Hi there, thank you for joining us for this webinar for the webinar vet on advancing or synchronising your views, what options are there? So at the course of this webinar, briefly gonna introduce myself and what I do in this area. We're then gonna have a bit of a recap over the normal sheep breeding season.

And then we're gonna think about why clients might want to advance or synchronise the breeding in their sheep, consider the main options and interventions we can do, have a chat about various hormones, so pregnant mare, serum gonadotropin, prostaglandins, chat about round pre-breeding examinations, why they should be a fundamental part of what you're doing at your practise, and running all the way through all of this. I'm gonna try and interject, and I'd like you guys to think as well about how you can engage more of your clients in advanced sheep breeding and manipulating the breeding season. So I'm Dave Cars.

I qualified from Bristol ret School in 2019, spent a bit of time in mixed practise in Norfolk, doing ruminants and small animal work, and then in 2020, right in the middle of COVID lockdown, I moved to Derby to join the farm team at Scarsdale Vets, and I've done pure farm work ever since. I started my, Set AVP in sheep with Liverpool University in 2021, and by the time this goes out, I should have finished it, and then in 2021, after having quite a lot of chat with our clients about, A service gap in our part of the country, I put a business pitch together and pitched it to IBC who own Scarsdale, and we invested in and set up Midlands Advanced breeding services. So A very quick recap of the normal sheep breeding season, as I'm aware, this is probably common knowledge to most of you, but as I know, we'll have a variety of experiences in areas that people work in it, it's worth covering it before we go into more detail.

So obviously sheep are what we call short day breeders, so they're seasonally polyestrous, and it's the time of year and the changing in the day length that affects their cyclicity. So this is because melatonin's secreted in the darkness, but the hypothalamus is only sensitive to melatonin in the afternoon. So you need those short days of the autumn where it's dark in the afternoon.

For them to come into season. Classically this means breeding season for conception is mid late September through to December. We're working on a 17 day Easter cycle.

Sometimes it's a little bit shorter, at 16 days, and gestation of 142 to 155. But the average really that we work on is 147 days. So that means, as I'm sure a lot of you have heard from clients, the common adage, in with a bang out like a fool.

So if you put your taps in on November 5th, you should start lambing around about April Fool's Day. So if we're gonna consider hormonal manipulation of the season, we need to really be looking at late summer, early autumn for advancing. Why my clients want to advance the breeding season.

As we know, lamb production is highly seasonal, and if you can advance your lambing season and therefore sell lambs earlier, we get a stable supply of lamb and it can maintain a steady price. It also helps meet that Easter lamb market. Obviously a lot of the public think about eating lamb at Easter, Easter Sunday, although in a classical season, this actually is the time when the lambs are being born, so we do need some advanced and early lamma to really maintain that idea.

Financially, obviously, there are big benefits for your clients available as well. So if we look at the 2022 new season lamb data, looking at the overall SQQ. Early lambs were reaching 658 pence per kilo, but lambs sold more classically in July and August, were only hitting 540 pence per kilo, according to this year's AHDB data.

So 21% higher price, which should cover probably a lot of the costs and give an increased profit of advancing your breeding season. Ex-carsdale and with Mabs. We work with a lot of pedigree show clients as well.

So for a lot of them, they can only show a lamb that's born after January the first. So the earlier you're lambing, the bigger they're gonna be at show season in the summer. Also, if you're selling lamb lambs as well, they're gonna be more fertile, or if you're selling shearlings, they're gonna have had extra few months compared to other shillings and therefore have a higher chance of passing on their prodonni and winning.

Some people, it's about the calfing benefit. We work with a lot of small commercial flocks, maybe in the 150 to 400 size where they advance the breeding season because they can lamb all of their sheep at home, and then they've got that availability to go in contract for the big flocks in the thousands plus that might lab more classically, kind of late March, April time. Looking at the flip side and synchronisation, there's a lot of benefits here for clients as well.

Synchronising for a shorter lambing period, that's your first stop benefit. We'll give you more even batches of lambs. So if you want to do management throughout the grazing season, everything's gonna be tighter.

