Episode 18 IVF with Vytelle and CB Genetics
Join Caleb and Ben as they sit down at Rankin Run Farms and speak to Zach Bartenslager, Charlie Adkins, and John Rankin about the partnership they have formed between Vytelle, CB Genetics, and Rankin Run Farms.
Click here to learn more about Vytelle
Click here to learn more about CB Genetics
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Caleb Sadler (00:00)
Welcome to Beyond Agriculture, the podcast that takes you beyond the scope of AG and into the real life stories, conversations, and events taking place in our community. Who we are and what we do is Beyond Agriculture. Hello. Welcome in to Beyond Agriculture. Caleb Sadler, your host here. We're out at Rankin Run Farms here in Bourbon County. Today we're joined with CB Genetics with Charlie Atkins on the phone, Zach Bartenschlager here in the studio, as well as John Rankin, the owner of Rankin Family or Rankin Run Farms. I'm sorry about that. So anyway, we're joined here today to talk a little bit about Vytelle, and I guess you could say the genetic side in terms of flushing cows. So, Zach, we'll start with you. I've kind of known you for a while now, but I'll let you introduce yourself.
Zach Bartenschlager (01:00)
Yeah, I appreciate that, and thank you guys for the invitation, and we're pleased to join the podcast. Like Caleb said, Vytelle is a unique platform. It's an integrated technology platform built to accelerate genetic progress in cattle. And so, specifically, that what we're talking about here today is we have three parts to our platform. We're talking about the advanced side. The advanced side is our IVF portion of our company. And so here at Rankin Run Farms, we're powered by CB Genetics, is powered by Vytelle. And so, we actually collect donors and send those oocytes off to the lab and then create the embryos in the lab and provide those back for producers.
Caleb Sadler (01:51)
I'm going to go a little step further. Zach and Charlie, you speak into this too, because we're going to have a lot of listeners that really are, I guess you could say, uneducated on this side here today. So I'll let you all kind of, if they were first time listeners, just picking up the podcast and listening today, tell us a little bit about those embryos and what those are and things like that.
Charlie Atkins (02:12)
Okay, so the way it works with CB Genetics through Vytelle is everything kind of goes through us. We help all the clients manage the mating forms, the semen that needs to get to the lab for the matings. And there's no set up, no drugs in this process. We'll do a schedule for, like, just, say, today at Rankin Run Farms, I think we had 18 head today, and we scheduled it every 15 minutes a cow and you come we already got the mating form done. You either bring semen to the aspiration to the location, or we can help you get it sent to the lab beforehand. And after that, it's all pretty simple. You drop your cow off, we run her through the shoot. It takes anywhere between ten to 20 minutes, depending on how many oocytes she actually has. And you can load her back up on the trailer right away and head home. Or you can wait around. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes, and we'll know exactly how many oocytes will go into the lab to get fertilized the next morning. With the semen that you gave us that you wanted to mate that cow.Zach Bartenschlager (01:00)
Yeah, I appreciate that, and thank you guys for the invitation, and we're pleased to join the podcast. Like Caleb said, Vytelle is a unique platform. It's an integrated technology platform built to accelerate genetic progress in cattle. And so, specifically, that what we're talking about here today is we have three parts to our platform. We're talking about the advanced side. The advanced side is our IVF portion of our company. And so here at Rankin Run Farms, we're powered by CB Genetics, is powered by Vytelle. And so, we actually collect donors and send those oocytes off to the lab and then create the embryos in the lab and provide those back for producers.
Caleb Sadler (01:51)
I'm going to go a little step further. Zach and Charlie, you speak into this too, because we're going to have a lot of listeners that really are, I guess you could say, uneducated on this side here today. So I'll let you all kind of, if they were first time listeners, just picking up the podcast and listening today, tell us a little bit about those embryos and what those are and things like that.
Charlie Atkins (02:12)
Okay, so the way it works with CB Genetics through Vytelle is everything kind of goes through us. We help all the clients manage the mating forms, the semen that needs to get to the lab for the matings. And there's no set up, no drugs in this process. We'll do a schedule for, like, just, say, today at Rankin Run Farms, I think we had 18 head today, and we scheduled it every 15 minutes a cow and you come we already got the mating form done. You either bring semen to the aspiration to the location, or we can help you get it sent to the lab beforehand. And after that, it's all pretty simple. You drop your cow off, we run her through the shoot. It takes anywhere between ten to 20 minutes, depending on how many oocytes she actually has. And you can load her back up on the trailer right away and head home. Or you can wait around. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes, and we'll know exactly how many oocytes will go into the lab to get fertilized the next morning. With the semen that you gave us that you wanted to mate that cow.
