Tim Abbott talks with Select Sires team members on the process of sending a bull for AI

In this episode of DairyVoice, Tim Abbott of Showbox Sires, continues his ongoing series The Evolution of the Great Cow in a conversation with Bruce Smith, Dr. Liz Lahmers and Hayden Ackley of Select Sires. They discuss why the health status of bulls in AI is so important and the critical health tests that block bulls from coming into stud. They also talk about how bull collection has changed over the past 5 years and common problems they see on bulls that come in.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_04 1:53

Welcome to the latest edition of the Showbox Sires series through Dairy Business and the Dairy Voice on the evolution of the great cow. Each series we talk about different things genetics, marketing, cattle management, things to try to put all the tools in the toolbox that you need to make money having purebred cattle. Today we've got an interesting podcast, and the topic is taking care of bulls that need to go to AI or that potentially could go to AI. And I think it's a lost part of our business because so few breeders are dealing with this today. Mike and I at Showbox Sires are trying to work with more breeders, more individual herds to try to develop bulls. And with our small program, we found an extremely high rate of bulls that are failing health tests. And we thought maybe a podcast with some experts to try to help you, as the breeder, understand if you do have a bull, whether it's for show box or it's for Select Sires or another company, you know a little bit the protocol that can help you increase your odds of making a bull that qualifies to go into AI. So we came up with uh the concept. Uh Mike and I talked about this. Mike's not on this call today because we got three acclaimed guests from Select Sires to talk about the importance of this. First is Dr. Liz Lombers, who is chief veterinarian for Select Sires. She's spent a career working in this industry and certainly knows a lot about the ins and outs with global health testing and certainly bull care. So welcome, Liz. We're glad to have you on this call.

SPEAKER_08 3:36

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 3:37

Hi, I'm Tim Hammerich. Looking for your next podcast? Check out the Fresh Cow Files from Zoetis, where we'll discuss hot industry topics including antibiotic stewardship, employee training, transition cow periods, and more.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

If you show that you're invested in this farm and that you care about those things like consistency and reaching production goals and reaching reproduction goals, and then invest in your employees, you will have a more productive, a more efficient, more profitable farm.

SPEAKER_05 4:09

So if you're ready for some eye-opening insights, I sincerely hope you'll join us on the Fresh Cow Files, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

Secondly, we we have Bruce Smith, who is the manager of Global Sire Products for Select Sires. Bruce basically oversees all the production of bulls and the movement of bulls and movement of semen to keep the product going around the world. So no one more familiar with the importance of clean bulls and proper health testing than Bruce. So welcome, Bruce. We've had you on before. You've been one of our stars. Are you ready to go again?

SPEAKER_06 4:47

I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

And probably the most important guy, and and I've wanted to get one of these guys on the phone with us for some time. I think for our listeners, the guys that work at AI centers and take care of the bulls are some of the most important people in our business. And Mike and I have huge respect for them. They take care of our bulls like we take care of our show cows. Whether it's Jamie Black uh taking care of the cows at Oakfield, or it's Nathan taking care of the great cows for Vieiras, or it's Mike looking after our show box cows. These guys that take care of our bulls put the same passion and effort into it, and they're just as proud of them. Unfortunately, we don't get to see them much as the public, but it's my pleasure to have uh one of the real great bull guys in the business from Select Sires. We're pleased to have Hayden Ackley, who is the Calgren Center Barn Supervisor with us today. So, Hayden, we're excited to have the visitors listen a little, listen to you tell a little bit about taking care of bulls. Welcome.

SPEAKER_07 5:51

Thanks, Dan.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

So we're we're gonna dive right into this with these three guests and are excited to dig into some of the reasons that we need healthy bulls and globally qualified bulls. Bruce, I'm gonna start with you. In your world, why is the health status of a bull population so important to you?

SPEAKER_06 6:14

Because that health status determines where we can export that semen. In our world, yes, we are a US US-based company and a cooperative company at that. So our owners are U.S. dairy and beef producers. But today in the Select Sir system, and just reading an article recently in one of the other publications, I forget, I was interested that how close we at SelectSire mirror the NAB numbers, but currently of our wholesene sales, 63% of that leaves the United States. So therefore, meeting the health requirements in the other countries that we're going to is of huge importance to us.

