hours, and we did two straws at each breeding, so four straws of total. Um, but we- we've done some that way, and then also we've done some where we just followed our normal schedule, and quite honestly, we didn't really see a lot of difference, um- Really? Hmm in production. Yeah, yeah. So, um, usually on a conventional flush with sexed semen, there's a huge variability in, uh, embryo production. A lot of times you'll see a lot of, a lot of unfertilized embryos with that. Uh, I think most sexed semen is not flush quality in my opinion in, in a conventional setting. Now, when you start talking about IVF, I think it, you know, they can micromanage that environment a little bit more, um, and have better results using sexed semen on an IVF side versus the conventional. So what about if you're using a bull that you know is not got the best semen Mm-hmm And but that's the bull that you need to use on this cow. Are you gonna recommend they breed more? Are you gonna recommend that, you know, it's been told to me before throwing bad semen at it ain't gonna fix the problem. Yeah. Uh, but that was in a IVF situation as well. Right. Um, in this situation, um, would you think, "Okay, let's change our breeding times a little bit and maybe do it more often w- or, or two straws," or what? So, um- Or is it gonna matter? Is it even gonna matter? I- in my experience, there's not been that much, it hasn't made that much difference. Okay. You know, whether you change up your breeding times or you, let's say you use two straws at each breeding instead. Um, now if I had a guy that I was, they were dead set, like, "This is what we're gonna do, we're gonna use this bull," I would probably say, "Let's put two straws in the first breeding and just finish up with one on the last and let's just see." Right? Because I mean, if this is the, if this is the Hail Mary, like we're gonna go for it, cost is not a, not an issue there on the semen qua- semen cost, I'm probably gonna say use a couple straws at each breeding and see what happens. Um, because, you know, what have we got to lose at that point if there's no other option? Right. But- I don't know if this is a fair question because you are, uh, a veterinarian and so we can edit it out if we need to. Are the- are there certain products you recommend for these applications over other products that you'd be comfortable talking about? You know, I, I kind, honestly I leave it up to the producer. Okay. So if they, if they have a comfort level with a certain, certain product or a brand or, or what have you, um, I, I, I leave it to them, um- What are you talking about? Well, I'm talking about, like, I've had one, um, practitioner who's, like, swears about Factril, but you gotta give three cc's of it, and another one that swears about Cystorelin. Right. And, you know, then another one that swears about in these hot days use traditional Lutalyse, use seven cc's. Um, another one says use High Con if it's not hot and those cows aren't repr- respirating so high. And I wonder how much of that information, Levi, is anecdotal, and how much of it is kind of like wives' taley, it stuck out on that 58 flush and everybody's happy so we're gonna replicate it? Or how much of that may hold some water? Yeah. I, I think it, I think it all goes back to that producer's individual experience, right? Yeah. And so, um, I've got a lot of guys that they will not... They, they don't want to use Lutalyse because they have had a bad experience, and they've used Estromate and they've had great experiences. Um, you know, and so, like, those guys, you know, to each their own. I, I work with all the... I've worked with all the products, all the different things. Um, and, and I'm not saying that there's no difference in any of them, but I think you guys know your cows better than I do. And so, like, if, if you are, have a comfort level with a certain product, that's fine. To me, like, whatever prostaglandin you choose, like we can advise you on the dose, the route, you know, administration, whatever, um, but if that's what you want to use, I'm fine with it I had a, I had a, a, an old ET guy tell me one time, like, you know, "Don't, don't try to reinvent the wheel and force these guys to get their cows in heat in a specific way. Like, if they're comfortable with a, with a protocol or products, use that protocol, use those products, whatever they're comfortable with. Just make sure the heat times line up with what you need." And so I've kind of always remembered that, and I've always stuck with that. So I'm not, I'm not partial to any certain product at all. Like, I mean, I think, I think different ones work better for different guys, and so that's what, that's what we've always based our program around. So what about some tips? Are there, are there some little tips to level up your ET program just in administering FSH? Um, like maybe using a, a different