Increasing Milk Productivity through Embryo Transfer Technology

Embryo Transfer Technology (ETT) can make dairy farming highly profitable by an exponential increase in cattle milk productivity. Through ETT, it is possible to achieve milk yield between 13 to 16 liters per day for Indian breeds like Gir and Sahiwal. Interestingly, this innovative technology is a major reason for the rise in milk yield per cow in other countries.

How to get higher milk yielding cows through Embryo Transfer Technology?

In ETT, sperm and ovum are collected from superior genetic cattle. By using the germplasm (semen and ovum) sourced from superior genetic cattle available with Government Institutions, embryos are produced through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) technology and then these embryos are transferred into the surrogate cows to produce Embryo Derived Milking (EDM) Cow. These EDM cows will have high milk production capability.


Characteristics of a Superior Genetic Cattle

• Higher milk production capability
• The higher feed conversion ratio
• High genetic merit
• Better disease resistance
• Suited to local climatic conditions
• Government certified milk yield and pedigree records
• Breed purity tested

Importance of Genetics​

It has been observed that during the breeding programs the focus is only on making the cow pregnant and there is a lack of awareness regarding the quality of germplasm used inbreeding. This has adversely resulted in poor genetics of the herd, decreasing milk productivity and other production parameters like fat and milk protein. As Embryo Derived Milking cows have a higher feed conversion ratio, there will be a 25% to 30% reduction in the quantity of feed required to produce the same quantity of milk from EDM cows compared to that of normal cows.

It is also important to note the probability of calves born through embryos produced using sex-sorted semen being female is 90%. Utmost importance has to be given to upgrading low genetic merit cattle to superior genetic cattle by using scientific breeding practices.

How ETT helps to increase pure indigenous breeds cattle population

Irregulated breeding practices have resulted in more non-descript animals and even those who prefer to buy indigenous breeds find it difficult to identify the pure indigenous breeds. In addition to this, it is not possible to know the pedigree details, potential milk yield, lactation number, and breed type while purchasing cattle by conventional methods. Because of these uncertainties associated with the traditional market, farmers end up making less profit through dairy farming.

Whereas using ETT, it is possible to ascertain the potential milk yield and breed type of Embryo Derived Milking cows as we know the details of the donors. A separate test is done to identify the purity of the breeds and only then the donors are selected for producing embryos. It is difficult to propagate high milk yielding pure indigenous cattle population by using conventional methods. As we can produce only one calf from one cow in a year by conventional methods in comparison to ETT, where 35 calves can be produced from one high genetic merit cow in a year. Thus, rapidly increasing the population of high milk yielding pure indigenous breeds.