Caleb Sadler (03:14)
To average, Charlie, how many oocytes will you all get per donor or per cow?
Charlie Atkins (03:21)
Average is typically around 22 to 25 oocytes, and a lot of that's breed dependent. Some breeds give a lot more oocytes and embryos, and some are a little bit more of a struggle.Caleb Sadler (03:33)
So, when you all collect the oocytes at that time and you all ship them back to the lab, how many of those oocytes you collect at the collection day will actually fertilize over into embryos?
Charlie Atkins (03:43)
Yeah, that's also breed and cow dependent, typically. So we can run matings three different ways. We can run it conventional IVF, which is you just take conventional semen fertilize your oocytes. You can have bulls or heifers, we don't know how many. Then you can use presorted semen, which is already sex semen that you bought, or you can take conventional semen, run it through what's called a reverse sort machine at the lab, and basically what that does, it splits the semen into basically female semen and bull semen, and they throw the bull semen away. If all you want to do is fertilize for females or vice versa, we get some of the show guys that want to produce steers. They'll sort it just for bulls because they want steers for their market. Typically on the conventional and sex semen, as long as the oocyte quality is there and the semen quality is good enough, it usually runs around 30% from oocyte to embryo production. So if you have 30 oocytes, you should expect between eight to twelve embryos. As long as everything works good, then on the reverse sword, it's closer to around 20% to 25% from oocyte to embryo production.
Caleb Sadler (04:52)
Got you. Perfect. So I'm going to back up a little bit. I know we've got into some of the details of what we're doing here today at the farm, but tell us a little bit about yourself, Charlie, and I'm going to let you introduce yourself as well. Okay?Charlie Atkins (05:06)
Okay. So. Yes, my name is Charlie Atkins. I've been working with this IVF process for about going on ten years now. I manage Angus Cattle Ranch down in West Tennessee, and we used to conventional flush cows, probably 30 donors at a time every four weeks. And we got tired of all the shots breeding them three or four times, waiting a week to flush them, then sometimes they just still don't work. And you got all that time spent, all the money spent. So about ten years ago, we tried this IVF process and really never looked back. We got with Green River Embryo Transfer, which is our embryologist that we mainly use, and they helped us make the IVF process work better than most places across the country. And that's it. Then we had more people calling want to Aspirate and IVF cows with us that we just kept letting allow them to come. Allow them to come. And it grew into this business where we can help guys that don't have enough cows to get an embryologist at their place. So we basically manage the Aspiration days, help people manage their basically manage their donor programs.Caleb Sadler (06:17)
Perfect. That's awesome. So I'm going to back up a little bit and I know Zach, you talked a little bit about what Vytelle is. How long have they been in business? I know one of their big things that we've probably already alluded to is the fact that there's no drugs involved. So, tell us a little bit about that and then we'll see if we got any questions for you there.
Zach Bartenschlager (06:38)
Yeah, so Vytelle is actually at mentioned that we're an integrated technology platform. And so with that we merged with what was formerly known as Growsafe and is now Vytelle since. And so when that happened, Vytelle came as integrated platform then. And so Vytelle is a fairly new company, but we've really taken kind of the market share by storm on the IVF side and continue to grow each and every year. And so Vytelle, like we mentioned, is that integrated platform where we can see how cattle perform on a feed intake basis. We really are wanting to measure residual feed intake in cattle through our Grow safe system, the synth system. And really the idea behind it was if we can get analytics on cattle that perform better and how they intake, then on the back end, hopefully we can replicate those animals at a really high rate of speed and get as much genetic progress out of them as possible.Caleb Sadler (07:44)
Awesome. Now we're also joined we have a couple of other individuals, I guess you could say, behind the scenes, and we'll talk with John in just a second. The gentleman owns the facility here at Rankin Run Farms, but we're also joined with Ben Robin as well, who's running the tech for us today. But we're kind of going by a little bit of a script, I guess you could say. And I've got another question for you Charlie, in terms of once you collect these oocytes and they send them back to the lab, how long does it take in terms of timeline wise from the collection point to when you get an embryo back at your farm to put in that cow?
