Paragon Veterinary Group has launched a new on-farm cattle IVF service.
The practice, well-known as a pioneer of bovine IVF in the UK, is using a specially designed vehicle for use as a Mobile Ovum Pick Up (OPU) Unit.
It means that the delicate eggs, known as oocytes, can be collected on farm, without cows having to travel to Paragon’s specialist facilities, saving farmers time and expense.
It also means that the collected oocytes are handled on-farm in optimum conditions, maximising the chances of producing the best quality embryos.
The Mobile OPU vehicle has taken to the road to travel to farms across the country, from Inverness to Hereford and remote areas along the way.
Paragon’s long-standing Advanced Breeding service already provides IVF to many farmers with cattle visiting its specialist facilities in Cumbria.
Rob Simmons, Director and Advanced Breeding lead for Paragon, said: “Paragon has always been committed to producing the best quality embryos possible through its IVF programme, and until now this ethos would have been compromised by undertaking OPU collections on-farm, where we would have been unable to look after the oocytes as well as we’d like.
“With our investment in the dedicated, custom-built van to provide the optimal environment for processing the oocytes, alongside a new device developed with our partners in Canada to protect the oocytes during the collection process, we are now able to finally offer an on-farm collection service without compromising the quality of the embryos we produce.”
Vets remove the oocytes from the cows on-site, maintaining controlled conditions within the van, before they are taken to be fertilised.
Imogen Threlfall, Paragon Assistant Lab Manager, said: “Previously we had to get farmers to come to our laboratory in Newbiggin, so that we did not compromise our standards. Now we can go to them.
“This means we don’t have to keep the cows at our practice — which can save the farmer time and money. But also means we can offer a service to people who might struggle to get the cows to us.
“The whole process is temperature-controlled, from start to finish, so we are not losing our high standards for IVF: our results should be maintained, without any detrimental factors.
“It just means instead of being restrictive, we can offer a wider service. We can offer more to our clients and suit everyone’s needs. It’s just the extra mile we can now go for them. It was the next logical step for us.”
It is too early to have had live births as a result of the new van, but Imogen said it is proving successful with a large number of frozen embryos already achieved.
The practice was at the forefront in developing bovine IVF in the 1990s and remains one of the industry leaders, pioneering the technique. To this day, the process is still a niche service that is currently only offered by three companies in the UK.
Paragon’s Advanced Breeding division is mainly based at its Newbiggin centre, where facilities include a specially designed temperature-controlled collection building and dedicated laboratory.
IVF allows farmers to produce multiple offspring from high value animals such as those which have high health status, are more productive, efficient and sustainable, so accelerating herd improvement.
Paragon’s Advanced Breeding offers a wide range of breeding services, including conventional flushing, embryo transfer and semen collection for processing into straws for Artificial Insemination. The team is involved in a variety of research and development projects at the cutting edge of cattle advanced breeding in the UK.
Paragon Veterinary Group also has Large Animal, Equine and Small Animal divisions and centres at Dalston and Wetheral near Carlisle in Cumbria.