SPEAKER_04 6:53

Well, and I think I'm going to reiterate what you said, Bruce. You know, 63% of your product going out the door, and it's not just select sires, it's NAAB numbers. And and we'll get into this with Liz, but Bruce, you're not making the rules for this, right? You're following the rules.

SPEAKER_06 7:10

Yeah, we just have to follow the rules that those countries provide for us to meet.

SPEAKER_04 7:14

And I think it's important that we all understand that because we all love to throw rocks at you guys at the AI centers and say, you know, why is Bruce or Dr. Lombers saying we can't bring our bull in? Truly, it's it's not that easy, right? It's it's not you guys choosing that. So, Dr. Lomers, as as we talk about this, tell us a little bit about regulations around the world and and why it's so difficult and why is it so important?

SPEAKER_08 7:42

So each country works with our USDA to negotiate a health certificate based on their regulations and our disease status as a country. And every country is responsible for coming up with their own regulations. We try to put forth guidelines of things that we think are important. We try to educate our USDA liaisons so that they can go and negotiate on our behalf. Then when it comes down to it, it it is a true negotiation, and each country has their subset of diseases or health statuses that they deem important. And we to export that semen have to comply to those regulations so that we can get semen out the door. So our overall goal is to have a population of bulls that we can maximize our semen exports to, and that affects how we house and house our bulls in this diet. All of our bulls are housed by health status in the population.

SPEAKER_04 8:40

And and I think you said something really important, Liz, in that it is it is a negotiated process with the USDA and these international countries. But the bottom line is what New Zealand needs or what Iran needs are totally different, and they are developed to meet their health status qualifies, right?

SPEAKER_08 9:00

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 9:01

And if you go to these countries, you understand some of that. You know, I just got back from New Zealand and you look at the sheep and the deer population in New Zealand, and you know, the size of that island and the number of livestock per acre, you understand why that the governments have to have that.

SPEAKER_08 9:17

Yeah, that is true. And you know, they recently incorporated a mycoplasma requirement into their export health certificate because of all the mycoplasma issues they've been dealing with down there. And so that is something that's of prime importance to them. And so to comply with their import market, we have we have to satisfy their needs or their wants.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

So, Hayden, to you, real quickly, healthy bulls and bulls that come in ready to go to work for you. How important is that in your day-to-day work?

SPEAKER_07 9:46

Bulls that come in are healthy. We can get a lot more semen on them, and we also can do longevity with them. They'll have a longer career here at Select Sires. Bulls that come in and be a little sluggish at the start. Normally we have to give them a lot of TLC. And it takes a little bit longer time to get them going at their max capacity. From the start.

SPEAKER_04 10:28

It takes them longer to get into production. Same thing with your bulls, right? If they come in unthrifty, unhealthy with problems, you got to deal with that, right?

SPEAKER_07 10:35

Yes. Yes, we have to deal with that. It takes a little while to get them going again.

SPEAKER_04 10:41

So, Dr. Lawmers, tell us a little bit about what are things you look at of importance for growth and development of a bull when you're when you're studying a bull, whether he can come into select sire's, and what are the things our our listeners need to be thinking about that is important to you and Aiden when they come in?

SPEAKER_08 11:00

So we need those bulls to get off to a great start. They need to first and foremost have their good dose of colostrum so that they can be healthy because we're limited on the vaccines that we can use on these bulls. And so they, as opposed to what the process might be with the heifer calves on a farm, they have a pretty dialed-down health protocol that they'll have to follow. And so excellent husbandry practices, excellent care to promote growth in that calf, to get them to puberty sooner, to get good grotto circumference growth, to get will allow us to get in collection sooner and get product out on the market. When they arrive here, they're all going to get a physical exam, make sure they're sound, make sure they don't have any bad heritable traits that they would potentially pass on. Those would be called immediately. We're going to do lung ultrasounds to score the lung, to score the lungs on those calves, make sure that they have been healthy to this point, haven't suffered from respiratory disease. If they have, then we'll treat accordingly. Basically, all of the things that you want to do for your heifers, we want to do that in the bull minus the vaccines. The vaccines, especially those that contain IBR, are a problem. Would affect how you have to house those bulls in relationship to the heifers on your farm.