Charlie Atkins (08:23)
So, the way the Vytelle process works, we Aspirate today and on Monday at John's place at Rankin Run. They fertilize tomorrow morning at 24 hours after OPU. Then they grow them out and the following Tuesday. So day seven after fertilization, they'll freeze that morning, they'll freeze that afternoon, plus that Wednesday morning. They freeze three different times because there is no drugs, those embryos grow out slower. So I would say within nine, probably ten days from the aspiration we can get the embryos to you whether we ship them to you, you ship a tank to the lab or you just drive up to the lab and get them yourself.Caleb Sadler (09:05)
Gotcha, Gotcha. Now, in terms of when these cows come in, do the farmers need to prepare or anybody that's flushing cows, do they need to do anything differently, I guess you could say, to prepare for a collection day?
Charlie Atkins (09:21)
No, sir. Basically like that. There is zero set up in this. We can do them a week after you breed the cow. A week before, day before, day after, up until 120 days bread. There's no drugs. There's nothing really you have to do other than just typically keeping her in good shape with mineral and everything like that.
Caleb Sadler (09:41)
Gotcha. Now, I know that we kind of got into some of the, I guess you could say, the benefits between the two. But tell us, and you talked about it whenever you introduce yourself, but go back through the advantages there of going through this process versus the traditional conventional flush that you have.Charlie Atkins (10:03)
Well, the conventional flush, which is what used to be the most popular way to go, it's just you pump the calf full of FSH, so much drugs, it's like a four day shot process. Then you pull the cedar, give her a shot, she comes in heat, you have to breed her three or four times. Then you hope the semen works. Then the next week you flush her. And with breeding on that many times, you can cause a uterine infection, which basically there is no embryos. That infection basically ruins the whole flush. With this, we're kind of bypassing it to where we take Oocytes, which is in a conventional flush, the oocytes, you're making them there as well and we're taking them to the lab, we're fertilizing them. You can do five or six cows with one straw semen, where the other way you're going to use three or four straws of semen on one cow. So when you start adding up the cost and the labor and everything goes into it. Plus we can do them while they're bred. Where you can't conventional flush a cow, while she is bred, it's kind of a game changer. And a lot of people was noticing that because the ranch that I manage, we manage a lot of donors for us and other people. When them cows calf, the donors, two weeks later, we're already pulling oocytes and making embryos out of something that just calved.Charlie Atkins (11:20)
And once they're 90 days post calving, we're getting them bred back. So our donors calf every year on time, yet we're still getting the same kind of production as if we would have left them open for two or three years. Conventional flushing,
Caleb Sadler (11:32)
I think, perfect sense.
Charlie Atkins (11:34)
What a lot of people are really liking because one, they can sell the cow a lot sooner if they want to flush her for a couple of years, sell her while she's young to kind of maximize the value. We see a lot of people doing that with IVF because you can do them while they're bread and so fast. Then with the process of Vytelle, if you don't make any embryos, you don't owe anything. Basically you're at your time and you're semen. That's it. Where conventional flushing, they still have to charge you for all those drugs and everything. So you're still out $500, semen and all.Caleb Sadler (12:06)
Not even counting your time at that point in time because I know the conventional flush, you're running through the shoot at least three or four times, it's.
Charlie Atkins (12:14)
Worth whatever they think it is. It opens up a whole new, I guess, way of doing things and more time to do other stuff on the farm.
Caleb Sadler (12:23)
Now, I know you all flush every other Monday or once a month, I don't know exactly on that here at Rankin Run Farms, but in terms of other facilities that you all have across Kentucky or across the eastern states, where else are you all located at? And Zach, you may allude to some of that on your end as well.
Charlie Atkins (12:41)
So we have five locations including Rankin Run. We have one in Georgia. In Hartwood, Georgia. At DNW. Angus. We have two in Tennessee, one down at Crazy K Ranch in West Tennessee. One at Z Cattle Company in Clarksville, Tennessee. Then we also have one in East Texas. And all them run every two weeks.Caleb Sadler (13:02)
Every two weeks. Okay.
Charlie Atkins (13:04)
We just started at Rankin Run. We're going to start doing donor housing there to make it easier on customers that don't want to have to travel every two weeks or might have a little bit longer of a drive. So like John there, he kind of talked about it. He wants to take care of people's, donors for them, just like they take care of them at home and basically yeah, they don't have to travel.
