Young Scientists Award for Eilidh Thompson
Congratulations to Eilidh Thompson, European College of Animal Reproduction (ECAR) resident, who recently won the Young Scientists Award in Oral Communication Competition at the European Society for Domestic Animal Reproduction (ESDAR) Annual Conference in Thessaloniki, Greece. Eilidh’s presentation was entitled ‘Determining the Clinical Effectiveness of a Single Pre-breeding Examination in Predicting Subsequent Reproductive Performance in Seasonal Pasture-based Dairy Heifers’ and was based on her current research project.
This involved examining 15-16 month old dairy heifers before breeding and categorising them based on their bodyweight, body condition score and cyclicity. The matrix developed was then compared to reproductive and calving outcomes. The matrix was found to be predictive of conception rate to first AI serve and three/six week in-calf rate. This could be beneficial to farmers when deciding on breeding of replacement heifers or the use of high genetic merit/sexed semen.