You can move your lambs in age groups. So for management procedures, this is going to help. This would also mean when you're catch rating or tail docking, you've probably got a good bat that are gonna be in that under 7 days all at a time and you can have a real good morning at it and get it all done rather than having 1s and 2s here and there.

Reduce your labour costs as well, because if you're gonna alarm a big number over a shorter stretch of time. You don't need to pay your staff for as many weeks. You might have more staff on, but less days and therefore this can save our clients quite a bit of money as well.

It also means that when we're looking at other management procedures like vaccination, clients might have a lot less wastage as well. If the lambs are in age group related groups, you can probably line up your first and your second dose is better so that you're not splitting loads of bottles and either having a lot of wasted or probably more concerningly would be folk leaving their heads back open for a couple of days because they've got half a bottle left and some lambs that they're about to be old enough. As we know, on-farm labour is one of the biggest fixed costs in the sheep business.

And when I talk to clients about this and the benefits of synchronising. I always try and encourage them to consider what their own hourly rate is. Because if they're a family farm and they're not paying any people to come in and land for them, they might not really know what their hourly rate is, and therefore if they're reducing labour costs.

By synchronising, they might not know how much they're doing it if they're not paying a big wage bill every month. Spring summary, shortening your lambing period, gives you an efficient use of your labour. It means that you can care for your ewes and your lambs better because you can treat them in age-related batches.

So when you're thinking about nutrition and everything, and any kind of pre-lambing metabolic blood testing or any supplements there, if you've synchronised and all your ewes are a lot tighter, you can introduce those management procedures all at the same time. Also, one of the things that those vets in the world, we, we've spoken about for ages is being more accurate with our disease and parasite control. So if you're encouraging people to treat using the Scots principles, dose to the heaviest, these sort of ideas, actually, if you're grouping your lambs.

Age related rather than having a real spread of 78 weeks' worth of lambs, they're more regulated tighter batches, perhaps with a bigger gap between them, if you are looking at the cycles that they'll have held to. It actually means that probably your weight's going to be nearer and you can have better control. So what are the main options?

We're gonna start, we're looking at is around. Is ram is a protectionized ram that retains its testicles and therefore, more importantly retains the testosterone production, but it's unable to impregnate uses. This is quite an important differentiation which, We find clients don't necessarily always understand, and therefore always, always be aware of the client who calls in for a castration, but actually once they're around vasectomis, it's always worth just having a check when you book them in or asking reception to have a check, particularly if it's, you know, a slightly more aged RAM and and they ring in for a castration because they might mean a vasectomy, and obviously you can't reverse it if you do your castration.

So androgen dependent pheromones are still excreted by the teasers and this is what causes the ram effect or the hormonal response in the ewes. We also know that these pheromones being androgen dependent, Vay the release rate between different ages and different breeds, so we know that a slightly older ram tends to be better, so. Ram lambs probably aren't going to be great as teasers.

You want something maybe a hearing or 23 years old for that maximum androgen dependent pheromone release. And there are also some quite good studies coming from New Zealand that show, for instance, a Merino is a much better teaser than a Romney, and in the UK situation, we know that, say, Suffolk make very good teasers, or Dorset because the Suffolk start cycling earlier, and the Dorset's obviously cycle multiple times. So the hormone, as well as the sight and the 100 grammes causes an increased frequency of LH pulses within the ewes.

We're not too far out of season and the anus isn't too deep. These increased LH pulses cause follicular development and then builds to an LH culminating in ovulation within 3 days of joining. As well as its ovulation, the LH surge causes sneaker and granulosa cells to develop into small and large luteal cells, which form your corpus luteum, which is what's going to maintain your pregnancy there.

I find when we talk to clients about vasectomies, one of the most common questions they ask, even if it's not the year that you do the surgery, it could be the year or two after when they've forgotten what you told them at the time of the surgery, is they'll ask what timings do we need for the maximum ram effect. Arm effect only truly occurs after 6 weeks of separation between worms. And use and this needs to be at least 1 mile.