Caleb Sadler (13:23)
No. That's awesome. And I guess that was going to be my next question, too, and I think you answered it there. But basically you can turn around and flush a cow every two weeks, basically with this process, correct?Charlie Atkins (13:35)
Yes. And we actually recommend that. And the only reason is after we aspirate a cow that afternoon, they're already getting ready to basically make a whole new Follicle weight where they're producing new oocytes. So whenever we get them on a schedule where we're doing these cows or heifers, every two weeks the embryo production goes up because the oocyte quality is so much better because all we're pulling is that new follicle wave. Where if you do them every three, four months or just time in between them, you're going to have oocytes of all kinds of different ages. And that's where you might have 40 oocytes, but on ten I'm good or something like that. So, yeah, if you can do them every two weeks and then get as many embroideries as you need and be done with them. It's easier on the cow, it's easier on you and it just makes the whole process a lot easier.
Caleb Sadler (14:21)
Now you just brought up one point that I want to bring up too, is the fact that you said that you all can do heifers. Tell us a little bit about that process. Is it very similar in terms of, I guess you could say, the number of oocytes you're collecting? Are those very consistent with virgin heifers or do you see a decrease in production on that side or what?Charlie Atkins (14:44)
Yeah, we usually see a little bit of a decrease on that side per breed. And it's just because a lot of these virgin heifers, they're not quite for sure enough, but then every once in a while we do some that they do better than the cows and we've done them. We don't have a problem getting them bred. I think the only problem some people have over the years is they keep on doing, but they don't stop. That's where you can get scarring tissue, which our techs and Vytelle are some of the best I've worked with to where if they see anything like that, they let me know, they'll let the client know and basically, hey, you need to get this heifer bread, then she's fine. But if you keep doing her this guarantee, she's going to build up. So yeah, it's very safe to do heifers, especially with the techs at Vytelle.
Caleb Sadler (15:26)
Perfect, I got you. Now, one thing, and I don't know who needs to answer this in terms of Charlie or Zach or both of you if you want to at that point in time. I know we've talked a little bit about the differences between the two and talk a little bit about cost wise versus the Vytelle or the oocyte collection versus the conventional. So talk a little bit about your all cost versus what it would cost to do conventional side too.Charlie Atkins (15:54)
Yes, we don't do conventional flushing much, hardly. I always don't do it at all anymore. But I think on average embryologists are charging between five and 600 and that's just for the flush where on the IVF part we charge $100 shoot fee and basically that goes to the facility. So just taking care of the facility, stuff like that. So there's a huge cost difference there. If you don't make anything in the IVF, you don't owe anything. We waive that fee where conventional flush, you still owe that because they still used all their material. They still all the drugs and everything. Then after that it's per embryo. Our price and scale is 195 for grade one embryo. Grade two embryos are 125 and we only do them by request. Most people, they only want grade ones and we have no problem with that. The freeze cost everything's included in that where the conventional flush, you have that huge upfront cost, then you have your semen. And a lot of bulls now are costing between 50 and $100 a straw. You have to breed them three or four times. Then most embryologists charge between 50 and 60 per embryo to freeze.Charlie Atkins (17:03)
So don't take long to add that up to where this IVF process in the long run is actually quite a bit cheaper.
Caleb Sadler (17:10)
I was going to say it's been a long time since I've done a conventional flush on a cow. But just the numbers you're spitting off, it's going to save you money in the long run. Versus what it would to do conventional nowadays, especially with the options you're getting in terms of spinning that semen and being able to sort heifer or bull or whatnot at that point. In Terms of, One thing I will ask, between the grade ones and the grade twos, how much does your conception rate drop off between those grade ones and grade twos?
Charlie Atkins (17:44)
So what we see on the frozen is we see about a 15% difference on average. But what we also do, which we haven't hit on yet, we do a lot of fresh transfers through CB Genetics. We've actually done some for a few clients up there at Rankin Ridge than we do at all of our locations across the southeast where we use grade twos and fresh transfers. And we don't see hardly any difference. It's just something about freeze them.Caleb Sadler (18:09)
Got you. So we're transitioning a little bit. We're joined here today too with John Rankin at Rankin Run Farms, and he is the one that's hosting us and is the one that hosts the facility for you all to be able to operate out of. John, I want to ask that you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and the operation you run here.
John Rankin (18:30)
Sure.
John Rankin (18:31)
Thank you guys for coming again today. I'm John Rankin. I was born and raised here in Bourbon County and married to my wife, Kayla. We have a little girl named Ramsay. She's five and about a year and a half ago, we were fortunate enough to buy this property after leasing it for many years, and I was looking for a way to utilize this facility, reached out to these guys and it's been a great experience so far.