length needle or a different gauge or a different shot placement. Are there any things that you think i- is the low-hanging fruit in that piece? Yeah. So I mean, just in general, most of our reproductive drugs are gonna be intramuscular injections, and so I, I prefer an, at least an inch and a half needle for all my intramuscular injections. Um, for FSH in particular, I like to use a 20 gauge needle, so a smaller, a smaller bore needle. And, and the reason behind that is that, you know, we've all given shots and seen that medication run back out at some point, whether you're using a, a 20 gauge, an 18 gauge, or a 16 gauge needle, whatever, like we've all seen that happen. But with FSH, we're dealing with such small, um, increments of a dosage that we wanna minimize the, you know, the, the, the blowback or the run out, if you will. And so I like to use a small gauge long needle to administer my FSH, and I, I wanna do it in a, you know, a, a muscular part of, of the animal. And so traditionally, I know this is not BQA, but like, you know, in the hip or, or lower on the back leg is where I prefer to give that. I've got guys that give it in the neck just like the, the BQA, you know, certification say, and, and they have great results. So I'm not gonna argue. If you want to give it in the neck, that's fine. Uh, one thing I will say, if you do give it in the hip, um, if you've got a, a fat donor, those cows are gonna lay down fat from the top down. And so a lot of times if you're giving it in the top of the hip, sometimes you're giving it intrafat, you're not giving it intramuscular. So if you've got a, a pretty fleshy donor, I like to come back down lower on the backside of the leg where there's less fat coverage there. Um, and so- Or get- Go ahead. Or get a six-inch needle. Yeah, or get a, or get a six-inch- Yeah. Um- But, but yeah, so that's, that's kind of my, my preference for FSH administration is a 20-gauge inch and a half needle. Um, and you could use that for your GnRH or your prostaglandin as well. A lot of guys just use a 18-gauge inch and a half needle for those, and, and I think that's fine, um, for that. That's generally what we do. Um, on the donor side of things, on our protocol, we give two shots of a, of prostaglandin. Um, my, my protocols are what are set up for traditional Lutalyse, so it's seven cc's and five cc's. But if you're using a synthetic Hycon or an Estromate, if you will, like three cc's and two cc's is, is equivalent for that. What about- Do- Go ahead. Do you alternate hips too or, or- I, I like- side of the neck? I like to try to just because I think, you know, you're gonna get some, you're gonna get some tissue damage, you're gonna get some soreness and some bruising there. So I think from a donor comfort standpoint, I think it's probably ideal. Um, a lot of that depends on your chute setup, right? Like some, some places here we have a, we have chutes that go down the side of a wall, and so it's not really easy to get on the opposite side or the opposite hip sometimes. And so some of it is just depending on your scenario. But yeah, if you can alternate sides or hips, that's, that's great. What about timing? You know, I know your schedule, you got a AM and a PM. Are you... I've always been You know, m- maybe not necessarily 12 hours apart, but like if I'm gonna do a shot at 8:00 AM and I'm gonna do a shot at 6:00 PM, I'm gonna do it at 8:00 AM every day and 6:00 PM every day. And I know some people say, "Well, that don't matter." Yeah. Um- Um, so I, I think, like you said, I'm not, I'm not a stickler that it has to be exactly 12 hours apart. I think it needs to be consistent though. So like, if your, if your general rule is I get to the, I get to the farm, or I get to the ranch at, at 6:00 AM or 7:00 AM or whatever, like, you know, and that's... I, I usually tell people make it one of the first things you do in the morning, one of the last things you do when you leave. And so, you know, if you're, if you're consistently 8:00 and 6:00 or 7:00 and, 7:00 and 6:00 or whatever that is, like that's probably close enough. Like, you know, I've had guys that have timed it down and like put those cows through the chute, gave their shots within, you know, two minutes either way, and I've not seen a difference in that versus the cows that- three or four hours on, you know? So- Joe, Joe almost had a stroke when I said two hours in between, not 12 hours apart. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I, I have the, I have the phone, I'll have the donors ready, and if it clicks over, then I start and I do the cows in the same order. Oh my God. And I don't know, man, so many... I appreciate you saying you need to know your cows and your program though, because for us, like just because of day length, where it's at, and, and then cow activity, I actually give my shots at, I give, uh, 11 hours between the day and 13 hours on the night. Yeah. And, um, I don't, that's just the protocol that we got when I was in college and I've just kind of stuck with it. Um, what about a three-day four, or, or a four-day FSH? Because I know there's some difference in that school of thought, and I've done both. Yeah. So, so I guess we're, we're kind of on the three and a half day FSH protocol for us. So, um- a lot of guys, a lot of guys do an, an eight-shot protocol, which would be a four-day. Um, we do a seven-shot protocol on most of our donors. Um, we do have- And we do have an occasional donor where we'll do an eight-shot deal, and, and basically what we're doing is, you know, we, we start everything. We have certain dosages that we start those cows on given the breed, the age, you know, any past history, whatever we have. Like, you know, if it's a, you know, if it's an Angus cow, a mature Angus cow, like we're probably gonna run her on, say, 13 to 14 mils of drug. If we're talking about a Hereford or a Simmental cow, we're gonna back that way down, you know, to like 10 to 12 mils, you know. Right? So, um, so a lot of that depends, but then we use that first flush as kind of a reference point. And so we, we adjust their dosages, um, depending on embryo production, um, you know, quality, and then, you know, viable versus non-viable embryos. So, like we tweak all of that. And so most of our cows are run on a seven-shot protocol. Occasionally we'll have a cow that we feel like we need to, we need to add an extra dose of FSH to kind of get to a level that we want, and so we'll adjust them accordingly with that. But, but most of ours we run on seven shots of FSH Well, and I've learned too, depending on the FSH batch. Yes. Because I screwed that up because you had it set for a certain batch and I used a different box of FSH and it screwed the whole thing up. Yeah. So, so in, in, in Vince's scenario, we got into, um, we got into a batch of FSH a few years ago that was... It was pretty, it was pretty hot, wasn't it, Vinny? Like it was- It was we- no, it was weak, and I used a hotter one. I, I had a hotter box. So, so we had a dose that cows were constantly underperforming for what we would normally dose those cows. And so the bad part about that is you have to go through several donors before you figure out, hey, this, this stuff- Right is not- Yeah that, not that great. And so when we figured it out, we started increasing our dosage levels, our baseline dosage levels, and cows started responding better. And so we knew that Vince had some of that drug left over, and so we, uh, we dosed a donor of his that way, and he switched it up and used a different batch of FSH on her, and we- overstimulated her at that point. So speak to that though, Levi, for the, for the new producer that goes... It's, it's sorta like, "Pour some for me, pour some for you," right? Like, oh, if, if Levi says 28221816, you know what? If I just give her 17- It'll be more it'll be a little bit better. Yeah. I mean, talk through what physiologically happens with the overstimulation. Yep. So, so when we, when we set those baseline dosages, like we're... Our goal is to have, you know, let's say 12 to, 12 to 15 or 12 to 16 embryos, and like we want 8 to 10 of them to be great, to be good quality, viable or even better. Like, that's kind of our, our benchmark. That's where we wanna go. Um- But what happens is when you start increasing that FSH dose, eventually we get to a point where we're overstimulating those ovaries. And what that means is that those follicles grow to a size that the ovary becomes so big and so large, um, that two things happen. When they, when those cows come in heat and they ovulate, there's so many, um, unfertilized or oocytes or unfertilized embryos that the semen can't, the semen, their semen quality is not good enough to fertilize and develop all those. Or the other scenario is those ovaries get so large that when they ovulate, they fall down into the body cavity and we never recover them. Right. So, um, you know, we want, we want those cows to stimulate, but more is not always better. So we, we have an ideal, an ideal number of follicles that we want to stimulate on that ovary so that we can, we can maximize the viable embryos and, you know, the number of embryos that we produce per flush. So to dumb that down, listen to your embryologist. Yeah. Don't, don't take it upon yourself to dose your cow. Yeah. So, so it, in, in the, the grand scheme of things, more is not always better- Right So what, here's a fun question, unless Joe's got something along this, what is the most embryos you've seen one, good embryos, not a over-stim- Mm-hmm uh, good embryos that you've collected? So the, the largest number of viable embryos that we have collected was out of a Red Angus cow, and this is probably been three or four years ago, maybe five years ago now, and we, we had 47 good embryos out of