Through the power of modern reproductive technology, a highly prized calf will soon be born in New Zealand from an embryo collected in Western Australia and sired in Canada.
None of the animals will ever directly come into contact.
Like live animals, the value of cattle genetics varies widely — a single embryo can be worth between $800 and $1,500.
Bovine vet Matt Carrick has recently received accreditation to collect bovine embryos for export at his facility near Dongara, three-and-a-half hours north of Perth.
The facility is the only one of its kind in Western Australia and one of just a handful in the country.
Mr Carrick has worked towards accreditation for the past three years and said he was very relieved to be completing the second round of flushing, or collection of embryos, for export.
"We couldn't just build it and hope that it was right, we had to make sure that what we were going to do was right and then build it to those plans that have been pre-approved," Mr Carrick said.
Stud manager at Gingin Speckle Park Emily Trainor is one of Mr Carrick's first clients who will be able to send embryos out of Western Australia, a feat she was not expecting.
"We can't actually send a live animal to New Zealand without all of the quarantine [because] they have different sorts of diseases and pests over there," she said.
"We wanted to have a small number of cattle in our own herd and we never really thought we would diversify to international clients seeking our genetics.
"It is very exciting for us."
Making a prized embryo
It is a 17-day process to prepare a cow to harvest embryos.
The animals receive a regime of hormones to synchronise their cycles and preserve all the eggs that are released. The eggs are then inseminated with semen from a selected bull.
Seven days later, as many as 25 fertilised embryos from each cow are "flushed" out and stored carefully.
The embryos are placed in a biological liquid that is used as a host environment once they are removed from the cow. This medium is kept out of sunlight and free from other contaminants so the embryos can live in it until they are stored.
It is a process that both Mr Carrick and these particular Speckle Park cows are familiar with.
"This cow has done this many times. She is quite a cow, her genetics are in demand," he said.
'I get to see my babies'
Embryo and animal technician Nicole Robson uses a microscope to thoroughly search the collected medium for embryos three times.
Ms Robson said that after the embryos were stored, cooled and frozen in liquid nitrogen, they could last forever.
"They are really suspended in animation — they’re frozen in time," she said.
Even in the sterile environment of the laboratory, using technical instruments to manipulate the genetic material, Ms Robson thinks of the cattle embryos as babies.
"I am quite often involved in the jobs where we go and put them into the recipient cows and then the next year I'll go back to the property and see my babies running around in the field," she said.
