Dr. Todd Bilby of Merck Talks About Targeted Reproductive Management (TRM)

Dr. Todd Bilby leads the U.S. dairy technical services team at Merck Animal Health. His areas of expertise includes dairy reproduction, cow comfort and transition management, all grounded in his university research and extension background. In this episode of DairyVoice, host Connie Kuber of Sealpro Silage Barrier Films talks with Dr. Bilby about the evolution of dairy reproduction over the years. 

Dr. Bilby discusses Targeted Reproductive Management (TRM), which is based on the idea that when a producer uses monitoring technology, they can take advantage of those cows that show a strong natural heat. He explains how dairy producers can utilize both the advantages of monitoring technology and the great results they can achieve with synchronization.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_04 1:25

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. Welcome to the Dairy Voice Podcast by Dairy Business News. I'm your host, Connie Cooper, with SEALPRO Silage Barrier Films by Connor Agerscience. Thanks for joining us today. Please like, subscribe, and share this podcast with your friends. So today's topic of conversation is reproduction and what the future looks like in terms of using management tools together to make reproduction more precise, efficient, and manageable, but also better for the cow. Artificial insemination, embryo transfer, OP-Sync, IVF, all these different tools that we have have been really big, major milestones in dairy reproduction. I remember when OPSNC came out and it was a big deal and something new to learn. We could talk about what's going to be next on the list of the major feats for dairy reproduction. Today we're going to talk about targeted reproductive management or TRM. You'll hear that acronym and how it brings together the high performance that we've come to expect with synchronization and combining that with data activity monitoring and how it changes the ROI of reproduction more than we thought. I have with me today Dr. Todd Bilby, who is the Dairy Technical Services Director at Merck Animal Health. Welcome, Todd, to the Dairy Boys podcast. Please introduce yourself, tell us how you got to this point in your career and a little more about what your experience has been.

SPEAKER_06 2:57

Yeah, I grew up in uh northwest Missouri actually on a beef cattle farm. So I didn't switch to dairy till I started my PhD, but grew up always around cows and horses and knew I was gonna work in ag in an early, early time in my life. Went to Oklahoma State, got my bachelor's, and it it was there that my bachelor's in animal science. There was a guy, Dr. Rod Geisert, was the reproductive physiology teacher, and I took his course, and that's really what started it and got me excited about reproduction. And I knew I was gonna do something in ag, just didn't know what it was, and I and I knew I enjoyed working with cows.

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SPEAKER_06 4:04

Then I went and fortunately got an assistantship to do my master's. It was more in embryology at University of Arkansas, and I actually was doing a lot of IVF and pigs, and then started doing some things with dairy heifers. Also started doing a lot of superovulation and flushing embryo work and in cows as well. And so got my master's there, and that's when I decided I wanted to work in dairy because it was like all the repro stuff. Of course, this was late 90s, right? That was a critical point in the dairy world because fertility was at an all-time low. And so, if you, you know, as a as a graduate student, I was reading all this cool research that was trying to go on to solve this problem of low fertility, and I didn't know sickum about dairy. I can tell you that. I mean, I understood cows from beef cattle, and I like reproduction. But so I was reading all this and I was like, man, I uh this is where I want to be. These are a lot of neat research. And so I was fortunate to get assistantship to go work with Dr. Bill Thatcher, who is a world-renowned reproductive physiologist at the University of Florida, headed down there, and in my first week of my PhD was the first time I'd ever been on a dairy farm. So to say I wasn't baptized by fire was an understatement. And I had an uphill learning curve when it came to just understanding dairy, but I fell in love with it and became very passionate about it, really enjoyed my time there and worked on more embryo work there, worked with BST, worked with synchronization, worked with heat stress and other things. And so then Monsanto hired me, went to work for Monsanto in the Central Valley of California, and was there only a couple of short years, and the poor BST product started sliding quickly. I saw the writing on the wall. And at the same time, the University of Arizona offered me a dairy extension assistant professor and dairy extension specialist position at University of Arizona. And so I went there, did extension and research work, and worked a lot with heat stress there as well and synchronization, and then a lot of resync projects I was doing at the time. Then Texas AM offered me an associate professor position, dairy extension specialist, and that got me back a little closer to family as well. And so took that position, was with Texas AM for about five years, and then Merck Animal Health. I was doing research with Merck and some of the other pharmaceutical companies. And and Merck said, Hey, why don't you come do your repro stuff for us? And so I knew I wasn't gonna be, like I said, I started an industry right with Monsanto, and I knew I wasn't gonna be an academic lifer, enjoyed my time in academia, still have a lot of good friends there, learned a lot. It really helped better me and get my name out there and for a position like this. And so don't regret my time at the universities, but I knew industry is where I wanted to be. And so came to work for Merck 13 years ago, started dairy tech services, and then moved up to where I'm now managing that team of eight dairy veterinarians or PhDs that are scattered across the U.S. where we support sales and marketing. And so I still get to do my repro and I get to work with both beef and dairy. I say I'm Moonlight as a reproductive physiologist still, but manage a lot of the dairy teams.

