Twinning In Cattle

Twinning in Cattle

Due to the continual fluctuation of the cattle market cattle producers

have been searching for ways to improve their production and increase their

profits any way possible. For years genetic engineers have been working hard on

improving economic efficiency in cattle. It is their hope that through genetic

research they can improve the yield and the income of cattle producers around

the world. Research has shown that twinning is one way that farmers can increase

their yield . Twinning has a significant influence on producers as well as

people who are involved in all realms of agriculture. The reason for this large

impact at this time is the fact that the occurrences are limited. However, many

producers have a vision that twinning can be more than a once in a blue moon

occurrence. These producers see twinning as a way to dramatically increase their

yield per calving season. Producers will increase their income due to more

weight per year per cow. It is necessary ;however, that the producer be well

educated on how to handle twinning, in order for it to be successful for them.

Many agencies see twinning as an economic move upward. The American

Breeder Service has made efforts to produce semen as well as embryos with high

predicted breeding values available to producers. They have been recorded based

on twinning probabilities and ovulation rates. A large amount of work on

twinning has also been done by the Meat and Animal Research Center. Since the

early eighties, they have located cattle with a high frequency of twinning and

been forming a breeding foundation based on this characteristic. “We believe the

time has come to make some of these unique genetic resources available to the

beef industry through artificial insemination and embryo transfer” (Gregory 23).

An extensive amount of research has been done using embryo transfer in cattle.

In one study recipients were implanted with either a single embryo, two embryo

in one uterine horn, or one embryo in each uterine horn. It is also possible to

split embryos using a micro manipulator and implant each half to produce

identical twins. On the average about 16% of the cows implanted with two embryos

produced twins. When two embryos were implanted, and one was placed in each horn,

conception rates were comparable with the prior method, however the twinning

rate was much higher when the embryos were in separate horns (73% vs. 45%). For

the most part, when one embryo was split in an attempt to produce identical

twins, only one of the offspring survived birth (Davis 302).

Many producers see twinning as a possible advancement in