Caleb Sadler (19:01)
Perfect. Now, do you all I know you all run the facility here for them, which is, if you've never been here, is basically state of the art, I mean, the way this place is set up. But I know you all run some cattle yourself. So tell us a little bit about your production side and what you all specialize in there.John Rankin (19:19)
Right.
John Rankin (19:19)
Yeah, we're just cow calf operation mainly, and that's really just cow calf right now and background calves for a little while, start some feeders, hopefully get into selling some replacement heifers down the road. Been fo rtunate enough to keep all my heifers for many years now. So down the road, hope to look into that.
Caleb Sadler (19:44)
Gotcha, now how do, and I guess all three of you all will be able to pitch in here. How are the facilities used the day that I guess you could say they collect here from your end, john, what are you responsible for that day? And then Charlie or Zach, I'll let you all speak from that end of it. Of what? Timeline, process, commitment to bring a cow or whatnot there too?
John Rankin (20:11)
Just maintaining the facilities, really on my end, making sure everything's running right and everything's in good shape.Caleb Sadler (20:18)
Okay.
Charlie Atkins (20:21)
For our end, for CB, it almost makes it way too easy working with somebody like John because he has, like you said, the state of the art facilities to where we can run cows through there. It's a hydraulic chute, hydraulic alley, state of the art lab right beside it where you walk the oocytes right in there. That makes it pretty simple that these clients can come and feel comfortable and kind of enjoy the process. We have a TV that John mounted beside the chute that we hook up to the actual ultrasound to where whatever that tech is seeing as he's ultrasounding, you can watch your cow get aspirated. I think that's one of the cool things about it, because a lot of people haven't seen it and I've been doing it for ten years other than me staring at the screen that the tech is doing the small deal, I haven't seen it on TV very many times.Caleb Sadler (21:06)
Now I'll agree with you there. I guess one of the first times you are out here, Ben Robin and I came out one day and looked at it and to see that Ben talk a little bit about seeing that side of it because it's pretty cool to see if you've never seen it.
Ben Robin (21:19)
Yeah, I mean, it's really cool to see the science behind it. Obviously what they're doing inside of the cow in real time, it's just something that you don't ever see, you don't ever think about, but you're seeing exactly what they're seeing. It's just really cool to actually experience that. But the way the facility is set up, you're right there, shoot side, you can see the whole process and just really cool. Something I'd never seen before.
Caleb Sadler (21:45)
Yeah, I will say too, when we were out here that day, you would picture it, you would think it would be something that would be like a very stare. And I'm sure from the tech side it is, but from our side, we were standing right beside the shoot. The tech was right there in front of us and we were seeing it up on the TV screen. So it's pretty cool to see on that end of it, but we'll circle back around a little bit. One other thing that Zach, we were talking about before was what Vytelle was and I guess you could say one thing that we've talked about is the three groups here that have come together to really make this thing work. So tell a little bit about that and kind of how that model is successful.Zach Bartenschlager (22:28)
Yeah, absolutely. To make this all work, we do need to partner up. And when I say we, Vytelle needs to partner up with good partners. And we have established many good satellite partners across the country that you'll see, if you go to our web page, you can see all different partners that we work with. And Charlie is a very good partner of ours, as you would notice, where we have five satellites with him, CB Genetics. And so really, sometimes it becomes a little bit confusing for clients to maybe figure out exactly why is there three people that are maybe involved with one location. And so the way we've structured that is that Charlie, through CB Genetics, they are the ones that are facilitating the day in, day out opu events that are going to take place at the facility. And then Charlie has partnered with a lot of good locations that we rent from or whatever you want to call that there with John and Rankin Run Farm or different locations as well, so we can utilize some of the best locations within the area. We want to partner with good people and we want to make sure that we get in areas that we can have as much reach as possible as far as where the donor populations are at and just be accessible for those clients and customers that are out there.Charlie Atkins (23:55)
The great thing about Vytelle is what they want to concentrate on is making the best embryos they can for producers. They don't want to own locations, they want to own cows. They don't want to own anything. They want to go through people like me and other satellite managers throughout the country to take care of the clients the best we can and basically just let Vytelle make the embryos the best they can. And with all that, the way it works, I mean, we're getting great conception rates. Our clients, they don't have to call Vytelle and talk to somebody they'd never met. They call either me or my wife who owns the business with me. And basically we take care of them pretty much daily. Semen, inventories, how many embryos they make, we do the invoicing. So if they have any concerns, they call us. The system, it just works out really good.