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SPEAKER_04 8:22

Let's talk about dairy reproduction and how things have changed over the years. How does the reproduction now look different than it did 30, 20, 10 years ago?

SPEAKER_06 8:35

I'm at that age where I'm now given the history lesson.

SPEAKER_05 8:37

I've yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:39

Yeah, I remember when I first in in in in graduate school, and like I said, first started going to the dairy farms and and fertility with at this all-time low, I think the average pregnancy rate across the US was around 15%. So it was terrible. And and a guy would and any producer was looking for anything to squeak out just one more point of preg rate, there was a huge return on investment to chase that because it was such a critical need, right? And especially in the south and southeast, southwest, where I've spent most of my time, you throw heat stress on top of it. Sure, um, it's even worse, right? And so there was even discussions at that time, not even breeding for several months out of the year because it just wasn't worth it. Then OvSync, you know, is just coming on the scene in the mid-90s. And I remember talking to producers and they were like, three shots? You're asking me that we're getting three shots, they won't show a heat. And then I breed them, and it was kind of like, but they were such a critical point. Hey, I'll do whatever it takes. Right, you know, and so getting them to give three shots and managing groups and run lists and all of that, you know, just the management aspect of that was a challenge. So then advance a few more years and then pre-synchronization. Now you go back around to the producer and you say, Okay, now we want you to add two or three more shots to the beginning of this and start the timing. And then they were like, Oh my gosh, here we go again, you know. And now giving shots is just it's not even a hard thing, right? It's it's actually become very simple and part of the day-to-day management, and they do it very well. And you know, we were talking so much back then, and and compliance is still an issue, but back then just getting compliance and give the right shots at the right times of the right cows, and advancement of synchronization really helped because at that time one of our biggest problems was just catching a cow in heat. That was the biggest that was that's what drove obsync. Couldn't catch cows in heat. And you think about it, we bred them to produce a lot of milk, so their heat expression went down because of that. And then at the same time, a lot of herds transitioned to concrete, right? We went from grazing or open lots to more confined operations, and so just being on concrete and and high milk production, all that.

SPEAKER_04 10:44

You also had more herds were growing in size, and you didn't have time to watch and people to watch all those heats.

SPEAKER_06 10:51

Right. Yep, absolutely. Yep. No, that's a good point. You know, herds were growing and we wanted just a systematic way to manage animals and manage in groups, and so yeah, and then and it was in the 2010, 2012 area that technology come on board, the way that we can help detect heats, right? Into the US, anyway. Another way that we could start using technology to help uh catch these cows in heat, because we knew that was still a problem. With that, and now the evolution, here we are today talking about how technology can be used with synchronization and how we can use the benefit of the two to really improve fertility on dairy farms today. Fertility has gotten so much better today, and it's it's amazing for me how the conversation's changed over time from how do I squeak out one more point of preg rate to my fertility's fine, I don't want to touch it. Like I don't even want to talk about it. Like it's it's it's gin and good, I got great conception rates, my preg rates, you know, they'll rattle off conception rate and preg rate. And it's more about what kind of semen should I use, which cows should get what semen, you know, it's it's those kind of conversations that have really changed over time as well, which is awesome to see. I mean, um it's exciting for me to watch that evolution and how well our preg rates have gotten. And I just wonder when we're touching the ceiling of high fertility. Because if you look at conception rates on really good farms that are touching almost 60% first service conception rate, are definitely in the well 50s. Well, if you look at our heifers or even beef cows, I mean, they're where you take lactation out of it, they're hitting a good first service conception rate is in the late 50s or in the 60s. So I think we're getting close to where we're really hitting the the top ceiling. And so now the conversations is how do we maintain high fertility, but do it with less input costs and less less cow touches, less shots, less, you know, ways that we can manage these large herds without having to lock them up as much or touch them out as much. And so I think that's where we're at, and that's where the evolution of this targeted reproductive management also has come to be.