SPEAKER_04 12:17

I think that's really important because Liz, as as kids growing up, if we kept a bull in our farm, right? You threw him in the corner and you threw him the scrap feeds. And yeah, when he got to puberty, then he'd start breeding cows. But there was no rush. And you you you fed him the scraps and you put them in the dark, dusty corner of the barn, right? You can't do that with an AI bull anymore.

SPEAKER_08 12:41

No, no, we want them to grow as well and as quickly as possible to get them to a production age as quickly as possible.

SPEAKER_04 12:48

And and I compare it, Liz, to many of us raised show heifers. You know, we we individually care for show heifers to get them the most most growth and the right body condition and the right development. A bull is no different, right?

SPEAKER_08 13:03

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 13:03

Yeah, I mean, obviously the protocol is different.

SPEAKER_08 13:06

We do everything that we can to promote growth and help from that calf because on the tail end of that, we're only going to benefit from the semen production that he can potentially make.

SPEAKER_04 13:15

And I I want to go to you, Bruce. You tell some interesting statistics on the development sense, genomics, what your population of bull produces. And I don't need the exact numbers, Bruce, but give our listeners a little bit of a glimpse at why are these these young bulls so critical. The demand is huge, isn't it?

SPEAKER_06 13:36

Yeah, the demand is huge. Genomics has pushed us to wanting the best, the earliest. And so our goal is to get bullshit in the stalls and producing at an earlier and earlier age. As an example, in 08, at the onset of genomics, our median age of bull in collection here at Slice Cyrus was 56 months of age. Today, that median age is 19 months of age. So we have changed that drastically since the onset of genomics. What that means in our world, though, also then is significantly less production per stall. So we need good producing bulls to come in and ready to work. But the average bull, by that difference of 36, 37 months of age, that equates to over 2,500 units of semen per month less than we're getting today.

SPEAKER_04 14:28

That's a huge number. And again, Hayden, you've seen the bulls, the age at which you are collecting bulls really changed the past decade.

SPEAKER_07 14:37

Oh, yes. When I started, they they were all proven sires, mostly in Calgary. And then now we have some 18, 19 month-old bulls in our barn.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

And truly, the difference is the size of the factory, right? Like a 19-month-old bull is going to produce a lot less semen than a 56-month-old bull. Bruce, you you you told us that statistic, but but functionally, right, Liz, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_08 15:04

Yeah, functionally, and they just they don't have the factory to make the quantity yet. They don't get there, but when when everybody is wanting the semen, they're still they're still juvenile yet.

SPEAKER_06 15:16

This is my uh not professional opinion, like Dr. Liz, but you've referenced how you raise show efforts or whatever. And at some level, the semen production curve does not is not all that much different than the cow milk production curve, where she starts out, lowers two-year-old, increases to a point in time, and then starts decreasing later. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:36

It's kind of like our ability to work, right, Bruce? We when we were 20, we worked hard. When we were 30, we were really rolling, and then now that we're old, we we'd like to do a little less, right?

SPEAKER_06 15:47

That's kind of the deal.

SPEAKER_04 15:48

Liz and Aiden know nothing about that yet. Bruce, Bruce and I are the experts. So, so Liz, I want to get to a really important piece of this podcast. What is the difference for me as a breeder between raising a heifer from the minute she's born until she's a yearling or eight months old? The difference between a heifer and a bull.