We know that The ovulation occurs within 3 days of the teasers being introduced, and we recommend that they're left in for 14 to 16 days, and I'll show you why in a minute. The other important thing to clarify with clients is the ratio. So At MABS, we recommend 1 to 50 for your teaser RAMs, and then we recommend that you introduce your entire RAMs at a 1:20 ratio.

However, there are some papers out there that claim that a teaser effect was noted with as little as a 1 teaser to 150 uses. Butteam offers minimal advancement of the breeding season, but it does help with synchronisation and tightening things up. As we can see in this image from Quilliet Al, the majority displayed a silent eastres three days after the introduction of the teasers.

And then we see an observed estrus, so these red ones, 18 to 20 days after the teasers were introduced for the majority, and then for a smaller number, that observed estrus was in the early 20s instead. So this is why we recommend that you swap your teasers with your entire RAs on day 14 to 16 after the teaser was introduced. Therefore, we can expect an observed estres within a couple of days of the changeover, but by going day 14 to 16, we're gonna catch those ones that might have an observed estrus early on day 17, as well as those in the more common period of day 1819, 20.

So if we think about the surgery. I'm not gonna talk through the whole procedure, there are some really good experts out there that will cover this, and also the VDS have some really good videos on vasectomies as well. The main things we'd want to highlight are the surgery that's possible on farm or for most people it's also possible at the practise.

It's an excision ligation technique to remove sections of vast deferins from each side, and ideally we'd recommend at least 2 inches. The gold standard is for histopathological examination of the sections that you remove. Because you can't always express semen out of the cords.

So if you can't express semen out of the section that you remove, of the vase, it doesn't necessarily mean you've removed the wrong thing, and this is where your histopathological examination is the best idea, and also, gold standard would be to, Perform electro ejaculation or a cap via an AV and analyse the semen to ensure that, Effective vasectomy has taken place 6 to 8 weeks after the procedure. More commonly though, we find for 10 sections and labelled formal in pots, you need to make sure you've got the RAM ID and if it's the left or the right, and hang on to those for about 4 to 5 years. We also find.

Now that more and more we're performing pre-breeding examinations at the start of each season to ensure that re-canalisation hasn't occurred by doing semen analysis there, as that is obviously a risk of the procedure. Personally, I would recommend nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories. So for us, that's a dose of meloxicam, using the off-license dose that's licenced in Australia and New Zealand of 1 mg per kg.

So, for most formulations of Metaam naloxidil, which are 20 mg per mL, you're looking at 1 mL per 20 kg. We'd also recommend a category D antibiotic, so. We did this in-house audit at last out 2020 to 21, when we were using penicillin antibiotics.

Or amoxicillin, so quite, I quite like the betamox LA for instance, we didn't see any breakdowns or post-op infections, but on the small number that we did, where they received oxytracyclines, we saw a 50%. Post-op complication infection rate, so that's why I'd recommend a category D penicillin or amoxicillin. Sedation can be used if you need it for suitable restraint, and as you can see in the pictures, we would obviously also recommend that the sort of sterile surgical gloves that are used for this procedure.

What makes deep easier if your client comes and asks you to help them pick up the right rounds for a vasectomy. You're gonna want something with a high libido, teasers going in at a 150 ratio to really bring the ewes on. They're gonna work hard, they're gonna do a lot of chasing, so they're gonna want to be fit and healthy as well.

They need to be sound on their legs, so you don't want anything with a history of lameness or jointum. Have a look at the teeth as you would on your usual MOT, that can be a good indicator of health and also longevity. As we mentioned before, shillings could be quite a good option because they'll have started that hormonal development, but also hopefully you'll get multiple seasons from one teaser if you vasectomise a younger animal compared to a 56 year old seasoned ram.