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SPEAKER_06 14:02

Correct. No, they you know, they tried that when technology came to the scene. That was the rumor. You don't have to give any more shots. You just put in this technology. Now we'll catch all the cows in heat. And it didn't take them very long to realize guess what? Not every cow shows a heat.

SPEAKER_05 14:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:18

And so you end up missing a lot of cows. Cows float out there and get missed. And so the studies early on showed you have to use the combination of the two because not every cow is going to express a heat.

SPEAKER_04 14:30

We swung from one direction to another, and now we're getting more towards the middle. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_06 14:36

Correct. Correct. We realize, you know, synchronization and in this regard can be your your insurance tool, your backup plan. If if that cow didn't show a heat, you miss her or something, she's going to end up getting time inseminated.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

So well, and then the monitoring also provides other information that we can use along with the repro management.

SPEAKER_06 14:57

That's right. And I and I think that's why we're at the steps that we are today, is that, well, first off, you had to have technology on enough cows to even start talking about this, right? When I first came out. But also when if, you know, now guys have been using this. There's over, there's close to three million cows on technology now. Three million. So a third of our dairy cows are utilizing technology. And I'm not that's in total. Uh, you know, over two million of those is is is our technology. You're at a point where guys have been using technology for a long time. So they've got the basics down and they're asking the questions, what do I do next? I've got a lot of data coming at me, and I know I can do more with it. How how can I now become more efficient? How can I use this data? How can I get more bang from my buck, bang from the technology that I'm being? And I think that's what's also helping to drive these conversations of targeted reproductive management and also research. If you look, there's probably 40, 50 plus publications, research publications done by major universities looking at using targeted reproductive management. And so, you know, the research has really come along as well to give us a really sound footing or foundation on where to start, what the protocol should look like, et cetera.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Are those protocols and and what we can expect are going to evolve?

SPEAKER_06 16:25

And they're evolving quickly. You know, and like I said, there's if if you run a chart to look at the number of publications that have the sensor technology in them or targeted repro type discussions in them, it's it's just going straight up because uh there's just so many cows under technology. And you, and as a researcher, data, data is what you need, right? And so having those data points and then really trying to look at what else we can do with all of this besides just breed off heats or catch a cow that might be sick. Now we can start using that data to better even predict what cow might get pregnant or predict what cow needs a shot.

SPEAKER_04 17:02

Right, right. What kind of con have you had conversations with dairy producers as far as what they're thinking and and how they're trying to wrap their heads around this?

SPEAKER_06 17:12

The conversation we get in, they're asking the question, and and really this isn't going to be for everybody. Well, first off, you have to have technology, and I just explained that only a third of our cows have technology on them, right? So it's just that third we're talking about. But even that third, you know, they need to be very comfortable doing the basics with repro and they need to be already high fertility. What we're talking about, targeted repro, this is not to squeak out another one or two preg points. It's how do I maintain high fertility, but do it with less lockups, less shots, less management, et cetera. And so I, you know, it's going to take that right person and the person that's asking those type of questions, what can what more can I do? You know, and the more that progressive mindset. All this data that is is coming in and around us today as we're talking about AI and then not artificial insemination, yeah, you know, it's it's all around us. And so people have are much more aware of how important this data is and how we can use it to do more in our lives. And for sure, on a dairy farm, the evolution of AI from artificial insemination to artificial intelligence. That producer that's that's asking those right the right questions already has high fertility, says, I'm I'm ready to take that next step. That's where there's some of the conversations where the hesitation is, and rightfully slow, so is our fertility has gotten really good on the farms. And I and I mentioned this earlier. People are scared, like, hey, I don't want to mess with this. 30 plus percent preg rates. I've never had fertility this high. I'm more scared to do something that it's gonna go down than up or stay the same. And I completely get that. And so that's where the hesitation comes in and probably slow adoption and rightfully slow.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

So from what I what you're saying then, we you need to, as if you're looking into this using technology and the the synchronization together, you need to have that sync down first before you jump into any further. Is that correct? Correct.

