Kentucky Patent of the Month – February 2021
Hormones are often used to control reproductive processes in domestic animals including swince. Increasing reproductive efficiency in swine production helps to reduce production costs, thereby enhancing profitability. Typical methods of artificial insemination for swine involve heat (estrus) detection to ensure insemination happens at the optimal fertility condition. This heat detection is time consuming and often requires multiple checks per day. Thorn BioScience, LLC. has designed a method to synchronize ovulation in swine so that timed insemination can be implemented without heat detection.
The method involves administering various hormones to a postpartum sow at a specific time post weaning, which simulates ovulation. After a set time – which depends on breed and other factors – a single, timed, artificially intelligent (AI) breeding is administered. Synchronizing heat amongst the sows helps to ensure that groups of piglets are the same age, within days – streamlining the process to market and reducing aggression issues. This method achieves normal pregnancy rates and litter sizes without requiring heat detection.
About Thorn BioScience
Thorn BioScience’s original and continuing mission is to develop breakthrough commercial veterinary products for use in reproductive management, therapeutics, and vaccines of domestic animals. In addition to veterinary drug development, Thorn BioScience offers a range of contract clean room services, primarily to pre-clinical and phase I drug companies. These services include cGMP custom peptide manufacturing and aseptic sterile filling.
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