Services

 

Dairy Teaching and Research Center (DTRC)

• Reproductive assistance: Our group provides reproductive assistance to the DTRC. This assistance includes weekly pregnancy diagnosis on Monday mornings, weekly timed artificial insemination on Thursday mornings, and, on several occasions, help to comply with the hormonal shot program. We also look for opportunities to improve by tweaking the reproductive programs used and discussing with the DTRC team about challenges and opportunities. Since 12/23/21, we have conducted close to 1,500 breedings at the DTRC. From those, we have obtained 656 pregnancies, or 44% conception rate across all the breedings. More specifically, our group has maintained pregnancies per insemination rates of ~51% and ~60% for the first service in lactating cows and heifers, respectively, which is comparable to high industry standards.

• Co-Supervision: Since July 1, 2023, Dr. Gomez-Leon has been one of the co-supervisors of the DTRC along with Dr. Billy Brown. Cow comfort, health, nutrition, and reproduction are some of our main priorities, along with the staff’s well-being. Nonetheless, our main goal is to produce beyond milk, that is, to continue offering opportunities to train and teach students and to offer a good environment for research and outreach activities.

 

Physiology and Endocrinology laboratory

Dr. Victor Gomez-Leon is the current head of the Physiology and Endocrinology lab (Weber 258). We currently have four incubators (2 of which can control oxygen levels), a new gamma counter, a liquid scintillation machine, a microplate reader, semen tanks, a contrast microscope, and a stereoscope. Our laboratory also has multiple ultrasound devices of very high image resolution. All this equipment allows us to perform research and train students.

 

Other services include

• Dairy Science Club advisor and organization committee member of the Little American Royal.

• Member of the committee for developing a plan to build a state-of-the-art facility dairy unit.

• Participate in the USDA-Hatch multistate regional research project NC-1201 (Methods to Increase Reproductive Efficiency in Cattle).