SPEAKER_08 16:10

So the major difference is the administration of vaccines. So all of your combination vaccinate vaccinate vaccine products, your nine-ways, your four-way respiratories, all contain IBR. Your intranasals, your viral intranasals all contain IBR. IVR will exclude those bulls. So when we're vaccinating calves, our goal is to create antibodies to fight that infection if they're presented with it. So a lot of these countries have an antibody test that looks for IVR antibodies. That doesn't mean that calf was ever exposed. It means the test cannot differentiate between natural exposure and vaccination exposure. And so all we have to have, all we have, all we can do is provide a negative test to those countries. It's very, very important for those bulls to maintain a seronegative status. There's no commercially available respiratory, viral respiratory vaccine product that does not contain IVR, to my knowledge. It used to be a handful. The only people that were using those were bull studs, and so the companies have done away with those. But that IVR, those IVR antibodies will exclude them from the European Union market, and there's a few other markets that they will exclude them from. And so that one is of utmost importance. One of the problems that we regularly see is somebody's using a viral intranasal vaccine on their farm. Well, those intranasal vaccines are good. And so if you have a bull housed within 20 feet of a heifer that is receiving an intranasal vaccine, that heifer will share her vaccine with that bull calf. And now we have a positive bull. The way that the IVR virus works, it can lay latent for a while and then rear its ugly head again. And so when we test a calf and he's initially negative, if he's had a history of vaccine or a history of exposure, he always has that risk of developing an IVR tire. So that is one of the things that we fight on farm because it's typically fine when calves are individually housed in a hutch or individually housed in a wet calf barn or something like that. But when they move to group housing, farmers kind of producers kind of run out of places to be able to segregate them out. And that's when we get exposure and sharing of tires. It doesn't mean that the heifers were sick, it doesn't mean that the bulls were sick. It just means that we presented them with that viral antigen and then they made antibodies in response. And that is the only testing option we have to be able to be able to export them.

SPEAKER_04 18:48

I think, Liz, that's as good a practical explanation as I've heard because people say all the time there's got to be a difference between actual IBR and antibodies from the IBR vaccine. What you're telling me is there is a difference, certainly, but we can't tell that with the test. So the if I'm Australia buying this semen and I and you can't provide me with a negative IBR test, uh, I don't know if the bull actually has IBR or he's just got antibodies. Is that is that kind of the hillbilly version?

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

And the other thing you said that's critical that I don't think people, and I know it's tough to separate these bulls from the heifer. So you can leave your bull and not vaccinate him and vaccinate all the calves in the next pen over, and they're all licking each other and all sneezing on each other. What happens then?

SPEAKER_08 19:39

The heifers will share their vaccine with the bulls, and then you'll have positive bulls.

SPEAKER_04 19:44

It is not easy, right? And we don't pretend it's easy and hopefully you're rewarded financially that makes the juice worth a squeeze if you want to bull an AI. Liz, let's let's take one more diversion. And and there's several different health tests they have to pass, but we talk about leucosis and IBR the most because they're the most prevalent. Talk about leucosis prevention.

SPEAKER_08 20:07

Leucosis prevention in the calf. If you have the option to put if you're putting in embryos or something like that, you would want to BLV test the uterine dam prior to putting the embryo in because glucosis is is spread by blood contact. And so there is potential to spread to the calf with, you know, we've all seen bloody colostrum, but there's blood in the colostrum, there's potential to spread that way. There's potential to spread VLB by reusing needles. If you have a VLB positive animal using the same needle on that calf, so you should always use single single-use needles. Those are probably your two biggest roots of spread. And so I think that knowing the status of the the reset before you're implanting the embryo is of utmost importance.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

And and that is actually a requirement we have. We need to know the the uterine dam is negative for leucosis for some of the health protocols, but also just to keep the bull clean, right, Liz, we need to know that.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

If I test the recipient dam and she after she's in the bull's in utero and she is positive, what should I do at that point?

SPEAKER_08 21:17

I would use uh some maybe some colostrum from a negative donor, or you could use commercially available colostrum product to just give yourself an extra assurance and try to get that calf to be negative.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

And probably I don't want to put words in your mouth, but removing that calf from mama, the quicker the better, right? To that.

SPEAKER_08 21:37

For a multitude of reasons, yes.