If they're gonna purchase in. Obviously, make sure your clients are following a good quarantine procedure that the one on the farm's vaccination protocol, we often find will go out and we'll postmortem rams and teasers that have suddenly died and we'll find they've died of clostridial disease or pastorella or these sort of things because they've been missed off the flock kept to back P protocol. If it's an accredited flock, then obviously make sure that if they're purchasing in, it comes from an accredited source or that they go through an accreditation protocol with the use if you're starting them on, for instance, an MV accreditation.

So eating at the neck often, we've got progesterone or progestogen releasing devices. So as you can see here, our first option is the Cedarovus, currently made by Zettis, which contain 0.35 grammes of progesterone per device.

They stay in sit you in the vagina for 12 days. You need to give a hormone injection at the time of removal, and the studies that oats released when these were licenced show that each case occurs 1 to 2 days post pull. They reported 68.9%.

With an observed east just one day after removal and 100% within 2 days, and 96.5% of animals in their licencing study responded to the protocol. RAM to ratio, as we mentioned with the teasers, it's always a common question from the clients, and particularly with these, it's an important thing to clarify with your client before they invest in.

Cedars or sponges because if they can't meet the required ratio, they're not going to get the observed effects, and they might be better with another system, and the cedarrauss has a nil withhold for the meat. You also got your ronage sponge made currently by MSD Animal Health. So these are progestogen.

So these have 0.02 grammes of floggeone acetate per device. And the MSD studies here showed that while the dose is lower, floggeone acetate they claimed was twentyfold more potent than strict progesterone, and therefore actually this means we're looking at pretty comparable levels of hormone.

Within the two devices, sponges staying for a little bit longer, so again, if you're moving a client from sponges to feeders or seeds to sponges, do make sure that you clarify the length of time that they're needed. The licencing study for sponges, reports, observed each issue as 36 to 72 hours postpo. It's the same ratio, so 1:10 in season, 1 to 5 out of season, but notably a sponge has a 2-day withdrawal for the meat after removal, compared to the nil withhold on the cedars.

We'll touch on this later, but your PMSG or ECG dose varies depending on the breed and the time of year. So again, clients might need some pointers on this. And the other thing that I always recommend is whoever's dealing with the devices and inserting them and also removing them, should wear gloves because these contain a high level of hormone.

I With Mavs, we really only work with cedars, so. I've not got photos of the insertion of the sponges, but the principle is very similar in how they sit. So as you can see here, this is one of our vettes as they go out and insert a lot of our feeders for us as it makes a cost effective service compared to clients paying vets.

Come out and do something that they could do themselves. We've found, particularly given the time of year that people want to be putting in their seeds or their sponges, often they want to be out harvesting and doing other agricultural jobs. So being able to leave the ewes in and the vets going and cracking on with the job was a really valuable service that we set up.

So The device goes in the applicator and you can see there, the wings here, they fold up, same as a feeder for a cow, and it sits in the applicator. Make sure that you put the tail in first, so the tail is down by the handle. This is commonly where I see people go wrong.

And then ideally you want. If it's in a free cap, you want somebody else to hold the U for you so that you can position yourself behind, or we'll also do them in a race and then normally you can put them in yourself if they're held in a race or in a knocking head yoke. Make sure that you put plenty of lube on the end of the applicator.

It's inserted vaginally, so you can see here we're just lifting the tail. If it's really dirty people contamination, you can see there just on the right, we've got a couple of rolls of paper towels as well to, to wipe off before we insert, so we're not introducing infection. You're gonna insert, to press that plum set, so it's a really easy hand squeeze, and then you draw the applicator out nicely.

You can make a V shape with your fingers around it to hold that tail in place, but I find that isn't necessarily always needed. And then you just lower the towel down like that, and the way you know it nicely is you've got that little bit of white plastic l hanging out there, or for a sponge, it's that white string that hangs out as well. And this is what you tell the clients.

They need to just put gentle pressure on on removal day when they inject the hormone, and they should follow out nicely. How do they actually work? While they're in, so after in session.

The progesterone or the lugeone acetate binds the progesterone receptors. The oestrogen GNRH LH positive feedback loop, which means. No LH is released and therefore we get follicular development, but we're not gonna get those pulses and that spike to cause the ovulation.

