Sexed Semen for Stallions: Thoughts?

[Donella]

Donella—That’s really not a half bad price. Was is based on “breeding dose” or ejaculate or number of straws?

Just a normal fresh/cooled breeding, so $1500.00 LFG, plus normal collection and shipping fees of course. The dose was not smaller than normal from what I can recall. I believe the stallion’s normal stud fee was $1250.00 , so if we wanted sex guarantee we really only paid a few hundred more. I thought it was more than reasonable. I am not sure why more stallion owners do not offer this as least with fresh/cooled.

[ambar]

When I last looked into it (looking at the XY Inc website and a brief phone chat with one of their people) the major drawback was that the stallion had to be on site, and there was no way I could justify, from either an expense or safety perspective, sending my irreplaceable 20+yo stallion from CA to TX. (He’s gone now, but we do have a stash of proven frozen to work with if that’s now viable.)

[XY_Equine_Lady]

[QUOTE=ambar;6996441]
When I last looked into it (looking at the XY Inc website and a brief phone chat with one of their people) the major drawback was that the stallion had to be on site, and there was no way I could justify, from either an expense or safety perspective, sending my irreplaceable 20+yo stallion from CA to TX. (He’s gone now, but we do have a stash of proven frozen to work with if that’s now viable.)[/QUOTE]

Back then, their answer doesn’t surprise me, but now that shipping fresh/cooled has improved greatly, a stallion would not necessarily have to be close to the sorting lab.

[XY_Equine_Lady]

Also, we have thawed frozen conventional bull straws to be used for sorting and it does work; however, it tends to get more bull specific at this point for sure as far as how hardy (basically) that particular bull’s sperm is to withstand 2 thawing/freezing processes and the sorting process. I am expecting the same with stallions and this is one area I’m looking into heavily because this may be a common starting point for a lot of stallion owners.

[ne1]

[QUOTE=Donella;6996438]
Donella—That’s really not a half bad price. Was is based on “breeding dose” or ejaculate or number of straws?

Just a normal fresh/cooled breeding, so $1500.00 LFG, plus normal collection and shipping fees of course. The dose was not smaller than normal from what I can recall. I believe the stallion’s normal stud fee was $1250.00 , so if we wanted sex guarantee we really only paid a few hundred more. I thought it was more than reasonable. I am not sure why more stallion owners do not offer this as least with fresh/cooled.[/QUOTE]

my sense is that folks are quite taken with the novelty of the concept without good familiarity with the drawbacks.

why is this not more broadly offered? there are very good reasons why.

but let me reiterate first that it is a novel idea that absolutely CAN work, and i have at least one heifer running around out back to prove it!

the devil is in the details. i’ve spent hours on this with dairy breeders although my own cattle herd is beef.

conception in cattle (a species unlike sport horses in that one of their prime qualifications is fertility, otherwise its off to mcdonalds) is significantly lowered with sexed. if you are happy with your conception rates, and comfortable with risking them being lowered… go for it! i am not aware of many sport horse breeders in this position, but there are some. do not be fooled by anyone suggesting there is no difference in conception. any extra steps and interventions made in the handling of semen for sex separation affect the semen, its fertility and your conception rates.

secondly, once more (and then i’ll stop raining on this little parade and let market forces do their own thing) it does not always work. consensus i have been given from dairy and beef breeders is that there absolutely is an increase in the selected sex pregnancies, if you can get conception. however, in no exchanges i have had, and also not in my experience of using sexed, is it close to the 90% advertised. 70-80% is what has been shared with me by folks who have no stake in skewing the numbers. when you start with a 50% chance of your desired sex anyway, have more to pay and lower conception… if those numbers all work better for you… have at it!

[JWB]

This makes me think of a thread a while back about what is better (a colt or a filly) and the consensus was that there was no consensus. Riders tend to want colts and breeders wanted fillies. The end result of this is that a well bred horse is marketable regardless of the gender.

For people who are breeding as a business, I wonder how cost effective this would be since the goal is to produce a foal to sell as economically as possible.

With this in mind, I suspect that the people who are going to want this service are the smaller hobby breeders, trying to produce their next competition horse, or replace their favorite brood mare. It seems in contrast with the cattle industry where this will be beneficial to the larger breeders. As a hobby breeder the concept intrigues me but I might breed one foal every five years. Are there the numbers to make it cost effective as far as developing the technology?

[Donella]

I guess the question would be just how much does it reduce fertility in horses? Because if it is just a ten-twenty percent reduction in fertility that isn’t bad if you start with a really fertile stallion.

As for the cattle breeding applications. Boy, you would think that dairy farmers would love this idea as it is my understanding that the male calves are basically a byproduct (waste) and face an unfortunate fate …wouldn’t it be worth doing the sex sorted even if it takes a few more tries to get the cow pregnant?

