Farm Fertility Industry Growing
NATCHEZ — Fertility clinics may be a big business for those hoping to become parents-to-be, but it’s also a growing sub-industry in agriculture.Natchez veterinarian Thomas Borum, whose fertility work is mostly with transferring cattle embryos, said the processes used have made some big advances, including going from surgical to non-surgical means.
With cattle, Borum begins with a hormonal treatment to make the cow ovulate 20 to 50 eggs, Borum said.
This process is known as super-ovulation, he said.
Once the cow ovulates, she is artificially inseminated, Borum said.
Then it is only a matter of waiting.
Seven days later — by the time the then-fertilized embryos have made their way into the uterus — the veterinarian inserts a catheter into the cow’s uterus and flushes it with special solutions, Borum said.
The solutions are then passed through a filter, and the filter is washed into a petri dish, which is placed under a microscope, he said.
“You just look for the embryos,” he said. “There could be 20 or 50, and there could be none.”
Once the embryos are identified, they are graded.