Brooke Leidholt

This week I am posting my blog a little early as I will be at the National FFA Convention when they are due. This has thrown me a little off schedule, but I had a long week to make up for it. My goal this week was to explore the superovulation of the donor cow. I didn't quite get to research as in-depth as I wanted, because this step proved to be a lot less complex than I imagined. Superovulation is the process that allows the cow to release multiple eggs at a single estrus. This is induced with a series of shots. Most people give a follicle-stimulating hormone twice daily for four days. On the final day a prostaglandin injection is given that causes ovulation to occur. Most cows yield about four or five transferable eggs. This means that the egg is healthy, undamaged, and bred (later in the process). As cows are repeatedly superovulated, they will have a lower yield. My goal next week is to study the insemination of the eggs. I think this will be interesting because I will be ...

Just as a reminder, I am studying how to flush and implant an embryo in cattle. My goal this week was to determine how donor and recipient cows are chosen for this process. I found it easiest to focus on each separately because different characteristics are needed. The most difficult thing I faced this week was procrastination. As many of you know, I am very good at procrastinating pretty much everything, but I'm hoping this project will help me with that. As for my progress, I started the week by determining what kind of qualities a donor cow would need to posses. The biggest thing I found is that they need to exemplify the characteristics you want in your herd. There are a ton of different things different producers are looking for to improve their operation, and these are just a few examples. If a dairy was looking to improve their milk production, then they would choose donors that are very good milkers. If someone was looking to breed elite show calves, then they would take...

For my genius hour project I am going to learn how to flush and implant an embryo in cows. I chose to research this because I am almost certain that I will be studying Animal Science as I continue my education, and this would only benefit me as I move forward. I also really enjoy all things cattle related, especially reproduction. Lately, I have been hearing more and more about this process, so I decided genius hour would be a great opportunity to learn more about this topic. My first week included a Shark Tank pitch to the class. This was a very short presentation that we completed to begin our genius hour projects. In this introduction we included what we were going to do, why we chose our project, our process, and how we would determine if our projects were a success. I found this to be a cool way to somewhat formally announce what each of us are doing for our project. The most challenging part of this, for me, was creating my process. I was uncertain how to break down everythin...