SPEAKER_04 21:39

I think those are all things that inherently I think we know, but I think sometimes I think what Liz's points have been have been very helpful to us to kind of understand the practical approach. I think everybody has heard these things, Liz, before, but I think a lot of them wonder who is the Wizard of Oz making this crap up, right? And it's it's certainly not you. And it we know it's not Bruce, and Hayden would rather know all bulls were created equal, right? Amen. Hayden, I'm gonna switch back to you just for a bit. Tell us a little about the population of bulls that you work with at Slack Sires at the Calgren Center.

SPEAKER_07 22:19

I look or around 58 head of bulls, mainly Holsteins, but depending on collection requests and bull bull movements, I usually have a few jerseys in the barn also. I also have six-person crew on my staff. They start in the morning with collections. Uh well, collections is first thing. Uh we normally start with our STs. MST is sex semen. That is top priority here at Select Sires. And then we go into cleaning and take care of our bulls. If we see anything that has a health concern or lame or is not eating or anything like that, we get a hold of the vets right away. And then we also, my barn is a tour center, kind of. You can't come in it, but you can stay on the outside. We do a lot of collection viewings from outside our window. We also do a lot of parades for countries or sales reps or orientations. So we do a lot of clipping. Any bulls that normally look good or people need to see, we usually show them off there at Calvern.

SPEAKER_04 23:30

So really, if you're a bull, you want to be at Hayden's barn. Is that right, Bruce? Yes. And Hayden, how are your bulls housed?

SPEAKER_07 23:37

Our bulls are housed in a state-of-the-art facility that is climate controlled. It is heated and cooled. We also have an outside collection arena that we can use if needed. We also use the inside most of the time, but if we do have a slow bull, we can take them outside. They are inside all the time in a very large stall so they can move around. They get TMR twice a day. Occasionally we'll give them some pre-choice hay.

SPEAKER_04 24:11

Aiden, a lot of people don't realize the level of care these bulls get. So your your typical day starts at what time and ends at what time in your barn at Kelgren?

SPEAKER_07 24:21

Our typical day starts at 6 a.m. I mean, ends at 2, 2 p.m. And my barn is all manual labor. It basically has a gutter, an old old tice tall barn type gutter, like all the old dairies used to have. We scrape all the manure into the gutter system. We bed them by by hand. We wash them if they're dirty. We can also, if they get sick, we can take care of them. Anything that we can do, they're covered.

SPEAKER_04 24:50

Are the bulls, when you're cleaning their pens and working with them, are they in headlocks or do you tie them up? How do you how do you control the bull, Hayden?

SPEAKER_07 24:58

Our our barn does not have headlocks, it only has one. That is for a special bull named Z Z Top. He can get out of any halder, any lasso that you have. Most of our other 57 head of bulls are caught with a halder. You would think this is crazy, but you put a little TMR inside the halder. They'll come right in most of the time, put their head in, you put the halder over top of their head, and you tie them up. We also put a nose chain on for secondary safety, but we do run into the casual of doing a little western style. We have to get the lasso out, lasso in the bulls. We used to have a bull named Rosalind. He was a little bit of a more aggressive bull. He liked to snap lassos.

SPEAKER_04 25:45

You know, Hayden, and and as I get older and retire, I want to write a book with some of you guys in the barns about the stories of caring for bulls your whole career, because I think it'd be fascinating. How many employees take care of your bulls at Calgren Center on a daily basis? You said you've got 58 bulls. What's your staff look like?

SPEAKER_07 26:05

I have six people on my career.

SPEAKER_04 26:08

Including yourself?

SPEAKER_07 26:10

Including me at seven.

SPEAKER_04 26:12

Guys, if if I had a herd of 56 cows to have seven people caring for them, that's pretty high end, isn't it? And you also have the full capacity of your vet staff anytime you need anything.

SPEAKER_07 26:22

Yes. They're always on call on weekends, holidays, one of them will always answer.

SPEAKER_04 26:30

Bruce and Liz, you know, I think Hayden and his crew are the unsung heroes of our business. People don't realize the importance of what they do every day to putting out good product product, taking care of our bulls. Bruce, you've been in this business forever. Give me your views on how important the barn crew and vet staff is to our to our industry.