that cow, out of- Wow I think she had 58, I think she had 58 total, 47 good, um, out of that one, one lady. The, the largest sex semen flush that we ever had was 35 good embryos, was sex female semen. Holy crap. And we actually had three or four that we ended up throwing away because they, we, we could have transferred them fresh, but we didn't have any receps that day. But, but yeah, we froze 35 sex female embryos on a conventional flush. So when you see big flushes like that, do you see, "Yay, we made so many eggs," but conception rates may not be, you know, we're, we're Are you better off instead of making 40 to make 15 and have way better conception rate, or 20, you know? Yeah. So, so there's a, there's a couple things, right? Like, so from a, from an economic standpoint, like if you got 40 good embryos, like your cost per embryo is, is min- you know, it's very- But on the flip side of that, like as a producer, what am I gonna do with 40 embryos of the same mating, you know? So that's one outlet Dude, I had a guy tell me he, he had 52 embryos and he was setting up recips and he was gonna put every one of them in all at once. And I was like, "Wow, that's Okay." Yeah, yeah. But anyway, go ahead. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. But, but yeah, that, to kinda answer your question, there's, um, there's a deal out there called the big flush syndrome, and we don't really know why it happens or the physiology behind it, but it seems like those very large flushes like that, and it's not always true, but occasionally you'll see this, um, that those large flushes, the conception rate is not as, is not as good as what you would normally see on, say, a 10 to 15 embryo flush. Right. I've run into it before, not on a 40-something, 50-something flush, but- Mm-hmm I've run into it before years ago and, um, there was some issues with conception and I was like, "Well, what do you think the deal is?" And, "Well, it's..." what you're saying, big flush syndrome type deal. Yeah, and, and, and unfortunately the only way to know that is to put them in- Right right before the transition. You know, normally, visually the, the embryos look great, the quality looks, looks great. Um, but you know, when we go to put them in, it just, the pregnancies are not there for whatever reason. So funny story from my major fl- or what you, your big flush syndrome is I had a really, really big one one time, and the funny story is, is I have a weakness and it's just quality cattle. Mm-hmm. And so I'm touring a friend's herd and there's an old hoodoo bred Charolais cow with horns like bicycle horns- Mm-hmm and she's like 16 years old. Oh. And I said, "What are you doing with her?" He goes, "Well, nothing. Why?" And I said, "I wanna flush her." "Well, what are you gonna flush her to?" And I said, "I don't know- but I wanna flush that cow to something." So I bring that cow home and it broke my practitioner's record. He goes, "We just gotta..." You know, he, he said, "The deal is you pay for the whole thing and give me half the eggs." So I took him, his half was 29 eggs. Oh my gosh. So I have a starter Charolais herd sitting in my tank right now. But to your point, Vince has flushed a lot, I, I've flushed a lot in my past and not as much now, and Levi it's your job. Would you say that, boy, if you could land in that 8 to 12 range all day long, you'd take it and you're happy because those are your stickier cows, those are the ones that are economically priced? They just seem to have less problems. Is that fair? I, I would agree with that, yes. I mean, I think, I think those, those embryos that fall into that, that number range, that quality range, like seems like from a percentage standpoint, like our pregnancy rates are generally better. Um, your cost per embryo is, is, is reasonable. I'm not gonna say it's, you know, cheap, but it's, it's reasonable. Like, you can justify putting those in and running 60, 70% conception rate and then, you know, your cost per live calf on the ground is, is, you know, that's, that's manageable. You know, when you start talking about embryos that are costing you- You know, $300 to $500 an embryo to make, like, you know, you better have a market on the back end to justify that, right? Right. Absolutely. Um, you know, if you put in three and you get one, you know, and you got $500 an egg in them, you're at 1,500 bucks when that calf hits the ground. That's just your embryo cost, that's not everything else. So- Right you've got a long way to go before you get there. And so, um, I think it, it all depends on your market, what, you know, what your market you're trying to hit, um, and what your economic markers need to be as far as, hey, this is viable to my operation or it's not. But- So Vince's, uh, fun question about count was, was on my list too. I'm glad he addressed it and, and I was thinking this back there so it fit a little