Caleb Sadler (24:46)
You said one thing there, too, that makes me go back and ask you another question, Charlie. But for instance, if you collected a cow, you sent it off and she didn't produce any embryos, do you all store that straw of semen or keep that on hand in case that they want to come back and collect that cow again?Charlie Atkins (25:07)
Yes. So we always try to get people to send at least two units of each bull they want to use. So whenever we collect a cow and they fertilize those sites and she don't work, unfortunately, they've already used that straw semen fertilizing what she made. But any semen that you want to send to the lab, we can send it up there for you. We can give you the address. You can send it there. They keep it there at no charge. All the inventory goes through CB genetics. So all you got to do is call or shoot me a text and with Vytelle system, within about 30 seconds I can text you your whole inventory. But everything's easy to take care of. Yeah, it's pretty simple. If you need it, we can get it shipped to you. We can get it brought down to the next OPU at whatever location we're going to and you just pick it up there and save shipping costs and everything.
Caleb Sadler (25:57)
So on a collection day, when they collect oocytes here, where is that lab at that they're going to are they transported by vehicle or air or how far is it in terms of proximity?Charlie Atkins (26:09)
Yes. So the lab we use for John's place right there in Paris is up in Columbus, Ohio. And Fabio, the tech that was there today, and Sam, the lab tech, basically they came down this morning from the lab, they brought all the equipment, everything. They're going to drive straight back to the Lab with the oocytes and with whatever semen that clients sent. So that's another good thing I do like about Vytelle. We don't use Ups, we don't use FedEx, we don't like stuff getting lost just in case because this is all time sensitive, these oocytes and everything. So basically it's either courier to the lab or one of the text drives it straight to the lab.
Caleb Sadler (26:43)
Yeah, I understand that completely because when you start talking about time sensitive, there's nothing like having semen stuck on a Ups truck over Thanksgiving break and you can't get in to get it and it don't get delivered until the next week.
Charlie Atkins (26:58)
Semen, as long as they're in that tank and don't go dry, it's fine. These oocytes, they go bad. They need to be fertilized 24 hours after they get Aspirated each cow.Caleb Sadler (27:09)
Got you. Well, John, do you want to add anything else from the facility side of things with I guess coming on now from a management standpoint in terms of housing the donors or anything there?
John Rankin (27:22)
I don't think so.
John Rankin (27:23)
These guys are great to work with.
Caleb Sadler (27:24)
Okay, good.
John Rankin (27:25)
It's easy going process.
Caleb Sadler (27:27)
Good. So I'm guessing those donors will be here for two weeks at that point in time. So they'll come and get flushed once and then two weeks later they get Aspirated again. Correct?Charlie Atkins (27:37)
Yeah. So what a lot of our producers do at all of our locations that we have donor housing and it's just two places that have donor housing. The newest one is John's, is they might. Say, hey, I'm way too busy with my main job. I want to drop off these five donors. I want to aspirate them four or five times. I'm going to come pick them up. I might even drop off four or five new ones. When people do that, basically me and John are managing their donor program. John's taking care of the donors on a day to day basis, making sure they're taken care of, have minerals, don't get sick. And then we're on my side. We're helping with the matings, the mating forms, making the embryos. A lot of these guys got to pay managers a whole lot of money to do that. This way they can do it. They don't have to have a management still go through them. But me and John basically take care of their cow and their matings and embryos.
Caleb Sadler (28:25)
Good.Caleb Sadler (27:27)
Good. So I'm guessing those donors will be here for two weeks at that point in time. So they'll come and get flushed once and then two weeks later they get Aspirated again. Correct?Charlie Atkins (27:37)
Yeah. So what a lot of our producers do at all of our locations that we have donor housing and it's just two places that have donor housing. The newest one is John's, is they might. Say, hey, I'm way too busy with my main job. I want to drop off these five donors. I want to aspirate them four or five times. I'm going to come pick them up. I might even drop off four or five new ones. When people do that, basically me and John are managing their donor program. John's taking care of the donors on a day to day basis, making sure they're taken care of, have minerals, don't get sick. And then we're on my side. We're helping with the matings, the mating forms, making the embryos. A lot of these guys got to pay managers a whole lot of money to do that. This way they can do it. They don't have to have a management still go through them. But me and John basically take care of their cow and their matings and embryos.Caleb Sadler (28:25)
od.