SPEAKER_06 19:09

Yeah, you need to have synchronization, you know, being able to do that efficiently. You need to have high fertility, things need to be going good. And this isn't something where they call me and say, Todd, my preg rate's terrible. Should I do targeted reproductive management? I would say no. This is this is something for somebody that's already doing good and and they're good with using the data and the technology, they're good with giving shots and synchronization, and they're saying, okay, I I'm ready to take another step.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

Many producers rely on the results of protocols like double double obsync. What can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_06 19:47

Double off sync, wonderful tool. Pre-sync off-sync, double opsync. I mean, these these programs, they yield very high first service conception rates. They've really helped to advance our dairy farms reproduction and the preg rates and first service conception rates, and double offsync in particular. The first service conception rates, you know, are so good. These programs, when we get to talking about targeted reproductive management, it's not going to replace that. You will still have those programs on the farm. The thing is, you're going to have more than one program. So you mean you know only a portion of the cows might get double ovsync, and the other portion might just get a simple prostaglandin shot and bred off of heaths. These double obsync programs have yielded such high first service conception rates, which is important, but it's also not the only metric to look at, especially if you're going to do something like targeted reproductive management. But the pro the programs work well when followed correctly, and they've they've really helped get us to where we are today.

SPEAKER_04 20:47

TRM or targeted reproductive management is based on the idea that when using this kind of monitoring technology, we we take advantage of those cows show a strong natural heat. Is that right?

SPEAKER_06 21:00

Yeah. So targeted reproductive management is basically saying if these cows have shown a heat after calving prior to the start of the voluntary waiting period, maybe they don't need to go through all the double offsync shots as an example. And maybe they just need a simple prostaglandin injection and bread off a heat. And whereas the ones that didn't show heat, as an example, go into double off-sync. Now, there's there's multiple ways. I'm just using one example, a simple example. There's there's more than one protocol that could be have a discussion on and how they want to do if they're doing pre-sync, ov-sync on the farm, you could keep that for example for your heat cows. Okay, breed off of those prostaglandin shots, right? And then your no heat cows, you could do something different with them. So kind of depending on what you're currently doing on the farm or what you're willing to do, but it's just separating those heat cows from the no heat cows and doing something different with them. And so a portion of your cows would get less. Lock up times, less shots, and yet you would hopefully still achieve the same fertility.

SPEAKER_04 22:05

So I have a note here about initial research showing less desirable short-term metrics, but a boost in whole herd metrics. What do you know about that?

SPEAKER_06 22:16

Sure. So that this is where the hesitation that I spoke of, but producers are going to have because one of the conversations I think you have to have when talking about targeted reproductive management with a producer that let's say is doing double obsync and their first service conception rates are doing great, 50 plus or whatever. They're very focused on that. And rightfully so. They're also very focused on preg rates and rightfully so. It's a good metrics to evaluate. But when you switch to something like this, targeted reproductive management, you'll probably lose four or five points of first service conception rate. And you'll probably see your preg rate go down a little bit from when I say preg rate, just looking at like a dairy comp 305 and you run a pre rate. But here's why. It's not because you're getting worse fertility. It's the fact that half of your cows now are starting to get bred at, let's say, 50 days in milk at the end of the voluntary waiting period, and the other half are going through double off-sync and not getting bred till 75 days. So how do you set your voluntary waiting period in dairy comp? Because you have half your herd starting at 50 and half going at 75, as an example. Technically, you should start it at 50. I mean, because that's eligible to be bred, but but half of those cows, you know you're not breeding, right? So you've now falsely changed that pregrate to where it's going to look worse, but the speed at which you're getting cows pregnant should be much better, right? Because you're taking half your cows and you're starting to breed sooner. The other thing about first service conception rate, we know double ovsync because of the injections of GNRH and prostaglandin, you can really tightly synchronize those cows to ovulate at the precise time. They've hopefully experienced progesterone priming and they're really nice and set up, whereas targeted repro, a portion of your cows get bred off of heat, not as tightly set up. And so that's why you'll see a little slide in the first service conception rate. But one of the metrics we say we need you need we need to evaluate if switching to like a targeted reproductive management is going back to probably the old school metrics, if you will, of how many pregnant at 100 days and how many are pregnant at 150 days, how many are pregnant at 200 days. Looking at those metrics to say, okay, I'm getting a lot of cows pregnant over time, the speed at which I'm getting crowds pregnant and the number that are pregnant through that lactation is higher. And that's an important metric that you'll have to utilize to really evaluate targeted reproductive management. I'm not saying you throw away first service conception rate or preg rate, but you need to mentally realize you're going to see those slide a little bit, but that doesn't mean your reproduction is failing. It's it's just because you have a portion of your cows that are starting earlier than getting bred off the heats.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

So would that be a temporary situation? Or is it just a different, we just need to think of it differently?