[Hillside_H_Ranch]

Dairy breeders do used sexed semen to some extent. However, NO, they generally don’t want to take more “tries” at a pregnancy, just to get a heifer. The longer it takes the cow to get pregnant, the longer the interval between lactations, and keeping cows in lactation is the name of the game in the dairy business. They want those cows pregnant, as soon as possible!

[Hillside_H_Ranch]

Also, I’m pretty certain that the Friesian Connection wasn’t using sexed semen. I’m pretty sure (but could be wrong) that they were using some sort of procedure involving centrifuging the semen and using an extender that was supposed to “select” for one sex over the other. I don’t believe that they offer this program anymore. Again, my details are vague, but my Uncle owns Doaitsen, who stands with them and I seem to remember something along these lines. I’m pretty confident in saying that they did not use a flow cytometer to get truly sexed semen.

[Donella]

Again, my details are vague, but my Uncle owns Doaitsen, who stands with them and I seem to remember something along these lines. I’m pretty confident in saying that they did not use a flow cytometer to get truly sexed semen.

Ha, small world, I loved that stallion! So, basically, I just got lucky?

[Donella]

Dairy breeders do used sexed semen to some extent. However, NO, they generally don’t want to take more “tries” at a pregnancy, just to get a heifer. The longer it takes the cow to get pregnant, the longer the interval between lactations, and keeping cows in lactation is the name of the game in the dairy business.

From where I stand it would also prevent millions of unwanted calves from being born and disposed of every year??

[Hillside_H_Ranch]

[QUOTE=Donella;6999141]
Again, my details are vague, but my Uncle owns Doaitsen, who stands with them and I seem to remember something along these lines. I’m pretty confident in saying that they did not use a flow cytometer to get truly sexed semen.

Ha, small world, I loved that stallion! So, basically, I just got lucky?[/QUOTE]

Well, you have a 50/50 shot anyway And maybe their procedure did skew the results in your favor, as well.

[Hillside_H_Ranch]

[QUOTE=Donella;6999145]
Dairy breeders do used sexed semen to some extent. However, NO, they generally don’t want to take more “tries” at a pregnancy, just to get a heifer. The longer it takes the cow to get pregnant, the longer the interval between lactations, and keeping cows in lactation is the name of the game in the dairy business.

From where I stand it would also prevent millions of unwanted calves from being born and disposed of every year??[/QUOTE]

I wouldn’t call them “unwanted” (although they aren’t as valuable as the females), as they do end up in the food chain after they are fed out and have matured to the appropriate size. It’s not as if they just kill them at birth. They do become beef…

[XY_Equine_Lady]

[QUOTE=ne1;6996506]
my sense is that folks are quite taken with the novelty of the concept without good familiarity with the drawbacks.

why is this not more broadly offered? there are very good reasons why.

but let me reiterate first that it is a novel idea that absolutely CAN work, and i have at least one heifer running around out back to prove it!

the devil is in the details. i’ve spent hours on this with dairy breeders although my own cattle herd is beef.

conception in cattle (a species unlike sport horses in that one of their prime qualifications is fertility, otherwise its off to mcdonalds) is significantly lowered with sexed. if you are happy with your conception rates, and comfortable with risking them being lowered… go for it! i am not aware of many sport horse breeders in this position, but there are some. do not be fooled by anyone suggesting there is no difference in conception. any extra steps and interventions made in the handling of semen for sex separation affect the semen, its fertility and your conception rates.

secondly, once more (and then i’ll stop raining on this little parade and let market forces do their own thing) it does not always work. consensus i have been given from dairy and beef breeders is that there absolutely is an increase in the selected sex pregnancies, if you can get conception. however, in no exchanges i have had, and also not in my experience of using sexed, is it close to the 90% advertised. 70-80% is what has been shared with me by folks who have no stake in skewing the numbers. when you start with a 50% chance of your desired sex anyway, have more to pay and lower conception… if those numbers all work better for you… have at it![/QUOTE]

Thank you for the “rain” because it’s always best to discuss both sides of a new technology before jumping in. However, the 90% I mentioned was purity of the product, either X or Y, being sold, NOT conception rate. Two completely different things.

Yes, there is a difference in conception rates with cattle and it’s NOT based solely on the sexed product. One has to keep in mind that there are several factors involved, i.e. the bull, the bull’s semen quality, the cow, the heifer, how reproductively sound all of the animals are, the technician, how accurate the tech is at their job, the breeding program, the way the timed AI program has been set up, how well said program is timed and synced together, time of ovulation and thus time of breeding correctly with the sexed semen…for either normal AI use or for IVF…both of which are different enough that details must be paid attention to.

Again, my intention here with this topic is to discuss stallions and the interest of the horse industry to such a product for their stallions, not bulls. All of these comments and questions are wonderful and are the very reasons why this program is back in R&D! Answering fertility questions will have to come after breeding trials so once I have current data on how the product performs, I will definitely share!

