D6-Lancast«r Fanning, Saturday, April 30, 1994
GEORGE F.W. HAENLEIN
Extension Dairy Specialist
University of Delaware
NEWARK, Del. Have you
heard of the ram effect?
I don’t mean the Dodge Ram,
nor do I mean using a battering
ram to force down castle gates.
It’s much more subtle, much more
sophisticated: it’s something you
can smell.
Rather, it’s something certain
animals can smell. If people could
smell this “effect,” life would be
easier.
People can smell Christian Dior
fragrances on other people and
usually find !a certain pleasure in
it. But those odors are fairly
strong.
As for animals, much smaller
amounts of very specific kinds of
smells seem to have an equally
pleasant effect. In fact, these
smells send messages, messages
that somebody is receptive to
physical approach or the reverse
that this is somebody’s territ
ory and you are off limits.
The scientific name for these
odor messages is pheromone, a
powerful communicator among
animals.
If people could master, as Dr.
Doolittle did, what the “language”
means and when it occurs, animal
management would be much
easier.
Actually, the chemical industry
has begun to identify some of
these communicator pheromones.
Some companies now produce
pheromones commercially as bait
to lure certain insects to an artifi
cial “love” trap or to aid pig far
mers in waking up “sleepy” sows
and get them more interested in
service by a boar.
Humans, however, are far from
smelling either these megadoses
of artificial imitations or the natur
al subtle whiffs of communicating
pheromones.
This brings us to what has now
become known in scientific termi
nology as the “ram effect.”
Dairy Expert Smells Work To Be Done
It’s a subtle odor that works on
ewes to stimulate their ovaries and
to aid in better conception. Sheep
breeders have long recognized the
signs, not from smelling, but from
observing flock behavior.
Breeders have taken advantage
of this phenomenon for greater
breeding success and profit.
Horse breeders know that you
can’t just take a mare to a stallion
for service one, two, three, zip,
zip, it’s done.
Instead, the mare is held on the
other side of the fence for some
time, maybe an hour or more, to
stimulate the stallion at the sight
of her and to stimulate him with
the odor signals that the mare is
ovulating and ready for service.
This practice also stimulates the
mare into better receptivity.
In the wild, these pheromone
signals are important for propaga
tion of the species. The two sexes
communicate to ensure success
for the effort of finding each other.
They economize their effort so as
not to waste it on animals that
aren’t ovulating nor ready to
conceive.
How docs this fit into dairy
cattle management?
Well, we have coined the term
“silent estrus,” which means peo
ple can’t tell from smell when a
dairy cow is in estrus. Our noses
are incapable of receiving the
pheromone signals.
The bull, however, has no prob
lem sorting out and interpreting
the smells.
Scientific literature is full of
studies trying to find alternative
signals in cow behavior to help us
identify cows in estrus. We look
for restlessness, we put pedome
ters on the cows’ legs to tell differ
ences in activity, we look for the
mounting cow by putting
pressure-color patches on their
rumps.
But many dairy farmers have
retained a bull, a “ketch up” bull,
to do the smelling for them and
“ketch” those cows we’ve missed.
SSB. BINS AND AUGERS
It’s high time we add a new
name to our vocabulary of techni
cal terms: “bull effect!” This
would help us focus on our inabili
ty so far to duplicate the effect of
bull l?ehavior and smelling for
more successful dairy cow
conception.
We bemoan the long time it
takes many dairy farmers to get
their cows pregnant again after the
last calving, and we have made no
headway in this area in recent
years. Despite all kinds of modem
technology, we are still missing
the “bull effect.”
A very interesting new study at
the USDA Sheep Experiment Sta
tion in Idaho (Journal of Animal
LIONVILLE (Chester Co.)
Hollis D. Baker, county executive
director of the Chester/Delaware
County Agricultural Stabilization
and Conservation Service
(ASCS), says farmers who use
premeasurement service before
planting their spring crops will be
paranteed that their field sizes
are accurate for the 1994 program
Dekalb Signs Agreement To
Produce, Market Stock
DEKALB, 111. Dekalb Swine
Breeders, Inc. said that it has
signed an agreement with United
Grain Growers Limited of Win
nepeg, Manitoba that allows the
Canadian company to produce and
to market certain commercial lines
of swine breeding stock through
its Unipork Genetics business
unit.
Under the agreement. United
Grain Growers has production,
distribution, marketing and trade
mark rights to JSR Healthbred
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SCS Recommends
Premeasurement
year.
“Premeasuring assures fanners
that they are in compliance with
the acreage reduction require
ments,” said Baker, “and elimi
nates the worry over loss of prog
ram benefits.”
Before crop planting time.
ASCS will stake and measure any
type of acreage, or portions there-
commercial lines in the western
Canadian provinces of British
Columbia, Alberta, Saskatche
wan, and Manitoba.
United Grain Growers will pro
duce parent stock boars and gilts
that will be marketed under the
JSR “Meatpacker" and “Gene
packer” trademarks.
United Grain Growers will not
use the JSR breeding stock in
genetic research activities, said
Roy Poage, president of Dekalb
Swine Breeders, a subsidiary of
Dekalb Genetics Corporation.
We Stock Truckloads
Of Chore-Time Bins &
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FLEX-AUGER
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Large Or Small
Science 1994 (72) :51-55) indi
cates that pheromones produced
by the wax and wool of rams arc
not the only inducements to ovula
tion in anovular ewes.
The level and degree of sexual
behavior of the ram is also impor
tant in initialing ovarian cycle
activity as well.
Two types of rams were com
pared, low level vs. high level sex
ual performance, libido; that is,
more courtship and more time
spent with the ewes.
The efforts paid off in earlier
and higher hormone levels in the
ewes and ovulation occurred in 98
percent of ewes penned with high
level rams vs. only 78 percent in
ewes with low level rams.
It has even been shown that
ewes in anestrus were even stimu
lated to come into estrus.
For dairy cattle breeding this
means that pheromones in detect
ing cows in estrus or stimulating
them into estrus have not been
explored and exploited yet.
And the complementary impor
tance of bull behavior for exploit
ing the “bull effect” for better ovu
lation and conception rates has not
been translated from the empirical
states of “ketch up” bulls to a
more profitable systematic inclu
sion in routine, quick artificial
insemination techniques for better
success in dairy cattle
management.
of, that a farmer requests. To be
assured that acreage reduction
requirements are met, farmers
must plant within the stakes that
are placed when the land is
premeasured.
ASCS is conducting sign-up for
the 1994 farm programs. Program
participants are required to report
actual planted crops and other
acreage to be eligible for price
support loans, target prices, and
other program benefits.
“Premeasurement is important
in helping producers plan which
land to devote to the ACR and
which fields to plant,” the ASCS
official said. The service costs $2O
plus acres measured and includes
measuring, referencing, and mark
ing fields with stakes prior to
planting.
To schedule premeasurement
and other producer service, far
mers should contact the Chester/
Delaware County ASCS office at
71 W. Uwchlan Ave., Suite 130,
Lionville, PA 19341-3011 (610)
363-1626.
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