As there's no Alex said. When never moved. We get a sudden drop in progesterone, which removes that block on the positive feedback loop, so we see increased LH positivity, we get that big LH surge causing the onset of stress and ovulation.

And the reason these work so well for synchronising is if you pull them all at the same time, when you get this Alexed, estrus, and ovulation in all uses at the same time, therefore, they'll be served at the same time and they'll land very nice and compactly. And that's why having your RAM to ratio, if you're using these devices is so important because it mogulation occurs in all of them at the same time. So What you need here is one device and one hormone injection per animal.

We recommend starting on a day to dose of 500 IU per U of PMSG, but we can manipulate this dose based on breed, time of year, and the objectives of the flock. So with experience and with knowing your flocks, we can manipulate this. Again, 1 to 10 in season, 1 to 5 out of season.

In to see for both devices, 4 to 6 weeks' advancement of the breeding season, and we know it will offer very good synchronisation, but as it's one device and one injection per animal, it does come with a higher cost than a teaser, as you've got to purchase this every year. There are other options as well if you're running less tubs. You could do what they call back pulling, so stagger your pulling, put the Thompson with one group, pull.

Say from the second half we use for 2 days later and then move the tops over. Because we know how tightly that ovulation is gonna occur and therefore as well. Some people put the ram in for 2 days, take the rams out, and then reintroduce them 16 days later.

That's 16 days after pulling, not 16 days after the tap comes out to catch any repeat breeders. But there are some things that you can advise your clients to maximise their success with progesterone or progesterone end devices. As I'm sure you all know by now, because I've mentioned it a lot, having an adequate RAM to ratio is the best way to maximise your success.

Have you use a good body condition score, so 2.5 for a hillbreed, 3 for Upland, 3.5 for lowland at topping time.

Consider trace element and mineral supplementation, perhaps do some free topping bloods. There are some very good bonuses out there now, particularly if you want to think about supplementing selenium fertility or B12 and these sort of things as well. Ensure that you've given your abortion vaccinations, so toxoplasma and coming off of the vaccines, these want to be in 4 weeks before mating and.

Do a pre-breathing exam for the rounds, because there's no point synchronising everything and then putting in rounds that aren't gonna be up to standard. One of the big things we've done here that I built. It is to make your life easy.

The dates and the timings are so important when you're dealing with synchronising uses, and obviously if you're gonna go down the AI route as well, it's really important that the timings are followed accurately and. Therefore, I built a simple spreadsheet calculator where all you've got to do is put in the date the client wants to put the taps in or the date the client wants to lam, and then it will work it backwards and then you can advise the client when to put the seeders in, when to take the seeders out. When to get the abortion vaccines done and all of these things.

And then we also see all of our clients when they buy cedars. A breeding programme, which you can see here on the left. So we just write it down for them and make it really nice and simple.

When to put the seeds in, when to take the seeders out, when to give the hormone, when to put the tups in, because you don't want to go straight off. Putting seeds, giving the hormone, and putting the tin straight away, because the tups will get round and serve everything before ovulation occurs, and they'll effectively be too tired to serve them again at peak ovulation. So we recommend.

18 to 24 hours post pull is the best time to introduce, you can go 12 hours post pull if you want, if you think perhaps compliance isn't as great and you wanna make sure that they are in by that peak time. We also know that by giving a good protocol, we found we've got better compliance and therefore clients have better complaints. So, clients have had better results and we've reduced complaints that the devices didn't work in the way that they wanted.

We found it improved the service and it looked really professional, and clients responded well to that. And as I mentioned as well, we now offer that the vet tapes can go out and insert the feed or overs for clients as well, at a fraction of the cost of vets going out on their hourly rate to do something that clients could do themselves. There are options to Use teasers and cedar ovs or sponges as an option and we found after talking to Zoettis, that the optimum way to do this is to put the teasers in for 20 days.

Prior to Inserting the cedars. So if cedars in as day 0, you'd want the teasers in on day -20, and then when you get the ewes in to insert the cedars, just take the teasers out at this point in time and they don't need to go back in. Personally, based on my own experiences.

