Animal Technologies. Animal technologies are used for monitoring the reproductive activity, health, welfare status and feeding of dairy cows. These sensors have activity, weight changes and milk and rumen parameters that may assist in supporting the health, welfare and reproductive management of individual dairy cows.

Precision agriculture technologies are popular and have been integrated in livestock production. RFID, biometric sensors and GPS allow monitoring of the farm animals. Production managers must be able to respond fast to potential problems.

Raising animals humanely can use less feed, fuel and water than intensive farming, reducing costs and pollution. Humane farms can create jobs, boost profits and keep local food supplies healthy. By farming crops and livestock, humane farms can reduce environmental damage – recycling nutrients and improving the soil.

New Technologies in Animal Breeding looks at new reproductive technologies in breeding domestic animals, such as sex selection, frozen storage of oocytes and embryos, in vitro fertilization and embryo culture, amphibian nuclear transplantation, parthenogenesis, identical twins and cloning in mammals, and gene transfer …

These techniques include: artificial insemination, cryopreservation of gametes or embryos, induction of multiple ovulations, embryo transfer, in vitro fertilization, sex determination of sperm or embryos, nuclear transfer, cloning, etc.

Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) includes in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET), gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT), zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT), and frozen embryo transfer (FET).

GIFT (gamete intrafallopian transfer) and ZIFT (zygote intrafallopian transfer) are modified versions of in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Embryo development – when using IVF, sperm from the male partner or a donor are added to the eggs to allow them to be fertilised. When using ICSI, the scientist picks up a single sperm and injects it into each egg using a microscopic needle.

If more than one embryo is replaced in the womb as part of IVF treatment, there’s an increased chance of producing twins or triplets….Multiple births

• miscarriage.
• pregnancy-related high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia.
• gestational diabetes.
• anaemia and heavy bleeding.
• needing a caesarean section.

Risks from the egg retrieval include pain, infection in the pelvis and ovaries, injury to the bowel, bladder, uterus, ovaries or major blood vessels. Since the procedure is done under ultrasound guidance and the needle can be seen on the ultrasound, the chance of serious problems is extremely small.

IVF isn’t usually recommended for women over the age of 42 because the chances of a successful pregnancy are thought to be too low. Between 2014 and 2016 the percentage of IVF treatments that resulted in a live birth was: 29% for women under 35. 23% for women aged 35 to 37.

Day 3 embryos are referred to as “cleavage stage” embryos. The reason for this designation is that the cells in the embryo are dividing (or cleaving) but the embryo itself is not growing in size. Think of a pizza. When you slice it, you create more pieces of pizza, but you do not increase the size of the pizza itself.

Does embryo grading matter? Yes. Embryos graded as AB or BA (3AB, 4AB, 5AB, 6AB, 3BA, 4BA, 5BA, 6BA), seem to have lower chance of pregnancy, but nearly similar chance of live birth. Embryos graded as BB (3BB, 4BB, 5BB, 6BB) still have a good chance of success at 50% for pregnancy and 42.3% for live birth.