PARKER-BOERS

1. In-Vitro Fertilization Process;

If you've ever had a doe that has come up unfertilized time and again you now have additional new hope of achieving kids from her.

We had a very valuable doe to us, that we were consistently unsuccessful in obtaining kids from. We had tried live cover with two different known mature bucks, non surgical artificial insemination and then lapascopic insemination but nothing had work.  In her examinations, her heat cycles and ovulation period was perfect, she gave up grade 1 eggs and did not have hard shells, no internal obstructions or tumors. Her cervix and uterus were both fine. We finally tried a process that was suggested by our genetics service (Global Genetic Service, Bryan, Texas), that they have used with problem cows called In-Vitro Fertilization. This process had not been done with goats before and the timing is a little different than it is with cows but the basic process is the same. In lay terms the process goes like this:

    A. First the doe is put through her heat cycle and injected with a fertility enhancer.

    B. At a specific time in her ovulation cycle the  unfertilized eggs are removed/collected from her and taken into the

        laboratory where they sit and become cultured. Only a percentage of the unfertilized eggs become cultured.

        For us, this was 19 eggs cultured out of 21 unfertilized eggs collected,  90% .

    C. Again, at a specific timing sequence the cultured eggs are introduced to the live sperm. The sperm is monitored to see if

          they attach themselves or what they call ("CLEV") to the eggs. This means that the eggs are now fertilized.  Only a

          percentage of the unfertile eggs become fertilized.      For us, this was 13 of the 19 cultured eggs,  68% .

    D. Once the sperm and eggs "Clev" they are further monitored to see when they actually start to see growth by observing

         molecules expandition.  Once this is observed they are then placed to recipient does for monitoring to see how many

         will actually come to term.  This process requires a 30 day waiting period at which time they can perform an ultrasound

        exam and determine if the doe's have " taken" or are "open" and how many fetus are still growing.  Of course, and once again

        only a percentage of these fertilized eggs will come to term. 

    E.  On 2-10-05 we completed an ultrasound examination on the two "Recep" does, each showed signs of carrying 3 fetus'  so we are expecting a possible

        four to six kids at the end of May /first of June.

    F.    These should be some super kids as we are looking at the sire being "ennobled SUMO"  over our dam which is a "ennobled Pipeline/ ennobled Dello" .

           This will establish a new progeny line for us and the boer goat industry.

  G. We ended up having a total of 5 kids from 2 does. We have keep one of the five kids to start our new genetics, see our sires page for THOR.

In Summary:

We have concluded that of the one  thing left that may be contributing to our doe not becoming pregnant is that we now know that the sperm is not

getting to the eggs and it is theorized that our doe's " ph level"  in her uterus is probably killing off the sperm before it gets to the egg.  But we can

continue doing In-Vitro fertilization with her so she will still be produces more kids for us.

Should you have any questions about this process or questions concerning the many problems that does may have in not becoming pregnant please email us.