Harvesting the exotic sheep embryos in Denmark and Finland
Dr Robin Tervit’s involvement
Dr Robin Tervit’s involvement
More of Robin Tervit's memories
By Dr Clive Dalton
After the disaster of MAF's first importation of exotic sheep breeds as live animals in 1972 , the second importation in 1984 was only be allowed by MAF and the Maximum Security Quarantine Advisory Committee (MSQAC) as frozen embryos and frozen semen. Denmark and Finland had the sheep the New Zealand MAF Research Geneticists wanted, and their health standards were also acceptable for importation.
Harvesting embryos
Photo shows Dr Robin Tervit recovering embryos from the exposed uterus and fallopian tubes of a donor ewe in Finland. Dr Vesa Rainio from Finland is assisting. Stuart McDiamid in background. Photo: Robin Tervit.
Robin remembers being called to Agricultural Research Director Dr John Hutton’s office to discuss the ET work he was about to undertake in Europe, and coming away with the clear message that his rear end would be in trouble if he didn’t get good embryo survival results post freezing. Hutton was clearly under the gun from higher up the MAF hierarchy, and he was never a man who liked to back down on issues. Fortunately, Robin got good results with help from local colleagues.
In the programme, the embryos for export had to be washed
10 times before freezing to ensure they were not contaminated by any disease organisms not wanted in New
Zealand. This was a fairly new development at the time. Semen
from each breed was also processed and frozen for transport to New Zealand.
Dr Robin Tervit’s involvement
I asked
Robin some questions about what he’d been up to with his ET work in Denmark and
Finland.These are his replies:
How long were you working on the sheep?
Late August
1984 through late October in Denmark, and late September through late November
in Finland. The Danish ewes were divided into 3 groups and one group treated
per week for 3 weeks from late August. The interval from start of
treatment to surgery was about 40 days and so the ewes were operated on and
embryos recovered during the first 3 weeks in October.
We left
Denmark during the early treatment phase of the Danish ewes, and started the
Finnish ewe treatment about a month later than the Danish ewes (i.e. in late September/early
October). Finn surgery was about a month later than in Denmark (November).
So, I was away from NZ for just over 3 months.
Were there any Kiwis helping you?
Yes, MAF
veterinarian Stuart MacDiarmid was with me for the whole time. He was
responsible for animal health issues and also did a lot of the surgery on the
donors.
I recovered the embryos from the uterine washings and then processed them through the freezing process. I accompanied the frozen embryos back to NZ.
Full technical details are given in the 1986 paper below.
I recovered the embryos from the uterine washings and then processed them through the freezing process. I accompanied the frozen embryos back to NZ.
Full technical details are given in the 1986 paper below.
Tervit H R, Baker R L,
Hoff-Jorgenson R, Lintukongos S, MacDiarmid S C, Rainio V. 1986. Viability of frozen
sheep embryos and semen imported from Europe. Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production
46:245-250.
More of Robin Tervit's memories
Denmark
The donors were
housed in a lovely historic barn which was not being used by anyone. I can
still see the Danes' look of disbelief when we took to the pens with a spanner
and sledge hammer to make them large enough to accommodate the large donors and
their rams.
Surgery was
conducted at the vet school in Copenhagen and went very well. The only problem
was that the vet students assisting us started to get difficult to commit to
assisting with the surgery. We discovered that they were not getting paid – a
talk to Leyden Baker soon sorted this out.
Stuart McDiarmid and I stayed
in a hotel in Copenhagen and , after traveling to Finland to begin the donor
hormone treatments, we returned to our hotel to find that we had been evicted
and replaced with some refugees from the Middle East. No attempt had been made
to find us alternative accommodation, so we had to go and find somewhere
else to live.
Finland
Conditions were
nowhere near as salubrious as in Denmark – but everything worked well showing
that you don’t need fancy facilities to achieve good results. The animal
housing barn was old and the water pipes froze, with the result that we had to
carry drinking water to the animals when it got cold. The donors were carried to and
from the surgery in a VW Combi van. The surgery was in an adjacent building and
the embryologist (me) was squashed into one corner.
Stuart and I were
accommodated in a house near the animal barns. It had a sauna but since we did
not share the Finnish enthusiasm for hot rooms we used it mainly to dry our
clothes. We did have some saunas with Finnish people, and I still remember the
heat hitting the lining of the nose – boy they liked the temperature high.
It snowed while we
were in Finland and though it was cold this was balanced by the brilliant
northern lights.
Roger Marshall's role.
Noted Coopworth breeder and New Zealand Meat Board member as asked to visit Denmark and Finland in 1984 on behalf of the NZ United Breed Societies to approve the sheep that were going to provide the genetics (embryos and semen) for the NZ sheep industry. It was an important responsibility and Roger was certainly an ideal person to do the job.
He worked in cooperation with breed society executives in both countries and Dr Leyden Baker from MAF. He reported his work to the UBS on 11/9/1984.
Roger Marshall's role.
Noted Coopworth breeder and New Zealand Meat Board member as asked to visit Denmark and Finland in 1984 on behalf of the NZ United Breed Societies to approve the sheep that were going to provide the genetics (embryos and semen) for the NZ sheep industry. It was an important responsibility and Roger was certainly an ideal person to do the job.
He worked in cooperation with breed society executives in both countries and Dr Leyden Baker from MAF. He reported his work to the UBS on 11/9/1984.
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