posted on Tuesday, February 5, 2019 in AMVC Veterinarians in the News
Leveraging professional resources
Finding a good large-animal vet and nutritionist are non-negotiablewhen finding success in a cow-calf confinement operation, Wilkerson shares.
“I don’t have time to sit and read about cow health issues, so I rely on (the vet). You need a strong relationship with your vet to make a confinement cow-calf operation work.”
The farms’ successful embryo transfer (ET) program is confirmation of the success these relationships can provide and are echoed by the service professionals the Wilkersons work closely with.
“As an embryo transfer practitioner, we live and breathe by pregnancy rates, but we don’t know how that embryo or donor cow was handled before it made it to the farm. We have to convey best practices and try to take more client [donor embryos arriving at Wilkerson Farms] variability out each year,” says Travis Hargens, an AMVC veterinarian who completes the majority of Wilkerson Farms’ embryo transfer work. “To do that, we must have good open conversation and a relationship between all of us.”
During the ET process, Hargens stresses cow management.
“We dim the lights, sterilize and make sure there is no movement by the cow’s head,” says Hargens, who also credits conception success to working with the same skilled veterinary technician during all transfers and harvests.
Full credit and full article found here: Progressive Cattleman 12/21/18
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