Ben Robin (28:27)
So Zach, we've thrown around some pretty highly technical terms. A lot of science goes into this process, but maybe give the listeners a little bit of insight into the IVF process and oocyte collection and what we're actually doing there in the shoot.Zach Bartenschlager (28:41)
Yeah, for sure. So this whole process has a lot of acronyms involved in it. And so we start throwing these things out and just assume that people know or understand exactly what it is. But when we're talking about IVF, we're talking about in vitro fertilization. So we're talking about the process of harvesting oocytes from a cow, sometimes be referred to as eggs. Right. And we'll harvest those from the cow and then we'll actually take those to a lab. We'll grow in the lab into an embryo or develop into an embryo and then send back to a producer. And so the way our process works is that like Charlie had mentioned early before, there's no hormones, there's no set up on the front end. We're taking what's naturally there. In terms of a follicular wave, we're harvesting those oocytes. So we'll go in transvaginally and we'll have a needle that'll aspirate those follicles that are on top of the oocyte. It'll pull that out. I know Ben and Caleb had talked about how neat of a process that you can actually see on the screen there. We'll have a searcher that's here on site that actually goes through the dish and sees what oocytes are there, gets an official count to send off to the lab.
Zach Bartenschlager (29:57)
And then at the lab 24 hours later, charlie had talked about, we'll do fertilizations and then the lab will do series of checks throughout the week to make sure things are progressing correctly. And then we'll have a series of four freezes. If a producer chooses to have frozen embryos, we also have the option for fresh as well that the producer will then get back at the end of the embryo development.Caleb Sadler (30:25)
In terms of fresh wise, how quick do those need to be transferred into the cow?
Charlie Atkins (30:30)
We do a lot of fresh transfers for clients so basically the way that works, just say we aspirated cows today at John's next Tuesday morning when they start freezing, if just say John's got some resets, he will split embryos in that Tuesday morning. We either set up a courier or he can go get them or send somebody to the lab to pick up what's called a straw incubator. And what the lab does that morning, instead of freezing, they look at those matings that we're doing fresh and they grade them for the last time, and they'll put them in straws in the straw incubator to where when they get to the farm, all the embryologists or whoever's transferring has to do is look at the paperwork. And this straw number one is this mating. And it's got the staging grade. It's already done. There's no microscope work. You put it in your gun, you go in there and you transfer it. Then you go to the next cow. It's just right on down the line. It's the most simplest way I've ever seen it done.
Caleb Sadler (31:25)
Got you.Charlie Atkins (31:27)
Especially for the embryologist side, where they're typically, when they flush a cow, conventional flush, they're under the microscope for hours, sorting through them, looking at them, figuring out what's what. The lab has already done this. So basically all them guys got to do is palpate the resips and transfer embryos.
Charlie Atkins (31:41)
Everything else is already
Caleb Sadler (31:43)
So, it's a pretty quick process. In terms of turnaround time, you're looking a week to ten days at that point to get those things back on the farm. In terms of fresh transfer.
Charlie Atkins (31:52)
It'll be Right at eight days.
Caleb Sadler (31:53)
Eight days. Okay.Caleb Sadler (31:54)
Got you.
Charlie Atkins (31:55)
Yes, sir.
Caleb Sadler (31:55)
So I know we talked about this a little bit, Charlie, and I'm going to let Zach talk a little bit more about it in terms of cost side and break that down truly as well. Maybe even touch a little bit from a commercial guy standpoint on that end of it, some of that side.
Zach Bartenschlager (32:13)
Yeah, for sure. I think that one of the things that really sets Vytelle apart and I think there's a lot of things that we can draw from, but is our outcome based pricing model. And Charlie had mentioned that is that it's refreshing to find a company that when you're trying to make embryos, you're just going to pay for the embryos that you make. And I think it's really important too, for producers to keep in the back of their mind that so oftentimes we get caught up in what the cost per embryo is and we just look at the dollar amount that maybe we get quoted, but we got to look at everything that's put into that. And so is that not only the FSH, if you're using a stimulation type of approach, is it the FSH that went into that? Is there a trip charge? What all that might go into that with maybe some of your conventional flushing or other methods as well? In our system, you are just literally paying for the embryo that you make at the end of the day. And I think that what's so refreshing is that if for some reason you have a low volume donor or she doesn't even make any embryos, heaven forbid that you don't end up owing any money or it's very little.Zach Bartenschlager (33:21)
And it really kind of goes back to our principle with Vytelle, is that we want to be accessible for the producers. We want to be the most successful, reliable and predictable IVF company that's out on the market today. And I certainly think that we do that through the way that we're structured. From a cost perspective, people really think that Vytelle or an IVF service is geared towards seed stock producers or maybe the show ring or whatever you might have in terms of genetic progress, but really there's a lot of opportunities from a commercial producer's perspective as well.Caleb Sadler (33:57)
So, John, from your end of things, what would be I know we've talked about it outside of this podcast, but talk a little bit about your perspective there and where you would see that Vytelle or this type of progress or process would benefit your operation for sure.
