{"id":46091,"date":"2019-07-17T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T14:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=46091"},"modified":"2019-07-08T08:29:14","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T13:29:14","slug":"%ef%bb%bfthe-next-great-leap-for-mankind-how-bovine-embryo-transfer-affects-the-human-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=46091","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffThe next great leap for mankind: How bovine embryo transfer affects the human population"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Regan Kats<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prairie View senior<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every\nday at exactly 12:34 I crave a juicy hamburger. Luckily for me, I can buy one\nfrom any number of the millions of restaurants in the country. I can\u2019t imagine\na world where I wouldn\u2019t be able to buy one because we ran out of beef.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embryo\ntransfer (ET) is the process of harvesting fertilized, 7-day-old embryos from a\ndonor female, and then injecting a single embryo into a recipient female, also\nknown as recips, to carry out the pregnancy. The ET process can first be traced\nback to the 1890s, when Walter Heape performed the first successful procedure in\nrabbits. It wasn\u2019t until 1949 that the first successful bovine transfer was\naccomplished. While the technology surrounding ET is constantly developing, the\nbasis for what is used commercially today mostly came about in the 70s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lots of\npeople associate artificial insemination (AI) and embryo transfer as the same\nthing. However that is far from the case. Artificial insemination is the\npractice of using previously harvested semen from one bull in order to\ninseminate more cows than the bull could physically service. This provides more\nextensive use of a superior bull over a wider range of cows. Using ET with one\nbull\u2019s semen will result in all the offspring being full siblings, butr they\nwon\u2019t all be genetically identical. Because ET involves fertilization of the\neggs in the cow, one way or another the semen has to be deposited into the\nuterus. One of the benefits of ET is that the semen can be utilized at a\ncheaper cost than AI, as it\u2019s cheaper to buy three units to inseminate a donor\ncow than it is buying a unit per cow for your entire herd. In order to be able\nto harvest multiple eggs, the cow has to be super-ovulated through multiple\ninjections of follicle-stimulating hormone. Another version of ET is through in\nvitro fertilization. Similar to the process that women go through, eggs are\nharvested from the female and then fertilized in a sterile lab environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\npurebred seedstock producers utilize embryo transfer to provide leaps and\nbounds of genetic improvement in one breeding season. ET allows for a donor cow\nto be flushed several times during a year. Therefore a producer can become more\nefficient in the use of higher producing females. Another way to lower\noperating costs is to use cheaper commercial cows as recipient cows. Millions\nof seedstock catalogs are sent around the country every year, and lots of\nsimilarities can be found in the pedigrees. Many buyers will find a sire group\nof bulls they like or some fancy heifers that descend from certain cows. ET\nhelps producers generate and offer more of the genetics that consumers want to\nbuy. Not only can producers sell high demand genetics, but the cattle are often\nmore consistent and predictable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embryo\ntransfer isn\u2019t always the most cost effective choice. Commercial cattlemen\ndon\u2019t often need or want to personally flush their cows, but they can still\nutilize the benefits of ET. The easiest route is through the purchase of ET\nbulls. More often than not, the producers sell more than just one ET bull from\na mating. By buying these bulls, commercial cattlemen can generate a more\nconsistent calf crop without the added labor of the AI process. Another way to\nbenefit as a commercial producer is renting out cows as recip cows. Sometimes\npurebred producers don\u2019t have enough cows to use as recips, or maybe don\u2019t have\nenough grass to run them. This opens the door for commercial producers to earn\na little extra money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \nAccording to FarmBureau.org, farm and ranching families only comprise 2 percent\nof the U.S. population. So, how does ET affect the other 98 percent? With the\nexponential growth of the world\u2019s population, more and more food needs to be\nproduced to meet the growing demand. The only way to accomplish to this\nincreasingly difficult task is to produce more with less. In crops, farmers\nstrive for higher yields, and in beef production we are trying to produce more\npounds of beef per head at the cheapest cost of gain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To do\nthis, producers have to be aware of the type of cattle we produce and\nconstantly strive to improve not only our own herd but the industry as a whole.\nAs with the growing population, the genetic advancements need to be growing\nexponentially as well. First we had AI, and it helped us to start producing\nmore pounds of beef with fewer animals. Now the human population is gaining and\ngrowing faster than the beef industry has been able to keep up with. With ET\nand the huge genetic advancements it can provide, the beef industry now has\nanother weapon in its arsenal to combat the challenges it faces today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The use\nof ET benefits a wide range of people \u2013 everyone from the purebred breeder\ncarefully selecting the next mating to the young diner waitress serving\nhamburgers at lunch. Luckily for me, when I get hungry from working out on the\nranch I can come into town and sink my teeth into the only food that can\nsatisfy my hunger \u2013 beef.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regan Kats, a 2016 Logan High School graduate, is a senior majoring in animal science at Fort Hays State University. Regan is the son of Michael and Shannon Kats, Prairie View.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This essay on a topic in agriculture was researched and written by a student as part of a project in a senior animal science class at Fort Hays State University. The project director is Dr. Brittany Howell, associate professor of agriculture, bjhowell@fhsu.edu<\/a>, 785-628-4015.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Regan Kats Prairie View senior Every day at exactly 12:34 I crave a juicy hamburger. Luckily for me, I can buy one from any… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,3398,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-campus-news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Kats-Regan-040A8584.jpg?fit=750%2C1050&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46093,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46091\/revisions\/46093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}