better back there, but I'm glad we covered that. Um, you have a lot of data and you have a lot of knowledge. For your customers, do you and your wife house all that data or do you recommend each producer keeps track of stimula- stem records, all that stuff? Like, how do you crunch all this stuff, Levi? Yeah. So, so we, um, prior- whenever, whenever we bought the practice, um, it was all paper records. And so I know Scott, or Vince kind of mentioned Scott, so Scott is kind of the cog in this whole deal that makes a lot of it work. So he does all the scheduling, he does a lot of the donor stem schedules and set ups, a lot of the client communications and all that, and so a lot of that filters through him. And so if, if, let's say Vince calls Scott- And he says, "Hey, uh, you know, I wanna run in, in December, mid-December around my normal time." Scott gets him his date, depends on if Vince has made him mad that week or not, whether- Exactly not, but, you know. Uh, anyway, so he, he gets his date set. He sends his, he sends his schedule out to him as far as his recip set up, and then Vince will tell him, say, "All right. This is the donor that I wanna flush." Okay. Well, if Scott says, "Have we done her before?" "Yes, we've done her before." So then he goes back, and we have individual client files with all their donor flush records, their transfer records, everything. And so Scott will pull that donor's information, and he'll say, "All right. We flushed her three times. We've ran her at this dosage each time. This is what she did." And then he will build her schedule, her dosage schedule based off of that. And so that's generally how that works for, for our system. Um, a couple years ago, we, we have started using a digital software called eDonor that tracks that as well. And so it's cloud-based, so, like, if we're on the road, which we, we travel a lot. And so, like, I can look those in- I can look that information up on the road and I can say, "All right. This is, this is what this donor did last time. This is the dosage we ran her at." You know, we need to up her drug or we need to drop her drug, however you wanna put it. Um, whatever she needs, we can, we can look at that up, we can look that up and say, "All right. This is, this is what we need to do from a donor standpoint." On the other side of it, it also tracks what bulls are being used by our clients. And so I can go back and I can pull, uh, collection records for individual sires and say, "All right. We have, we've done 15, 15 collections to this bull. He's had this percentage of embryo development, this percentage of degenerates, this percentage of non-fertiles." And I can say, "All right." You know, if I go back and the guy tells me he wants to use bull X, and I pull it up and he's running 78% non-fertiles on his embryo production, I can call that guy up and say, "You might wanna consider changing bulls or at least put a backup bull in there because we've not had good luck with this semen." So it, uh, it's been a good tool to add to our, our toolbox to be able to offer that to our clients. What would a big, the most common mishap that people have and they call you saying, "Oh crap, I did this," or, "I forgot to do this"? Mm-hmm. Um, on the donor side, it- it's, it's probably that they forgot to pull the cedar, honestly. So like- I've done that before. So we are, we are used to running those counts twice a day. We're giving them FSH, we're giving them Lutalyse, but we never pull that cedar, right? So like when that last day, the biggest thing is we gotta pull the cedar. So that's probably the biggest mishap is that you know? Um- So I was gonna add something for you because I know, I don't know how to ask you to have you say it So I'll just say it. If you think you're given GnRH and you give Lutalyse by accident, or if you think you're given Lutalyse and you give GnRH by accident, the absolute worst thing you could do is just tread John without calling Levi. Oh, yeah. 100%. Like- Yeah just call and say, "This is what happened. What do we do now?" And he'll tell you, "Scrap it," or he'll tell you, "It's not a big deal, Joe. You could do this and this, and we're okay." Yeah. And, and I've experienced that over the years where I've given the wrong product or I've overdosed something or underdosed and, and as long as I've let my practitioner know, it's been fine. Where it's not been fine is flush day, where I'm like sitting there nervous and he goes- "We got, we got nothing. What happened here?" I'm like, "Oh, uh, forgot that." Yeah. Oh, I forgot to breed her. Yeah. Yeah. You know what probably happened? I think aliens landed here and chased her around, or maybe I forgot to give that. Yeah. So. Yeah. That's 100, 100%. Like, if you, if you make a mistake or you forget something, call because it's, uh, you know, the, the old saying is there's no dumb questions, and like, there- I would