And client feedback as well as reading a couple of papers as well. I'd prefer Cedar Averson, this is Wy at Mabs. We largely work with Cedars, I think we've got one client that we AI for that still uses sponges or that synchronises with sponges, but mainly we're on the cedars.

So a lot of client feedback and also from our vets and the vet tech is that they're more user friendly, that you can get through. Applying a lot more to the abs quicker. We know that there's less of that vaginitis than that discharge at pulling.

We've found from talking to our clients, less devices are lost, so I've got one client who put in 3000 this year, and I think they lost 4. And then we also know, improved twinning rates and improved fecundity on a cedar ray was compared to a sponge. And one thing that we're always mindful of, and there were a couple of articles about in the vet record.

2020 and 2021 about sponges being ingested by dogs on farm after removal cos obviously they're full of all that kind of discharge and all that sort of hormonal juice, so the risk of foreign body obstruction there is potentially less with seeders as well. But don't just take my word for it. There's a couple of very good papers here.

So for instance, this one here, that we put in the references at the end, they only put both devices in for 6 days, but they found. As we've mentioned, far less mucosal vaginal discharge, less of the vaginitis as well with the cedars compared to the sponges, and they also found a slight improved lambing to first service rate for cedar obvious compared to sponges. And they backed up the data sheet claim that both devices make about them not being reliable in ELAs as they found Pluri Paris had an 85% and Nilapariss only 65%.

So that's something to consider when you're advising clients as well. MSD or ECG, if you're gonna go down the progesterone or progesterone or AI route, it's something that you're gonna need to become really familiar with using and advising clients on. So, PMSD is a protein hormone which acts on the ovary, stimulating production of follicles, and we know that by manipulating the dose administered, We can influence the number of follicles produced.

And therefore we need to take this into account when we're calculating the dose for a particular flock in which we're looking for is for synchronisation. So, over the last couple of years, supply and the stock levels and availability of all of the PMST products has been. A bit variable and it seems to be lately that there's a set amount produced every year, and therefore, We now take a practise policy that if clients ring in.

To order Sponges or cedar Avis, we make some more their PMSG at the same time as well. Obviously if you're using a calculator type. System to work out dates, we added a line in as well so it's very easily, you can put in the dose you want to give and it will work out the number of bottles and everything as well, so that actually, We know that then we can meet the demand and supply the clients with what they need.

There's nothing worse than a client buying seeders or sponges, putting them in, ringing you up the day before and going, oh, I really need some hormone because I'm pulling my seeders tomorrow, and then it's unavailable or there's a delay and we can't get it. At least if we know there's there's a delay when they ring in to order their seeders, even if they want to put the seeds in the next day. We can at least help them out because they can always delay putting their seeds or their sponges in until that we know they can get their hormones.

And also one thing to make sure that you reinforce the client is injecting prior to removal, or more than 6 hours after pulling the progesterone or progesterone device negates the effect of the PMSG. This is probably only really relevant for your really, really big flocks that are gonna use it, but we've got some flocks we're actually. If they pulled everything and then came back to give injections on you number one, a long amount of time could have passed, so we make sure that they do both at the same time as they work their way through the pens or down the race, and obviously, it fits quite nicely on any of your.

Kind of rapid injector guns that will issue a standard dose that you can tweak there as well. So the main options you've got MST Invet. Is 5000 IU.

Stem is a SIC import product. So we only really tend to deal with it. If PMSG is out of stock, but the important one to be aware of here is the concentration is different.

So Stimervar is 7500 IU and therefore the IU per mil is different. So if you put a client onto Stimerar that's previously used PMSTE. I would just absolutely triple check that you calculate that dose for them and make sure that they aren't just gonna give the same dose they give every year because their IU then might be wrong and it might affect their.

Success rate. And then this year, Duggan released Fixed plan as well, as a, as a new PMSG related product as well, which hopefully will just improve the availability and the supply, and also just make sure you remind clients that these are refrigerated drugs, so you can see they're on the stem of our box. They need to be kept at 2 to 8 degrees C.

