Laparoscopic AI: A Perspective from Wisconsin
 
 

 
  Mariana Marques de Almeida was trained in LAI at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, where she earned a Master’s degree in Animal Production. During those years she practiced LAI in Portugal and in Spain, where she collaborated as an animal scientist with a few farms. Today she is the breeding advisor and LAI technician for Ms. J & Company in Monroe, Wisconsin, a new sheep dairy facility currently milking 180 ewes (with plans to grow much bigger).
 
How long have you been practicing LAI?  I’ve been inseminating in the United States since 2017, when Assaf semen arrived in the country. We have inseminated all our sheep, so I have done it at least 400 times in my flock. We want to build the Assaf genetics, and since we only have frozen semen, all we can do is LAI. We get the semen straws from Spain.
 
What are your protocols for the insemination procedure? We can inseminate ewe lambs as early as 7 months of age, when the animal is at least 70 to 80% of its adult weight, which depends on the breed. We can inseminate mature ewes until they are 4 years old; in Spain we’ve seen that fertility is reduced in sheep older than 4 years. I want to produce milk year-round, so currently I lamb in the spring and fall, and eventually I would like to breed every month to have lambs every month. I inseminate all my lactating ewes, but only if they are at least two months into lactation and only if they are producing less than 5 lbs. a day.
 
What are your feed and management protocols before and after the procedure? I like to start preparing the animals 1 month before the insemination. At 15 days before, I start them on a higher level of nutrition. Their body score should be 2.5 to 3. But more important is that at the time of the AI they are gaining weight. Then whatever we are doing at the time of the LAI is what we should keep doing for 45 days. About 45 days after the procedure we can reduce the feed and slowly reduce them to a good body score for lambing. Forty-five days after AI, if they have successfully been bred with the semen, they are much less likely to miscarry.
 
How has your success rate been?  My best conception rate among the groups I have inseminated was 78%, and the worst was 40%. I always say the average is 50 to 55%. If we can have a group above that average, then what we did was right. With the 78% group, we kept them in a room in the barn. My orders were that we feed them but nobody goes in there for a month and a half!  So we had a huge conception rate. With the worst group, we had to move them from one barn to the other, had to change their nutrition, and then one day they got mixed in with another group so we had to sort them. They were stressed and it was a mess, so it really is important for good fertility to keep the animals doing whatever they have been doing.
 
If people want to learn more about the LAI procedure, or about dairy sheep breeding in general, would you recommend any books or websites?  For me, this is very hard to answer because the best training would be in Spain. But I would recommend the help of DSANA and experts, as well as a few books on nutrition, such as “Dairy Sheep Nutrition” by Giuseppe Pulina. This is a good and recent book on dairy sheep nutrition. Chapter 7, Nutrition and Reproduction, would touch on some topics I have discussed here.
 
Visit this page for the full interview – which includes information from Mariana on her lambing percentage, the ovine hormones she uses, and her top piece of advice for managing LAI ewes. (Photo above shows the Assaf breed.)