I am thinking of breeding my mare to Bretton Woods. I won’t be ready to breed her until I’m finished with my graduate studies in 2-3 years. His frozen is quite cheap now at $950/dose as he’s entirely unproven as of yet. My suspicion is that this very nice stallion will grow in popularity (and therefore price) in the coming years, so I wanted to purchase some frozen now and hang onto it until i’m ready.
So my question is, if I purchase frozen semen now and don’t use it for 3 years, how much would the semen degrade (if at all) in its’ frozen state? Is it expensive to have a veterinarian maintain the straw of frozen?
Properly frozen – forever and ever and ever <g>. I know there is frozen that was done ( I think) in the early '80’s that has produced foals.
However it does have to be properly stored. Different places charge different fees for storage. You need to call various vets and see. Vets who maintain a large inventory of frozen would probably be your best & cheapest bet.
See what your vet is going to charge first per year to hold it in the tank. It can really vary. Mine is very reasonable, but I’ve heard some larger numbers from others on here.
Theoretically it lasts forever. But you should know that MOVING the straws from tank to tank can cause some degradation. So if you decide to buy straws check out where you will have them stored, cost and make sure they will not be moved until you need them. As with any purchase - ask for complete data on each straw with respect to post thaw percentages.
I believe it is pennies compared to dollars to have it saved at a bovine frozen semen bank. See if there are any near you and check with them. They do know how to transfer it properly and maintain proper conditions as they do soooo much more than equine vets.
50,000 years…longer than you or I or probably anyone else will really care 
Also can be stored in frozen tanks marketed to the bovine market. They cost roughly half what people charge for “equine” tanks last time I shopped. If you don’t mind a picture of a bull instead of a horse on your tank, you can save lots – and maybe it will even help the vet to not mistake your tank for someone else’s!
Hansiska, do you happen to know any bovine people who do that? You’re pretty close to me
Sire Power is the leading bovine semen distributor. You can ask them. I used to work on a dairy farm in CT that used them.
http://www.selectsirepower.com/
I think Airgas also distibutes liquid nitrogen.
Sire Power may want you to be purchasing semen from them in order to use their services – which, even at $8 a straw, you may not want! – but you might be able to work something out with them and a dairy farmer. Maybe they would charge your tank with liquid nitrogen if it were at a dairy farm. You could pay the dairy farm to house your tank.
Here’s an example of how cheap semen tanks marketed to dairy and beef farmers can be:
http://sementank.com/
I store my frozen semen at www.bovine-elite.com Wonderful people. Very professional and very reasoable in storage prices.
[QUOTE=hansiska;5677838]
Also can be stored in frozen tanks marketed to the bovine market. They cost roughly half what people charge for “equine” tanks last time I shopped. If you don’t mind a picture of a bull instead of a horse on your tank, you can save lots – and maybe it will even help the vet to not mistake your tank for someone else’s![/QUOTE]
Err…not in my experience. We recommend using http://www.sementanks.com for purchasing nitorgen tanks, for whatever you plan on using them :)They are probably the cheapest around. Any time you go through a retail distributor that sells a variety of things, including those that are marketing for the bovine AI market, things will cost more. But, if you can do all your shopping in one place and consolidate your order, you can often save on shipping. If you go to a retailer that sells one specific thing you can sometimes get a slightly better price. All of our tanks have the brand on them…no bull, horse, dog, deer, nothin’…
Equine and bovine semen are all stored at the same temperature and must maintain that temperature to insure the semen viability. So, no differences there. Bovine semen is easier to work with in that it requires only 1 half ml straw per insemination dose, but it still needs to be treated “kindly”. But not all freezing and storage facilities are equal. We only store outside semen for clients that are bringing their mares to us to manage. Otherwise, we only store semen for stallions that we have frozen. All tanks have alarms on them and we dip weekly. If you are storing the semen yourself, make sure you store the tank off the floor on wood or on a roller board. And make absolutely sure you dip that tank at least once a week.