What about the landings or the air analogues? If you're doing a lot of cattle or particularly dairy work, these are gonna be products that you're really used to using in any synchronisation protocols in dairy herds. But in shape it's slightly different.

So these work by lying the CL, starting a new follicular wave, and therefore causing estrus and ovulation. But for these to have an effect and induce fibrillation, a CL already needs to exist. And this is why We can't use them to advance the breeding season in sheep.

If you have ewes that you know are cycling. Then it would have a role in synchronising, and there are some synchronising protocols that we use this. The data we tend to use for sheep is one mil, but obviously if there's not a CL because they're out of season, then these aren't gonna have any success and it won't work out of season for synchronisation, and it could be a very expensive avenue to go down and not get the desired results.

The other thing that we use prostaglandins for in she is for correcting misalliance. Or if we think we've got some RAM lambs that have reached sexual maturity and observed some new lambs, for instance, so it can obviously still be used as an abortive agent if we get it within the right time frame post service. And the last main option is laparoscopic artificial insemination.

This offers significant tightening and advancement, because you use are all synchronised using a progestogen or progestogen device and then. Obviously it's gonna be even tighter than then just putting the touch in afterwards. Because we're going to be inserting the semen into the right place at the right time of ovulation, and we can get through a lot more ewes than a ram would serve in a small amount of time.

We can work with fresh semen collected off rams on the farm, or frozen semen, people can order straws or pellets to be delivered to where we're doing the AI. At mabs we will do it on farm for big numbers or in the clinic for smaller numbers. But the timing is everything, so we give a very clear timings protocol that clients need to follow to maximise their success, and obviously this offers.

Super prescribed and compact lambing, and because we know a definitive service date and time, we've got a couple of clients that will then induce the uses that we know held to the AI for a super prescribed and compact lambing. As you can see from this diagram. Going in with your laparoscope and your light source on one side through a hole made by a trocar, and then you're going in through another port with your inseminating gun, and you're injecting through your needle your Robertson's pet directly into the uterine horn as they're toned up, as they're on, following the synchronisation protocol, exactly where it needs to be.

And this is why we can get some pretty good results as we know that. Sort of transvaginal artificial insemination like you might do in a cow. Doesn't get anywhere nearly as good rates and news and this is why laparoscopic AI is the most common AI process.

In the small remnants. Why my clients want to do it? As we kind of hinted on, one ra can therefore serve many more ewes than they would through a natural service system.

So if we collect fresh semen off the top on the farm in the morning, you know, we can do 8090 ewes in a day. A ram's one ra's not going to serve 80 90s in a day. You know, that's why you're looking at the 1 to 10 ratio in season for your synchronisation protocols with your progester road or progester gen devices.

Particularly for our clients, we can introduce new bloodlines by using frozen semen at a much lower cost than going and buying. High end pedigree rams that potentially can only be on the farm for a couple of years before there would be too much interbreeding. You can run less rounds.

The labour cost again be less. Because it's gonna be a tight, compact lambing, as we talked about at the start about why people might want to synchronise. And with laparoscopic AI we can offer out of season breeding as well and really good advancement of the breeding season.

But the big take home I would say is whatever system for advancing or synchronising uses you're gonna use and recommend to your clients, always put the RAMs for a pre-breeding exam. The Excel VET study in 2021 that was published in Farmers Weekly found that more than 1 in 5 rams failed a keep vet Society standard pre-breeding exam. So 50% of these failed at MOT and 50% of these failed on the semen analysis portal.

So that's a really high percentage. And if you're working in any prescribed compact or synchronised system or gonna use the semen for AI. You need to know that the RAMs are up to the standard that we need.

So semen collection and analysis via electrical ejaculation most commonly as we're gonna be doing it before the breeding season, so there probably isn't a you in East Chris that will stand to allow for an AV collection. What is important is this must be undertaken by somebody trained in the technique. And I would recommend that people follow the sheep vet standards.