SPEAKER_06 25:08

Yeah, I think yes, you need to think of it differently and just evaluate more metrics than just first service conception rate. Okay. That's where it's going to be important because otherwise you're going to switch to targeted repro and they see a few points slide on their first service or their prey rate looks wonky, then you know they're going to say this didn't work.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

So how does that translate into an economic advantage then?

SPEAKER_06 25:34

The economics are just the the speed at which we're getting cows pregnant. You know, how how quickly do we get them pregnant? But then also the number pregnant. Research studies by Dr. Shabel at the University of Florida is an example, did a really nice study using targeted repro, comparing it to going through double off-sync, just like we were talking. And half the cows, you know, would go one way and the other half into double offsink, or he had the control group just all went through double off-sync, like we typically do today. And he kept the technology on him throughout, all the way through the end of lactation. He followed all the cows all the way through the end of lactation. He had half the number of cows open in the targeted reproductive management group at the end of that lactation than the double off-sync group, meaning more got pregnant, he had less culs, his so his replacement cost was less. And when he put the economics to that, it averaged across first lactation and second plus lactation, it averaged a return on investment of about$85 a cow. A lot of that driven by the fact that he had less open cows at the end of the lactation. And if you look at the speed at which those animals were getting pregnant, those that had the technology on them got pregnant faster over time. And a lot of that was driven by the fact they were re-inseminating more cows quicker, so better, if you will. But the first service conception rates, if you look at that study, if I just looked at first service conception rates, you know, in the first lactation cows, they were a few points lower. And in the mature cows, it was actually a few points higher. A lot of our research studies in Repro, we stop after first or second preg check. So we'll say we do a treatment, whatever it is, this synchronization program versus this synchronization program. We'll prag check them once and then maybe a second time to see about embryo loss, and then we'll say this treatment's better than this treatment, based off of that preg check. Very few of them follow them over time, rightfully so. But in this particular case, because you have the technology on them throughout their lactation, and that's part of the management, then following them through the end of lactation to really see how many of those and then and then look how many got pregnant by 100 days, how many by 150 days, and then how many at the end of the lactation, and that research study and other studies, they've shown that targeted repro, you got more cows pregnant at the end of lactation. So they're able to start their next lactation, which is really what you want.

SPEAKER_04 28:02

So say I'm a producer and I've got a I've got an off-sync program that's going pretty well. How should I get how can I get started in this using these kind of these kind of protocols of the TRM?

SPEAKER_06 28:13

Getting started, one, just be honest with yourself as far as are you using the technology to the extent at which it was meant and doing the basics correct. Is your fertility good? And I'll I'll say greater than 28% preg rate if you're looking for a metric. And and you you feel comfortable, your management team can handle two protocols on a farm instead of one, which it's all just running a list, right? I mean, it's just whatever comes up on the list, that's what I go give shots. So it's not like you're gonna see anything different there. But there is a little layer, just like any anything we've done over time, it's there's a little more complexity added when we want to try to chase efficiency. I I think being honest with yourself, is that really a logical next day? Am I really ready to take that step? Or I don't want that headache, or I'm very happy with the way it is and and I don't want to do this. I don't, I'm not trying to force somebody. If you've got something that's working and you want to stick to it, by all means do so. But I think that's that would be where this would start.

SPEAKER_04 29:19

So then as far as using TRM, using the obsync, using the the monitoring system, uh would you say that the the this benefits the whole cow as far as as her stress levels and and how she just lives out her life?

SPEAKER_06 29:35

The nice thing about this is it does just that. It lets cows be cows. It allows you to, you know, a little less lockup times, less injections, and just let them do what they were born to do.

SPEAKER_04 29:49

Tom, do you have any other thoughts that you want to share with us about the system?

