Written by Lonny (October 27, 2009)
I slept well last night - finally! Unfortunately, it was a short night because I was up late doing scheduling, and then I was up early to talk to my family on Skype before heading to work. At least I am feeling a little more refreshed than before. Unfortunately the fish that I ate last night had a negative effect on my digestive system. I made four trips to the bathroom before starting my day. I chose my breakfast wisely.
Yared our driver took us to Adami Tulu today where we checked pregnancy on the 40 embryo recipients. We only had seven animals pregnant. This is lower than we would have expected in the United States however given the condition of the recipient cows and some other issues we don’t feel terribly bad. We now know that success can be achieved under very adverse conditions.
We will select 30 of the best animals to use in the next phase of our program. We are going to retrieve (flush) embryos from “good” cows here in Ethiopia and implant those embryos in their recipients. They are very excited about us teaching them this procedure. I am excited to start round two with animals in better condition, this is a learning process every day!