Question

Explain the events that occur in Multiple Ovulation Embryo Transfer (MOET).

Answer 1

Events in MOET (Multiple Ovulation Embryo Transfer ):

An excellent female is selected. She's treated with hormones to induce multiple ovulation, i.e. one ovulation with multiple fertile eggs. She's inseminated, often with sexed sperm, and later flushed to retrieve the fertilized eggs. These are then examined under a microscope to sort them by quality, and stored for transfer. The embryos are finally placed into recipient females, and if the transfer is successful, they will produce an ET calf in nine months.

There are some unique benefits of embryo transfer for cattle breeding:

• exceptional females can influence the breed/stock much more efficiently than traditionally; should something happen to her in her early years, she’d have already produced a small herd of daughters
  
• farmers without the means to purchase heifers or cows of desired quality can instead have frozen embryos transferred in their existing stock, and raise the future cows themselves
  
• when used in place of traditional cattle sales, ET can prevent the spread of dangerous cattle diseases
  
• introduction of superior bloodlines or a new breed is much more efficient;
  

rather than invest in multiple good heifers the farmer can buy just one and use ET to produce 5–6 or even more daughters out of her per year

• higher value from expensive, limited, or sexed semen; especially crucial when using ET for rare breed preservation, where the semen used may be decades old and of unique bloodlines
  
• ET with sexed semen allows less valuable dairy cows to produce guaranteed-male beef mix calves, improving their profit in situations where more dairy heifers are not desired.