rather, we would rather you call and ask us, you know, every day ask us a, a question that you have versus just assume and get it wrong because all this stuff is so detail-oriented and so time-sensitive that if you, if you mess it up by 12 hours, like, you could wreck the whole thing. And so, um, you know, I've had guys that, you know, they forgot to cedar their donor, or I forgot to start shots yesterday. Yep. I started shots two day- I shot- started shots a day early. You know, I mean, it's just like, you know, there, things happen. We get confused. Like, it, it's part of it. Um, if you feel like you're the only one that's ever done it, I promise you, you're probably not. Um, you know, we've, we have seen a lot of things. And so, uh, just call. That's the main thing- I- is if you have questions, call. I've had people call, friends call. They're like- What you just said, I forgot to cedar or I forgot- I was supposed to start shots last night and didn't realize it. Mm-hmm. What do I do? Well, call 'em. Yeah. That's the first thing you should do is call 'em. And hey, I'll be, I'll be the first one, I'll be the first one to admit it, I for- I personally have forgotten to pull a cedar- I have too many months ago. So I mean, like, I've done it and, you know, we, we pulled that cedar 12 hours later, we loaded the last year again, and she had the best flush she ever had in her career. So I mean, it's, it's one of those things, it happens. I had that, and luckily there was a guy north of town that was, uh, flushing, that y'all were leaving here, Herb was leaving here to go up there, and I ran her up there a little later in the day, and- Yeah did her up there and it worked out. Like you said, it was one of the best flushes the cow ever had. I wouldn't recommend doing it just 'cause- No, no it was the best flush. I wouldn't recommend doing it, but it, it happens. I would say, though, that I love running donor cows. Man, I absolutely love it. I love taking care of 'em. I love figuring it out. One of the best piece of advice I can offer our listeners, other than working with your practitioner, is be a- be very self-aware. Do you have the time and the attention to detail to devote to this, or don't you? Because if you don't, just drop 'em off at Levi's place. That'll be the cheapest- Right thing you ever did, I will guarantee you. And it looks expensive, but it's worth every penny, and you're paying that already, you just don't bill yourself for it. Yeah. I've seen a lot of people think that they need a donor program to make them legit- Air quote, that was air quoting, legit. And, you know, maybe you're not there yet. Maybe you just need to wait a little longer. Maybe you could just start out, I've had people ask and maybe they just, for their scenario, maybe you start out by buying some frozen eggs and trying to do that versus doing all this other stuff. Because, I mean, if you're not comfortable with protocols, just a seven day or a seven and seven, you're not gonna be comfortable flushing cows, in my op- my personal opinion. Yeah, I mean it, it, it is a, it's a lot of attention to detail. It's a lot of being able to follow a schedule. But on the flip side of that, like if you can give a shot and if- Yeah on the conventional side if you can, if you can artificially breed, like you can do this. Yeah. It's not, it's not one of those things that you have to have a master's degree in reproduction to be able to do. Correct. But, you know, if you, if you can do those things and, and you don't care to get your cows up several times, you know, in a short time span and, and work 'em and do those things, then, then yeah, you can. But, but on the other side of it too, Vince, is that, you know, being able to find, figure out, I've got that one cow in my herd that, you know, I need to propagate those genetics and be- Yeah on that cow. Um, you know, consistently her calves bring me more money, so like tho- tho- that's the, that's the cow I wanna make a donor out of. And not every cow needs to be a donor, right? Right. I mean, that, that is what it is. Um, but that looks different for every person. Every person- Correct is different. Um- Well, and we've- So you just- talked about, go ahead, Joe. No, no, no, I'm way off topic. Well, we talked about that several times, you know. Just because you didn't go somewhere and spend $100,000 on a cow doesn't mean that something that you raised that's out in your pasture, just like you said, she's always has the top calf every year. Maybe you need to make more of her. Mm-hmm. You know, and less of some of these others. Let them be- Yeah recips for you. Right. Um, I, I would applaud that more so than- Going and getting this cow you know absolutely nothing about and paying an arm and a leg for, remortgaging your house to bring her home to make her a donor- Yeah and she don't help. Well, I mean, you've already got that cow