[ne1]

[QUOTE=XY Equine Lady;7002009]
Thank you for the “rain” because it’s always best to discuss both sides of a new technology before jumping in. However, the 90% I mentioned was purity of the product, either X or Y, being sold, NOT conception rate. Two completely different things.[/QUOTE]

sexed bull semen advertised to give 90% sex-selected pregnancies does not do that. it tends to give 70-80% sex selected pregnancies, at significantly lower conception rates.

the dairy farmers i know with herds of 60-100 cattle claim they are able to utilise other aspects of a female’s cycle to achieve 70% rate of female offspring. they do this with normal, unsexed semen. you cannot GIVE them sexed semen from top bulls.

@XY Equine Lady;7002009

Yes, there is a difference in conception rates with cattle and it’s NOT based solely on the sexed product. One has to keep in mind that there are several factors involved, i.e. the bull, the bull’s semen quality, the cow, the heifer, how reproductively sound all of the animals are, the technician, how accurate the tech is at their job, the breeding program, the way the timed AI program has been set up, how well said program is timed and synced together, time of ovulation and thus time of breeding correctly with the sexed semen…for either normal AI use or for IVF…both of which are different enough that details must be paid attention to.

this is a losing argument. commercial cattle breeders tend to breed significantly larger numbers of females per year than horse breeders. everyone needs to eat. very few need to ride. the technology, study and r&d behind the data in commercial cattle breeding databases far far outstrips anything that exists for horse breeding. they have literally millions of data samples to draw on to deduce their conclusions. (exactly how they found out the correlation between the quantity of milk a cow will give to the scrotal size of her sire, i don’t know, but they did) we do not have that, and horses are not bred for fertility. people who want offspring from a low-fertility horse will move heaven and earth to get it. those cattle were long ago quarter-pounders-with-cheese. it is ruthless selection for fertility among cattle. it is not for horses. and this protocol makes it worse. your per-pregnancy cost, which is already high, becomes significantly higher.

@XY Equine Lady;7002009

Again, my intention here with this topic is to discuss stallions and the interest of the horse industry to such a product for their stallions, not bulls. All of these comments and questions are wonderful and are the very reasons why this program is back in R&D! Answering fertility questions will have to come after breeding trials so once I have current data on how the product performs, I will definitely share!

it is a fair intent of the topic. however, the closest and best comparison available is the extensive data already collected from work with a similar - albeit not identical - mammal.

sorry, but my popcorn stays in the cupboard for this one. rain over.

[XY_Equine_Lady]

ne1, Thank you for your opinions. I do appreciate hearing all concerns as well as interest. Yet again, I have not once mentioned conception rates. If you would like to discuss anything further, we at ST will be more than happy to do so in a direct email because it seems you haven’t had a good experience with sexed semen. It isn’t for every program and it is certainly fine to not use this product. However, I joined this forum to have friendly exchanges with fellow horse breeding enthusists about an exciting, up-coming product for their (and my) stallions and plan to keep it that way.

[ne1]

i will be the first to stand in line when i have a sex-prefernce pregnancy to make, and you have a product which has high predictability, near-equal conception rates to unsexed, and minimally increased cost.

indicators from another industry are that this will take quite some time to achieve, if ever. there is nothing unfriendly in an exchange of accurate facts, and i am happy to source for you the facts behind my opinions if you would like them.

i sincerely wish you the best in your endeavours.

[sniplover]

[QUOTE=XY Equine Lady;7002009]
here are several factors involved,… the technician, how accurate the tech is at their job, the breeding program, the way the timed AI program has been set up, how well said program is timed and synced together, time of ovulation and thus time of breeding correctly with the sexed semen…[/QUOTE]

To be honest, I think this is going to be one of the biggest sources of “rain.” It’s hard enough to find a vet who’s decent at AI, let alone deep horn. The good ones in high density equine areas do maybe - MAYBE - a hundred mares a year, whereas a good tech can AI a few hundred cows a week (with sore arms, as my friends always complained ).

So, when you add up each of these rapidly compounding human errors, even just AI pregnancies in some areas are stretching the mare/mare owner’s luck… let alone for an older maiden mare, marvelous young mare with poor fertility, etc.

Good luck!

[XY_Equine_Lady]

[QUOTE=sniplover;7004850]
To be honest, I think this is going to be one of the biggest sources of “rain.” It’s hard enough to find a vet who’s decent at AI, let alone deep horn. The good ones in high density equine areas do maybe - MAYBE - a hundred mares a year, whereas a good tech can AI a few hundred cows a week (with sore arms, as my friends always complained ).

So, when you add up each of these rapidly compounding human errors, even just AI pregnancies in some areas are stretching the mare/mare owner’s luck… let alone for an older maiden mare, marvelous young mare with poor fertility, etc.

Good luck![/QUOTE]

Thank you

I agree, deep horn inseminations require more finesse. Where are you located? The densely populated horse area in TX and OK have many great equine vets whose routine, I found, is mainly AI.