John Rankin (34:16)
And I'm sure it would all be from a cost standpoint. I feel like if you could go out to the field and pull and everybody that has any number of cows, whether it be 10, 20, 50, 200, and the commercial guys, if you could go out in the field and pull your best ten cows or five cows or 20 cows and replicate those, I feel like that's what these guys can do. It strikes me to maybe do that down the road. Of course I'm looking into that. But what makes me think of it, like you can go out west and see those ranches that have been breeding for 30 or 40 years. These guys, I feel like, could do that within just a few years.Caleb Sadler (34:58)
Speeds the process up for sure. And if you're going to take ten head at that point in time, you probably want to take from a commercial standpoint, you want to make sure that you're factoring in your cows that are weaning your heaviest calf crops and are probably going to cost you less in terms of input wise with the way the things cost right now.
Ben Robin (35:15)
Yeah. It can benefit any size operation. It doesn't have to be large producer like. You can do this on a smaller scale. We talk about a lot of the data that goes into it. Maybe Zach, maybe you can mention some of that. But I think in the way that agriculture is moving, everything is data driven. Whether you are a large operation or small operation, the more efficient you can get, the more data points you have. I'm a data guy, I like data a lot, but the more efficient you can get and this is a process that just accelerates it you talked about accelerated genetic progress. That's what we can do with this type of product.Zach Bartenschlager (36:00)
Yeah, we're a precision livestock company, right? So we are very much data driven. We talked about on the scent side, which many of you might know, formerly known as Growsafe, but on that side of things, we are constantly taking in data on how animals are performing. We're taking in pin weight measurements as they're eating and figuring out not only what average daily gain they have, but what are they doing with the resources that are in front of them. A lot of times we get caught up on thinking that a high average daily gain is a good thing. And that is good, right? But we want to make sure that they do more with less, right? And that's the name of the game here. And so we're constantly taking measurements on those livestock to see those that are just a little more efficient, a little more sustainable, that can make the world even a better place than what it already is. And then on the back end, we're keeping that data and metrics as well as we're on the advanced side and seeing how quickly we can replicate that in our system. We have metrics on all the donors that come through, and we can tell you from the first time that she was aspirated to this last time, and we can see how she's performed, what works, what doesn't.
Zach Bartenschlager (37:18)
It's really from a data perspective, we're very much driven that way.Caleb Sadler (37:23)
And that could add into the commercial side. There obviously there's a cost, like John said there with all of that. But if you're able to select those ten cows and those calves are the calves that are putting the most average daily gain on, that's just money putting back in your pocket at that point.
Ben Robin (37:40)
I think about from the input side, I mean, we're in a world now where look at the input prices in agriculture. We've got inflation, we've got transportation issues. There's all kinds of different things that play into it. So really trying to be more efficient, like Zach said, with obviously a lower input cost, that's huge. And we're talking about it too, and I don't know if he's mentioned, but we're talking this beef and dairy. So it works kind of the same way on the dairy side too, but that's cool stuff.Caleb Sadler (38:12)
I want to thank our listeners today for tuning in to another episode of Beyond Agriculture. Want to also thank our guests that we've got on today, Zach Bartenschlager with Vytelle, Charlie Atkins with CB Genetics, and John Rankin with Rankin Run Farm. So thank you guys for taking time out of your all schedule to join us today on Beyond Agriculture. And thanks again to our listeners and make sure you go out and like subscribe and share our podcast. This episode of Beyond Agriculture is brought to you by Central Kentucky AG Credit. Thanks for listening to the podcast, be sure to visit Agcreditonline.com Beyond Agriculture, access the show notes and discover our fantastic bonus content. Also, don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you can join us next time for Beyond Agriculture.