The threat of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has prompted Australia’s $32 billion red meat sector to consider freezing cattle semen and eggs for use in future programs breeding to protect their lineages.
Key points:
- The red meat sector studies mitigating the risk of an exotic disease incursion by freezing genetics
- Foot-and-mouth disease was detected in Indonesia in May and has spread to several provinces in the country.
- Stud breeders are weighing the cost of preserving cattle genetics in case the cattle have to be destroyed.
The highly contagious animal virus that spreads through cattle, sheep, pigs and goats has been detected in Bali, putting Australian farmers on high alert.
A raid would mean that millions of animals could be destroyed, undoing generations of breeding programs designed to produce the best animals for sale on national and international markets.
It has prompted some stud breeders to investigate the expensive option of freezing and storing bull semen and cow embryos as insurance if the herd had to be rebuilt.
Veterinarian and cattle specialist Ced Wise said coupled with record high cattle prices, the combined pressures meant he was the busiest in 46 years in the industry.
He said stallions small and large were inquiring about storing their genetics, and for some of the larger operations, that meant thousands of animals.
“They’re planning to do pretty big numbers,” he said.
Dr. Wise said that artificial breeding techniques are expensive, but breeders were weighing the costs against the risks.
“Putting an embryo on ice, putting it in liquid nitrogen for preservation, which we can do quite successfully, is going to cost you on the order of $200 to $300,” he said.
“Depending on the technology you use…that should equate to around $400 to $600 per live calf in the ground.
“It’s not a small exercise, it’s a risk management tool that needs a lot of thought. But people are certainly thinking about it because it could be a disaster.”
While storing bull semen used for fertilization was cheaper at $4 to $5 a straw, without the embryos some bloodlines would only be storing half of the genetics they had developed over decades.
Dr Wise said that while breeders would need to make careful decisions about what they preserve, it could be an important safeguard against all sorts of biosecurity threats.
“It’s critical because we have genetics developed in Australia, unique to Australia and the Australian environment,” he said.
For Australia’s beef industry, specific traits such as heat and tick resistance, meat quality and fertility in the country’s northern climates are unique to animals raised here and would not be easily replaced. by foreign bloodlines.
UK breeder regrets not freezing more genetics
Scottish Charolais breeder Hamish Goldie had to cull his entire herd during the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK in 2001.
Some 6 million animals were destroyed in that outbreak, which Goldie says was a pretty bleak time for everyone.
He urged Australian producers to consider preserving their bloodlines while they could.
“Not that many people had plans to store genetics and maybe looking back is something we should have thought about,” he said.
While Goldie was able to rebuild using cows from areas unaffected by the outbreak, she said it was made more difficult by not having access to her own genetics.
“Seriously, consider removing some of your best genetics,” he said.
“Try to get a store of some of your family’s lines that are doing very well.”
Keeping out foot-and-mouth disease is still the best insurance
But capturing the genetic diversity of an entire herd is a daunting task, according to a stud breeder in South Burnett, Queensland.
Alice Greenup and her husband Rick raise Santa Gertrudis cattle near Kumbia and Eidsvold, and she is also an independent Northern Director at the Australian Livestock Council.
The couple’s stud farm has 2,500 stud cows and a bullfight of 600 bulls, which they reduce to about 130 for their annual sale.
“It’s the complexity of dealing with that volume of cattle … you would have to preserve a large number of embryos and semen to even begin to capture diversity,” he said.
The stallion breeder said it was not something he was exploring right now, although the stallion already stores some of his genetics.
He said the threat of disease incursion was not new to the industry and the livestock sector had to remain vigilant.
“Potential incursions have always been a risk and it’s something we have to live with and learn to deal with in the long run.”