UVI-AES AI and ET Project in Collaboration with Utah State University
Utah State University has had a flock of St. Croix White hair sheep for the past 25 to 30 years. They wanted to develop a Barbados Blackbelly flock and infuse new genetics into their St. Croix White flock so they put together a project to collect embryos from the sheep at UVI-AES and transfer them to recipients in Utah. The project was done in June, 2000. Unfortunately no pregnancies were established in Utah from the transferred embryos, which may have been due to the fact that the recipient ewes were not in their normal breeding season at that location. The ET project will be attempted again in February, 2001.
In exchange for collecting the embryos, semen was collected from some of the St. Croix White rams at Utah and used to inseminate some of the St. Croix White ewes at UVI. This was done to infuse new genetic material into the research flock.
Photographs of each of the procedures (ET and AI ) can be seen below.
Barbados Blackbelly and St Croix White donor ewes that were superovulated
to collect embryos.
Cole Evans (Utah State University) preparing a
Barbados Blackbelly ewe for surgery to collect embryos.
The reproductive tract of a ewe after exteriorizing.
Note the large follicle (upper right) and the
ovulation site (lower left) on the ovary.
Dr. Kip Panter (USDA-ARS, Logan UT) and Dr. Bob Godfrey (UVI-AES) shown
flushing the uterus to recover embryos. The uterine horns are squeezed to prevent
the fluid from leaking out through the cervix.
Dr. Mike Marshall (Utah State Veterinarian) sews up the
incision in a ewe after the surgical procedure.
Dan Wang (Utah State University) processing
embryos in the lab.
AI equipment used for transcervical procedure.
The semen thaw unit is on the left and the speculum,
forceps and light sources are on the right.
A speculum with a light source is inserted
into the vagina to help visualize the cervial os.
The cervical os of a ewe can be seen through the speculum.
The AI gun is threaded through the cervix to deposit semen in the uterus.
Threading the AI gun through the cervix is done by feel.
The thawed straw of semen is placed into the
barrel of the AI gun and the semen is expressed into the uterus.