Is IVF the secret weapon for smaller studs to compete with industry giants?

Sale catalogues across Queensland have begun to fill with IVF calves, as studs lean on the technology to multiply elite cow families and meet commercial buyers' demand for uniform teams of bulls.

According to Brett Sweetnam, key account manager with IGT IVF, the surge had been most obvious in northern Australia, where bookings spiked after the winter and spring sales.

"Producers really wanted to zero in on elite females and produce more bulls from fewer cows, and that shift has been driven by the commercial sector because they're the ones paying for the bulls," he said.

Buyers had become more discerning, often choosing fewer but higher-quality sires, and some large operations were even commissioning bulls to strict performance specifications.

"We're also seeing specific bull-breeding programs where bulls are bred to a specification, and those programs are using a lot of male-sexed semen alongside IVF," Mr Sweetnam said.

While conventional semen still dominated overall, the ability to combine sexed semen with IVF had created a clearer path to "more of the same" bulls at scale.

"The Bos indicus industry across the board has been very strong because IVF works very well in Brahman-content cattle, and Wagyu has also been very strong in recent years," he said.

The rise of new providers had also underlined the speed of adoption.

"IGT has been established for 14 years, and we were often the only provider in many areas, but in the last three to four years, there's been a significant increase in service providers," Mr Sweetnam said.

He said the single biggest practical win for breeders was that IVF placed far less stress on donors while keeping them in normal production.

"With the old MOET you're needling the donor many times; she can't be pregnant, and you have to keep her empty to repeat the process," he said. "With IVF the donor only gets the epidural-type needle at the tail head, and she can be pregnant and stay in her normal cycle."

That allowed studs to keep collecting performance data while multiplying their best cows.

"Uniformity brings big efficiencies in the cattle business right now, and IVF helps deliver that across the calf crop and down the kill chain," Mr Sweetnam said.

Recipient supply and management remained the major constraint, with dedicated recipient herds emerging among top clients.

"A good recipient herd is not cheap to assemble, so our best clients often run dedicated recipient herds and manage them very well," he said.

Programs had narrowed to fewer, better donors, focusing resources on only the highest-value cow families.

"Smaller producers can buy three or four truly elite females and, if they access the right semen, multiply them very quickly with IVF."

Mr Sweetnam added that resistance to IVF bulls had faded as sale results compounded.

"People are entitled to their views, but the evidence that IVF works is now overwhelming," he said.

Vytelle Australia and New Zealand regional director Andrew Donoghue said their company had also seen rapid uptake since mid-2023, particularly in Queensland.

"The main point of difference we bring is a reliable frozen embryo, and that has opened up a lot of opportunity in the north where logistics can make fresh programs challenging," Mr Donoghue said.

"We're seeing good uptake in Brahman, Droughtmaster, Wagyu, and Angus."

"In one generation, you're looking at about five times the genetic gain using IVF compared to AI, so you are genuinely fast-tracking progress," he said.

"It levels the playing field, because a big outfit with a nucleus of preferred breeders or a smaller stud with fewer cows can both scale faster," he said.

Recipient choice remained the deciding factor in conception outcomes.

"The key is to set up for success with the right recipients - age, fertility history, current status, and solid nutrition and mineral supplementation - because we see program-to-program variation driven by recipient batches, not embryo quality," he said.

Mr Donoghue warned against false economies.

"The last thing you want is preg-testing and then using empties as recipients, because that's a recipe for disaster," he said.

He expected adoption to keep climbing as genomics and freezing reliability improved.

"As conception rates creep up and frozen embryo reliability improves, it simply becomes more affordable, and genomics lets us choose donors more accurately at a younger age," he said.

He pointed to standout markers from Bos indicus programs.

"We had a Droughtmaster cow give 285 oocytes from one aspiration, and Droughtmasters have also given us the most embryos per cow, with one cow producing 53 embryos from a single aspiration," he said.

For Queensland studs, that had translated to more lines of near-identical brothers built off a handful of dominant cow families, aligning perfectly with buyers who wanted fewer, better bulls.

It had also reinforced Australia's global reputation for mass production of elite carcases, with IVF promising to sharpen that edge even further.

The technology had shifted the value equation squarely back onto the female.

"If you think you can run a seedstock program without any influence from IVF as this trend continues, you're kidding yourself," Mr Sweetnam said.

"As reliability improves and genomics accelerates selection, IVF will just become more common," Mr Donoghue said.