SPEAKER_06 26:51

Well, it's huge of huge importance. And one thing I noticed that Hayden left out that I wide in and I'm very directly involved in, but he mentioned the time of day that they work. But then they do have a small crew that comes in daily to collect bulls later in the day, particularly because we're running our sexing latch 24 hours a day. So three different shifts. So to keep that semen good and viable and fresh, we can't collect all the bulls at the same time. So throughout the day, we need to have a later collection for that night term shift when we're making sex semen. So somebody has to come in. Now they obviously don't all aren't all there and they share that among different barns. I think Hayden knows more of the detail even than I do on that, but they share staff among other barns to get that job done on a daily basis, but at a later time than they otherwise normally would be there.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

Our listeners can say, Great, that's good for select sires and show box sires because that's how you make your living. But Bruce, when customer A in Marietta, Ohio wants bull B and we can't get the semen, as a customer and as a breeder, you're unhappy and you miss the opportunity. So what Liz and Hayden and Bruce do is critical. Don't you see it that way? Bruce, you're in sales for 25 years. That's how it goes, right?

SPEAKER_06 28:13

Yeah, absolutely. And it's of utmost importance from a sales staff standpoint to know that you're making a good quality product. And of course, the customer wants the good quality product. So we put all these things in place to make sure that we're making the highest quality product that we can from that given bull. And then we have the availability issues as well. And when we talk about age, that's a very much a change from what it was early in my career when, as Hayden mentioned, when we were collecting all five-year-old and older bulls, whereas today we're collecting 19-month-old bulls on average. So the availability equation is very different. And so we need to get as much as we can when we can out of them as early as we can to attempt to meet some level of availability.

SPEAKER_04 29:00

I think that's I think that's all great information. So, Liz, I'm going to I'll probably get in trouble with you for this question, but I that's that's how we like to, you know, if you're going to be the next Oprah Winfrey, you have to hit some tough questions, okay?

SPEAKER_08 29:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 29:15

One thing that I get really frustrated with in this business is there are people and sales reps and competitive sales reps that if a bull is not having good fertility, they say, Well, SelectSires is downing the number of sperm cells in there because they're trying to make the go bull go farther because he's in demand and all that junk. Can you address that a little bit? Uh, how isn't a sperm cell a sperm cell is a sperm cell?

SPEAKER_08 29:41

Uh yeah, so sperm cell is a sperm cell is a sperm cell, and so much going into that bull making fertile semen. And we all know if we had the answers to why you have bull A and bull B, and bull A is 100% fertile all the time, and bull B is hit and miss, and hit and miss. If we could solve that problem, I wouldn't need to work here anymore. I could just excel that and be done. But you know, I think that's it's a supreme frustration. All of us around here, you have a bull that when you look at him, he's healthy. When he comes into the arena, he works. But when he puts in the tube, you're like, What why does this not look good? Why do we have to trash this bull? Why is he limited? Why is he hit and miss? And I'm telling you what, if he could solve that problem, it'd make our lives a lot easier. Those things, those little micro things that all the researchers are working on to discover why one bur bull who looks normal under the microscope is more fertile than the other bull that looks identical under the microscope. You know, those all those little chemical reactions that we don't fully understand.

SPEAKER_04 30:41

And that's nature. And truly, Liz, we're playing with Mother Nature a little bit here, right? Like we we we are manipulating what Mother Nature intended to be done to a degree. And and I would also say, Liz, that I think all the mish all the rumors that when when a bull's in your lab, your lab people don't know which bull's which, and they don't they don't care. They they put X number of cells in a straw, and that's what happens, right?

SPEAKER_08 31:04

Correct. Yes, correct.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

But Bruce, you've heard it out in the field that you know this bull is they're they're diluting him or they're you know, they're whatever, whatever, whatever. And we know it's all conjecture, but have you seen that in your career?