We charge for our clients $220/canister/year, but the only semen that goes in that canister will belong to that client’s stallion(s).
Sorry Kathy, but I’ve seen them for twice as much, otherwise I wouldn’t have said so. That’s a great site for cheap tanks. So is the one I posted.
[QUOTE=hansiska;5678708]
Sorry Kathy, but I’ve seen them for twice as much, otherwise I wouldn’t have said so. That’s a great site for cheap tanks. So is the one I posted.[/QUOTE]
Heck you can find anything for a stupid price, but that doesn’t mean most people are going to BUY them. There may be a few out there that point at the equine market, but let’s face it, most people that are going to buy a nitrogen tank have a better than average understanding of what they’re going to put in there and will do a bit more research :). You can find a few places that will hike up the prices exponentially, but I think most people just blow right by them…and it’s one of the reasons that Semen Tanks is one of the sponsors on our website. We hand pick sponsors and as part of that, they MUST have good products that work at reasonable prices AND provide good customer service :). See? We’ve got your backs :D!
And make absolutely sure you dip that tank at least once a week.
I don’t have a tank, but was thinking about getting one.
What does dip the tank mean? And why do you have to keep it off the ground?
[QUOTE=back in the saddle;5678733]
I don’t have a tank, but was thinking about getting one.
What does dip the tank mean? And why do you have to keep it off the ground?[/QUOTE]
You dip the tank to determine how much nitrogen is in the tank and what the evaporation rate is. Those numbers should be logged. If you see a sudden drop in the nitrogen levels, chances are the vacuum is failing on the tank and you can then get the semen moved before the tank goes dry. You want to keep the tank off the ground because condensation can cause the tank to corrode. Hope that helps!
Absolutely. But my operative point is that tanks marketed directly to the beef and dairy industries are often cheaper. For instance, the size tank I like with optimum hold time (20L/about 140 days) is $729 on the site you posted and $449 on the site I posted. Have I field tested these tanks? No. But I wanted to let people here know that there are other other ways to skin this particular cat and that googling “bovine frozen semen tanks” is one way to do, as you say, “a bit more research.”
[QUOTE=hansiska;5679072]
Absolutely. But my operative point is that tanks marketed directly to the beef and dairy industries are often cheaper. For instance, the size tank I like with optimum hold time (20L/about 140 days) is $729 on the site you posted and $449 on the site I posted. Have I field tested these tanks? No. But I wanted to let people here know that there are other other ways to skin this particular cat and that googling “bovine frozen semen tanks” is one way to do, as you say, “a bit more research.”[/QUOTE]
The XC 20 (20 liter tanks) is $540 at Semen Tanks (shipping included) and $525 through Select Sires - shipping is extra 
One thing I will add is that you can sometimes get nitrogen tanks used. Make absolutely sure that if you do get one, test it before you put semen in it. Many times with companies like Select Sires, they will have tanks available that have been re-manufactured, as well.
Not bustin’ on ya, just trying to make sure the information available is accurate.
I followed your link to this pricing chart, which is where I got my information:
http://www.sementanks.com/COMPARISONCHART.htm
I’m talking about the SC 20/20, which gets you over 140 days.
[QUOTE=hansiska;5679126]
I followed your link to this pricing chart, which is where I got my information:
http://www.sementanks.com/COMPARISONCHART.htm
I’m talking about the SC 20/20, which gets you over 140 days.[/QUOTE]
Uh huh - same tank. They pretty much have a “special” on all the time. You just have to go directly to the tank.
http://store.sementanks.com/xcmilleniumtank.aspx
http://www.sementanks.com/compare.html
I will say that their site needs to be a bit more uniform as to the pricing as there are different pages with different pricing, but I do know that they give the lowest price when ordering. The one page shows the tank at $540 and the second link shows it at $525. But, I have found that this site always and consistently has the lowest prices available.
Maybe the lowest prices available for MVE tanks, but according to my math $449 still costs less than $525. <smile>