SPEAKER_06 29:54

We focused a lot of this conversation around more of the lactating cow, I would say, but there's some also great projects that have publications that have been done using this in heifers. Ah, okay. And and and we know how important it is to get a heifer pregnant at the beginning of that breeding window or the breeding time, right? When they get moved into a breeding pen, because we know the cost of a day's on feed isn't cheap, replacement costs aren't cheap. And so the quicker we can get her pregnant into that next lactation, the better. Having technology on the heifers, there's been some recent publications, again, one out of the University of Florida, Dr. Ricardo Chabelle, who showed we can really time this where we know that our shots, the shots we've been given for years, prostaglandin and GNRH, there are time in a cow's estrous cycle, and this is true for cows or heifers, where they work better than other times. For example, if I gave a prostaglandin to a cow that just showed a heat three days ago, you're not gonna regress that CL, right? That Cl has to be mature enough into that ester cycle closer to six, seven days to really have an effect. If I go in with Gene R H within the first two or three days, I'm gonna have a very low ovulation rate. You got to have a follicle big enough on that ovary to induce ovulation. So there's times in a cow's estrus cycle that these products work better. And now with technology, we know where they're at in the cycle. We never knew that before. And that's why, if you look at the basis of pre-sync as an example, pre-synchronization, whether it's double ovsync, that first ovsync of double ovsync, or the traditional pre-sync ovsink with two shots of prostagland and 14 days apart. The reason these pre-synchronization programs come about was to force cows to be in the right stage of their cycle, which was between days five and nine of their ester cycle when they started with the first GNRH of that breeding offsync. That's why pre-sync came about. Now with with our technology, we know where they're at in their cycle. We didn't before, so we had to force them with shots to be in the right stage of the cycle. Now that we have technology, we know where she's at in her ester cycle, assuming if she showed a heat. And so I think as you start looking at research and where we're headed, is you know, being able to use that information to time when we start synchronization and time when we give a prostaglandin injection or a GNRH so that we get the most bang for our buck from that product, you know, why we give that product, the better. And so, for example, in heifers, when Dr. Chabelle did a nice study that if he gave a prostaglandin injection between days like four and six of a heifer, he only got 36% conception rate and like, I don't know, 40% regress, I don't know not even that much, 20% regress the CL. I don't remember exactly. And then later in the cycle, they notice conception rates got much higher and CL death got much higher, like we've always known. And so now with technology, and we're talking about in heifers, you can move them into the breeding pin based off of not only maybe age and weight, but where they're at in their estro cycle. If they've just had a heat, maybe you can skip them from giving an injection and get them the next week as an example, so that you get a really high response to that prostaglandin injection right when you move them into the breeding pin. And when Ricardo looked at this, he bred when he gave that injection in the last half of the ester cycle of a heifer. If he gave a prostaglandin injection, he bred 99% of them in a week and got a 65%, I think, conception rate. We can time these injections now. I mean, right now, you you look how heifers are managed, they're moved, you know, usually weekly into a breeding pen, and they might all just get an injection of prostaglandin randomly. And we know that 20 and 25% of that's wasted because it's going to be early in that heifer's estracycle. Now we don't have to do that. We can move them in, we know where they're at in their estracycle, and we say, hey, no use to give a shot to this one. We'll we'll give her a shot next week if she doesn't show a heat, or hey, this one's ready, we can give her a shot. And so you can start doing that. And we we've done some studies and then even have some really nice on-farm trials, you could call them, or testimonials to where it worked as well. And so we're seeing some really good conceptions and really speeding up how quickly we can get that heifer to show a heat and get pregnant by doing a kind of targeted repro on the heifers as well. We're going to repeat some of that in the lactating cows to see also on those cows when you're doing targeted repro for the ones that have shown a heat. Can we target when we give prostaglandin? So that, you know, when we do give it, we're very efficient. We're only giving it to cows that will actually respond. And then in turn, will those heats be better and higher conception rates to that? That study's ongoing now. But we've done this in heifers, and I think there's a lot of benefit of looking at technologies and a TRM approach in heifers as well.

SPEAKER_04 35:06

Well, thank you, Todd. This has really been a very interesting conversation about all the these tools that we can use to do a better job with reproduction. Where can our listeners go to find more? I I have here MAHCATL.com. Is that right?

SPEAKER_06 35:21

Yes, that's right. You can go there to find more information. And I always encourage work with your veterinarian, work with your management team, work with whoever your repro experts are, whether it's the University Extension, the AI companies, whatever, but work with your management team and especially your veterinarian when doing anything like this.

SPEAKER_04 35:39

This has been a great conversation. Thanks for talking with me today. My guest has been Dr. Todd Bilby, who is the Dairy Technical Services Director at Merck Animal Health. I'm Connie Cooper with SealPro Silage Barrier Film by Connor AgriScience, and you've been listening to Dairy Voice by Dairy Business News. Again, please subscribe, like, and share the podcast. And as always, I'll remind you to stay safe out there and really put safety as a priority on your farm, no matter how small or large you are. So thanks for listening, everyone. We'll talk again very soon.