Guidelines document and they have some very good recording sheets as well. The team collection and announces via electrical ejaculation is reserved for taps which meet the following criteria according to the sheepbird Society guidance. If substility is suspected, perhaps after a poor scanning or lambing percentage the year before, if the t's unproven, if they're gonna be working in a high pressure environment, so these are gonna be the ones that maybe are going in at your 1 to 5 out of season or 1 to 10 in season after a synchronisation with Cedar Avis or sponges.

Or if they're gonna work in a single side mating group or with a high number of views. So whilst the semen analysis and collection is reserved for RAMs that meet those criteria, any and all RAs can and should undergo an MOT every year. So, I think most of you are familiar with the AHDB RAM MOT document that recommend that you're looking toes, teeth, testicles, tone, and treatments.

So we commonly refer to it as the five Ts of MOT, and you can see there, one part here is measuring your scrotal circumference and palpating the testes to ensure you've got that flex bicep or ripe tomato texture. Obviously, feet and locomotion is really important for the rounds to be able to get round and serve, particularly the back feet as well, otherwise they won't be able to mount. Teeth is a good indicator of age and their ability to keep the body condition on.

Tone, body condition, want to be 3.5 to 4, they want to be well covered off the spine because they're gonna work hard and probably drop quite a bit of condition through the topping season and obviously ensure the vaccinations are up to date if you're gonna introduce them into your ewes. Any other treatments that might be needed as well should be done 4 to 6 weeks prior to introducing off the tops.

In summary then, if we compare the main options and the prices here. Are an average between what we charge at my practise, Pharmacy prices in 2022 when I wrote the Fletcher, and Fame Valley prices as well, to give an average and compason based in October 22. So the round effect using your teasers.

Minor advancement. But variable synchronisation. Low cost per year though, because one teaser should be able to give you many years of service, and ideally on the ratio of 1 to 50, it's a low cost on average, from doing a benchmarking survey across practises, you're looking at around about 100 pounds excluding antibiotics and NSAIDs for the procedure.

So progesterone roam, progestogen devices, 4 to 6 weeks advancement, good synchronisation, ideally everything that's going to be tapped first cycle, 72 hours tapping window. Approximately 5 to 8 pounds cost per year. But if we're going really late in the season, so November sort of time, you might be able to get that price lower because you might be able to not use PMSG as there in season, but that is a risk and a discussion that's off licence to be had with the clients, as the data sheets for both Cedar overs and sponges advise using PMST or ECG.

Plus the glandins in their analogues offer no advancement, but they can offer synchronisation if the use of cycling, and there is a corpus luteum. Cost per year is medium, 2 to 2 pounds 50 per year, and obviously they also can be used to abort and correct misalliance. Lai, we can advance by 6 weeks, sometimes even more, and get really out of season.

Very good synchronisation because all yous are served on the same day, and it can be really tight. But the cost is the highest of the options because you're looking at the AI cost, whatever your AI service charge, plus the cost of the cedar or the sponge, plus the cost of the PMSG but. Many clients that we work with balance that out of, well, otherwise I'd be running 1 to 10 or even 1 to 5 rounds and I'd be investing in a lot of RAMs, and the pedigree clients also sometimes find that the RAM investment costs could be really high because of how often they'd have to move them on, particularly if it's a smaller pedigree show flock.

So it's one to think about and it's a good way to get on farm, perhaps when you're doing your health plan, or now we've got the animal health and welfare pathway reviews coming in as well, when we're going out and talking to sheep clients. Not just talking about. How the lambing previously has gone, but talk about how you can work with your clients in the lambing season.

Ahead as well, you know, can these compact the lambing season for your clients? Could you improve the twinning rate? Could you help save labour costs elsewhere?

These are all conversations that clients will usually welcome and I'm often quite happy that you take quite an interest in. So, these are the references as well, and then. If anybody has any questions off the back of this and wants to get more in fact, these are my contact details at Scarsdale and at Mabs.

So thank you very much for listening.