that's working in your environment. Correct. And you know she fits what you're trying to do. Correct. So it makes a l- a little more sense in that scenario. Right. Joe? No, I just had a, I had a brilliant customer service idea for Levi, 'cause he, he said that he offers customer service of keeping track of eggs and, and stuff for his customers. There's gotta be a way to have some tech kid build a, a calendar built in with alarms that you could just text somebody, and they accepted it, and it was on their phone when they need to give each shot, and how, what the dosage was and everything. I'll bet it wouldn't be that hard at all. Mm-hmm. Probably wouldn't. I know in the, you know, it would be similar to like a regular veterinary practice that sends you a reminder- Right for an appointment coming up, right? Yeah. So the, the technology is there, it would just be implementing it into the reproductive world, I guess. Yep. So- Do you... Go, Vince. Well, I was just gonna say- I was gonna ask him if he had anything else, so go. Yeah. Do you... To sum all this up, 'cause I feel like we're, we've gone over it all, what would you say to people listening that maybe wanna do this that haven't done it before? Give 'em just boom, boom, boom. Yeah, I mean, um, you know, for guys that have never done it and they, they think they want to, to get into it, um, honestly, like, probably the, the best resource would be other producers in your area. Like, so if they're- Right if you know a guy that has done embryo transfer for years and has done it successfully, call that guy, pick his brain, figure out, like, this is who, this is the guy that he uses. Um, you know, he's close to me, he's in my area, he's had success. And then, you know, reach out to that practitioner and say, "Hey, I'm, I'm interested in this. This is my goals. This is where I wanna be in, in five years or 10 years. You know, what, what does that look like from an, from an ET perspective?" And then, and then just, you know, have some faith in that guy to guide you and say, "This is the best route you need to go." Because if, if they are, if they have any salt at all, which, you know, these guys do, like, everybody wants, everybody wants you to be successful because if you're not successful, then we're not successful. Correct. Um, this is very much a result-driven business. And so these guys want to get you results. They wanna have good results. Um, and so, you know, just because your buddy down the road is doing something different with a different producer or a different practitioner, you know, you need, you need to kinda stick with whatever the guy you're working with is saying, right? And so, you know, if he's telling you to do things a certain way or to watch heats or whatever, that would be, that would be the advice that you need to follow and not do what somebody else is. But also, like, if you're on the fence about it, um, you know, if you can do the things that we've talked about, like if you can give shots, if you can follow a schedule, um, you know, if you're wanting to conventional flush donors, if you can artificially breed, like, you can do this. It's not, it's not rocket science. Uh, trust me, if it was rocket science, I wouldn't be able to do it. I'm not that smart. But, um, you know, th- this is something that, um, can definitely, uh, propel your genetics to a, to another level if you have certain cows or cow families that you wanna propagate. Um, this is, it's, it's the quickest way to do it, honestly. Um, you know, if you have those females that have, have stood out for you, this is the, the best way to make more of those. Um, you know, you just get so many more opportunities at calves in a given year versus just, you know, natural service or, or artificial insemination, however you wanna do it. But, um, but yeah, that, that would be the, that would be my advice, is, you know, anybody can do it. You know, if it's something you wanna do, find a, find a practitioner that you work well with and that you trust- um, and, and make it a partnership. Like it, it really is a partnership because your success is their success That's right And I, I'll leave it at that Joe, do you have any questions for us? Oh, man. Oh. Well, you guys have both, you guys have both done embryo transfer for a long time. I mean, how has it, how has the evolution of the industry changed your programs? Well, you're a lot nicer to me than Herb ever was. I can tell you that. I feel, I feel a little... I'm younger than Herb was when he started working for your brother. I mean, on my behalf, not really, hasn't changed. I mean, I guess IVF has changed things around a little bit, being able to do bred cows, but I mean, as far as conventional flushing, I mean, it's been the same since day one just about, hasn't it? Yeah, I mean, it, it's probably not changed much in 30, 40 years probably. I mean, other than in the very, very beginning they were surgically doing it. Correct, yes. Uh, according to Wade Womack, it hadn't changed. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think with synchronization protocols, like we're able to, to kind of work those cows when we want them and not necessarily have to do marker heats and, and work off- Right heats and stuff. But yes, the, the general concept has not changed much. I've only ever used the CIDR. I didn't use Synchromate B. Um, but I would say, I don't know if this is my nostalgia getting in the way or not, but I, I swear the FSH we used to get was from a place called Sue Biochemical, if I recall, and it was, uh, for Angus cows we got 3098, and for Shorthorns we got 3092- Mm-hmm I believe it was, or it was vice versa. And you didn't dose the cattle incredibly differently. They were dosed the same, but there were different levels for different breed types and, and some of those Angus cows would get... You would mix and match as you learned the donor cow, right? Yeah. I feel like in the past, maybe in the past five years it might have gotten a little better, but we went through a pretty good stint where it was hard finding product that I felt was super pure and consistent. To your point of, by, by the time you get a batch straight and knew how to dose it, it was almost like we spent another sever- a large amount of time figuring out the right dosages for those batches for consistent embryo production. Mm-hmm. Um, so that's been a big change for us. Um, I also, program philosophy-wise, it's very interesting because I have a ton of experience. I mean, when I first started, we were flushing like 20-some cows a month. Yeah. And when you go back and look at what you have left to show for all that money and all that time and all that energy, it's really a testament to where we are now, and saying we have very specific program goals, and we use ET to help us achieve those goals, and I'm so much happier than I've ever been Yeah. Um, we don't get surprises. We aren't trying to hit a jackpot. We stay in our wheelhouse with our program and our goals and our marketing, and we just go propagate those things. And if I had any advice for young producers, it would be like really just sit down with some intentionality and map out where you want to go and see where ET fits in. Because in this modern marketing of genetics, there's a good chance you're going to use some sort of, uh, mass propagation of either a sire line or a female line. I mean, it's, it doesn't matter if you're raising show heifers, Highland cattle, um, you know, Brahmans, uh, uh, Brahmans, it, it doesn't matter, right? Um, but I do think spending that intentionality of figuring out where you wanna go, that's how we have e- we have evolved here at Bruin is, um... And w- we'll steal flushes on young cows, um, as an insurance policy, like you said, and we haven't had to do it, but I always have the little, you know, break glass in emergency disclaimer, like we can always steer all them cattle if we find out by the time she has her third calf that we don't like what she's doing. Yeah. Um, we have that choice, but at least we will have, um, kind of, uh, mitigated the risk of, of freak accidents with those cattle because I don't think any of us would say that they have found all the ways to die or get injured or whatever. They're always inventing new ways to do that. Yeah. Yes, sir. Well, I reckon we've discussed everything we possibly could have, or maybe we missed some things. I don't know. I'm sure some of the listeners will let us know we didn't discuss something. Um- I feel like it went real good. I do too. Thank you. I liked how that went. I'm... Thank you very much. Well, I, I enjoyed it, guys. It was, uh, it was a pleasure to, to be on with you. And, uh, Joe, it was a pleasure to meet you. And Vinnie, I'm sure I'll see you this fall, I hope. So, uh- Uh, it depends on what kind of mood Scott's in, if I can get my date or not. That's true. That's true. Bring that gator puck. May- maybe I should have talked really sweet about Scott tonight, so. No, I, I appreciate you guys having me on. It was a, it was a pleasure and a fun discussion. So thank you very much. And, uh, like I say, if, if there's anything that you need from me in the future, just reach out. Hey, we need to say that, that actually... Do, do you guys have a social media page or website or anything? We do. It's, uh, my wife kind of handles all that, but it's Green River ET. Um, we're on, we're on Facebook and Instagram. Um, and we do have a website as well. So yeah, if you, uh, if you need to, wanna follow us on social media, just, just, uh, look us up there and, and if there's anything, if you're anybody in our area and we can help you in any way, just give us a shout. Perfect. Perfect. Awesome. Well, guys, uh, I guess it's time for Tumor to take it away, and we'll catch y'all next time