SPEAKER_06 31:19

Oh, absolutely. And that there's no rhyme or reason to it. And you know, the same bull can react very differently, even on two different herbs. And you've I've seen that in my career. And so just back to what Doc Lewis says, we don't know what causes all those differences. If we could make the most fertile semen around all the time, we'd love to do that.

SPEAKER_04 31:41

Great discussion. I'm gonna switch as we wrap up things here. Dr. Lomers, can you give us just kind of a recap of what are the big pitfalls you see with breeders to get a bull to you for show box sires or or for your select siers program? What are the couple takeaway points from from you that breeders really need to think about if they have a bull calf born tomorrow that they want to send a stud?

SPEAKER_08 32:08

So I guess number one, I would say if you have a question or you think that this bull is has potential to go today, email me. Email me somebody here, they'll get you in touch with me. I'll send you a written protocol, what to do, what not to do, so you don't have to try and remember what did you say? What is what am I not supposed to use? If you call and ask your your herd veterinarian, they're they're probably gonna turn and call me because this is not this is a weird instance, it's not something that everyone deals with all of the time. So that would be the my easiest recommendation. Reach out for help and ask before you have this calf on the block on the ground or shortly there ever thereafter. And before you vaccinate with anything, ask. The IVR antibodies are what's gonna kick that bull out most frequently. Second would be BLB, just judicious use of needles when you're giving injections, uh, good colostrum management, things like that.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

Great advice. And I want to reiterate if you're thinking you've got a bull for AI, reach out to Dr. Lahmers at SelectSires or one of your Select Sires Sire analysts, one of the guys that do that, Mike Ducket or myself. Reach out to us. We're there and we can connect you with the information. And like you say, Liz, your local vet probably isn't going to know this protocol if if he's not exposed to it every day. Just you know, just like I'm not even comfortable reciting it, right? Because there's what you have for a written protocol is what is what is the Bible for sure. Hayden, I think our listeners would like a quick story or two. Who who are a couple of the most famous bulls you've taken care of?

SPEAKER_07 33:51

I've taken care of Atwood, I've taken care of Planet, Renegade, Mobile, Super Sire, Jerseys. I would have to say Chrome, Colton, and Valentino would be my top three for jerseys.

SPEAKER_04 34:06

Well, if you're an NBA coach, you're in the Hall of Fame. Yes. Have you got any funny stories about collection or attitudes of bulls? I love to talk to you guys about some of the stories. You could go on, Hayden, for days and days. Have you got anything that comes to mind that just would make our listeners say, well, that that that's what being in a bull barn does to you every day?

SPEAKER_07 34:30

There's a couple. I and again, I could go on for a long, long time, but we did have a bull named Conway. He had a special steer. He it had to be the right height, the right color, had to be at the right spot, everything. If it if he didn't have his right steer, his right mount, he would not work up. He would just get mad and start hitting on the on the steer. We also sometimes have to turn the lights off. Some some sometimes our bulls get a little scared of the collector. I even have heard I have not used this, but I've heard that at some point somebody put an eye patch like a pirate on on one of the bulls' eyes, so he couldn't see the collector when they went to collect them.

SPEAKER_04 35:16

Right now, Hayden, my producer Dave Parker, is going crazy because he's praying I don't go down any of these roads with this discussion because there's so much opportunity to go down different roads, isn't there, Bruce?

SPEAKER_06 35:30

Absolutely. And you know what, Tim? Hayden was in my office earlier, and he commented one thing about a bull that you might know pretty well. And not that he's bad to work with, but just that he's plum loud. And when he's in the barn, he's always making noise. And that's your bull, showbox bull Ben though.

SPEAKER_07 35:50

Really? Oh, he he is very voiceful. He likes to hear and himself talk, he likes to yell at you. If you ain't betting him right, you ain't feeding him right away, he's gonna let you know.

SPEAKER_04 36:03

Actually, I it's not a genetic answer, but it's an environmental answer. He was bred by the boys at Kingsway, and then also our friend Steve Velthois, and they're both very loud and very mean. And so I can I can understand. It sounds like the combination of Ethan and Steve, who both listen to these podcasts. They'll they'll like that shout out because I it sounds like Venmo's just like them a little louder than they need to be, huh? Oh, yes. Well, Hayden, I will let you off this hot seat, but uh we appreciate you doing what you do, and we would ask you as an industry to thank your colleagues in the barn. You put your lives at risk every day for us to make genetics, and again, not just for select sires and and show box sires, for the breeders to develop their herd. So, Hayden, it's been great having you on. We're someday we're gonna do another podcast with just you and a bunch of the guys from the barns and tell stories. That sound all right.

SPEAKER_07 37:03

Sounds good. Thanks, Tim, for having me.

SPEAKER_04 37:06

Good to have you. And Dr. Lombers, so good to have you. You know, unfortunately, most people know the Lombers family from your husband, and you know, we we want them to know the best part of the family. Thanks for being on, Dr. Liz. Any parting thoughts for our listeners?

SPEAKER_08 37:22

If you ever have any questions about anything, feel free to reach out to me. I really enjoy working with these bulls, seeing the bulls come through the whole process from when they arrive, nice babies, till they make it to Haydn's Farm. It's just it's just a pretty cool process to be able to watch.

SPEAKER_04 37:37

Well, and Bruce, you've been involved in your career with several millionaire bulls uh at Select Sires, both as a sales guy and a and now as a product manager. Think about that. Think about how many things have to go right to to sell a million units on a bull. Comment a little about that as we wrap up and how important it is and how how the good old days we used to do that.

SPEAKER_06 38:02

Yeah, and and it's gonna get less and less as we continue to move forward because we're selling them from younger and younger ages. So we we've got that volume component against us, but one bull Hayton left out. I'm gonna slightly let the cat out of the bag. It's not a done deal, but we've got one in Hayden's barn that's about to cross the million unit threshold right now, and within the next couple of months, I would expect, and it's gonna be the first red bull in North America to be a millionaire. So Ranger Red is right at the cusp of it. It will be continuing harder to do that. In the past, we saw bulls easily making 150,000 doses a year when they were five, six, seven, eight years of age. And today, as I talked about with the age, when they're making it at two, three, and four years of age, they're not making that kind of volume. The genetic interval is so much faster and turning over so much faster that by the time they get to that five, six, seven years of age, often many of them have significantly slowed down in their sales, and so therefore, it's not because the bull isn't as good as those great old millionaire sires, it's just that we have changed generation intervals so much. I actually just worked with Hayden on a tour, and if you look but at Rajer Redd's sire and grandsire, and the generation interval that's happened with him and the other bulls in the barn, you know, Rajer Redd, his maternal grandsire to his sire was eight years difference, and then it was five years, and now we're dealing with bulls that are under two years just to make the next generation. So that's the reason that we're gonna struggle to get to millionaire, very many millionaire sires anymore. But those are still very valuable. But we need them to come in and produce early.

SPEAKER_04 39:50

Great parting thoughts there. And what you know, I've one little dissertation from me, Bruce, on the functionality of bulls, and I think Hayden and Liz d you'd agree. Like I saw Ranger Red last summer, and he is one of the most beautiful bulls you have in your barn. Functionally, the bulls sound like you can't make a million units if you don't have good legs and a strong top line and and you know some constitution, right? Hayden and Liz.

SPEAKER_08 40:13

Like Ranger looks as good as any bull that has gone through here. He looks amazing.

SPEAKER_04 40:19

Yeah, I was blown away with how spectacular of a bull looks, and it's no different than our great cows. Great bulls are the same. I think that's a great way to end our podcast with these comments from uh Dr. Elizabeth Lawmers, chief veterinarian at Select Sires, Bruce Smith, Global Product Manager for Siemen at uh Select Sires, and then Hayden Ackley, who is the barn superintendent at the Kelgren Center, one of the most pre prestigious barns in our business. Guys, thank you very much for joining us on this Showbox Dires sponsored podcast, Evolution of the Great Cow. The Evolution of the Great Cow takes great sires and great genetics, and I think the team at Select Sires has given you great insight on how that works. Thank you for listening.