In thinking about all of the frozen semen I have purchased over the years…hmmm. I have had 3 successful pregnancies from SD (out of 2 doses), but, had to put the last mare down while infoal 
One by Diamond Hit after 2 unsuccessful attempts - to loose the foal mid term, 4 pregnancies from Stedinger, 2 that resulted in live foals, one that resulted in aborted twins at 10 months and one pregnancy lost early… all of these pregnancies were from full doses. 1 pregnancy from Starlight after countless attempts…to loose the foal to umbilical torsion last term, 1 foal from Lullaby from 2 attempts - resulting pregnancy was from multiple dose breeding - live healthy foal. And, one foal from a partial dose of Rhodium from 2 straws at the time that his semen was sold by the straw. So, this does not count my multiple other breeding tries with Fidertanz, Chequile Z, Hotline, Starlight, Lullaby, Serano Gold and others. 6 live foals from countless attempts (probably over 20). So, no, I do not think that the two or three time I have split doses has put any stallion owner at a financial disadvantage.
Breeding quality horses in the US is fairly much a thankless effort in terms of compensation, and for those of us who have given it our all in terms of resources, it is essentially a non-profit donation. I’ve seen others post this same sentiment in the past, and once, early in the game, thought such posters were being too negative, or even arrogant for saying so, but having weathered all of the various economic storms of loss myself including lousy frozen doses from stallion holders abroad in nearly a decade of participation, I now realize how valid that view is/can be. The last thing I want to see now is European stallion owners of really popular stallions bitching about a minority of mare owners in North America who got a rare break with frozen semen. I’m all for some real transparency in terms of frozen semen sales from abroad. Show me some real stats, not just “there have been some pregnancies”. My hat is off to many North American stallion holders who have to deal with so much fantasy competition
[QUOTE=Spike;7075870]
Yes… and no. Yes for the inseminating vet/tech but when I do my own breeding (not the frozen, but the rest I do it myself most of the time), but if I am the one who puts the semen in the mare, I am the one who signs it.[/QUOTE]
And in that case, you are considered the inseminating technician.
All I know is that every single time I have been involved in a discussion about BCs, the registry was adamant about a cert that was signed by both owner/agent and inseminating vet/tech, because the office in Germany required them. In fact, I know of cases where issuing of registration papers was delayed for a LONG time because the breeder couldn’t/wouldn’t supply a signed BC, and the office in Germany wouldn’t process the papers until they got a signed BC.
I agree the agent should have told you she didn’t issue BCs for certain registries, but I do know that some agents work primarily with one or two specific registries, and those are the only BCs they stock. I have also found that many registries accept BCs from other registries, as long as they contain all pertinent information, including signatures. For instance, I have seen OHBS/GOV accept BCs from AHS, ISR, etc. - in the past, they filled out an OHBS/GOV cert at the inspection, and stapled the one from the other registry to the OHBS/GOV cert. Also, FWIW, I have seen BCs come in that are not even registry-specific - some SOs issue their own generic cert.
[QUOTE=Indy-lou;7078342]
Breeding quality horses in the US is fairly much a thankless effort in terms of compensation, and for those of us who have given it our all in terms of resources, it is essentially a non-profit donation. I’ve seen others post this same sentiment in the past, and once, early in the game, thought such posters were being too negative, or even arrogant for saying so, but having weathered all of the various economic storms of loss myself including lousy frozen doses from stallion holders abroad in nearly a decade of participation, I now realize how valid that view is/can be. The last thing I want to see now is European stallion owners of really popular stallions bitching about a minority of mare owners in North America who got a rare break with frozen semen. I’m all for some real transparency in terms of frozen semen sales from abroad. Show me some real stats, not just “there have been some pregnancies”. My hat is off to many North American stallion holders who have to deal with so much fantasy competition[/QUOTE]
Yes, I agree. And many SOs will tell you it is a thankless effort to stand a stallion, with all the money put into buying it, rearing it (unless they buy it as a grown horse), training it, getting it licensed, meeting performance requirements, competing it, etc., only to find they attract only a couple of outside breedings every year (except for certain well-known exceptions) In general, there are very few SOs making ends meet on the cost of having a stallion, esp. here in NA.
And for all the big gun stallions in Germany/Holland, etc., that are being used on hundreds of mares every year, there are dozens who AREN’T being used nearly enough to justify their upkeep. Every big stallion station has some of them, and it costs them just as much to keep those horses as it costs to keep the popular ones, and the owners oftentimes end up trying to sell those less popular stallions.
Regarding stallion owners “bitching” about mare owners, this thread is a perfect example of it being a two-way street. SOs bitch about mare owners splitting doses, MOs bitch about SOs raising prices. In the end, the market will sort itself out as MOs vote with their pocketbooks.
[QUOTE=Indy-lou;7078342]
I’m all for some real transparency in terms of frozen semen sales from abroad. Show me some real stats, not just “there have been some pregnancies”. [/QUOTE]
^^I couldn’t agree more!^^
For an informal semen splitting dose poll I’m putting together for the UDBB I came up with the questions below. (The only reason I’m going with UDBB is because it will be an anonymous poll so nobody will know what anyone else does.)
DO ANY OTHER SITUATIONS APPLY? I want to make sure I’ve worded the questions correctly BEFORE I start the poll.
DO NOT ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS HERE. Either add to or suggest different questions.
When breeding with frozen semen:
I always split one full dose of semen in half for use on two separate cycles
I use each straw in one full dose of semen individually per cycle
I split doses in half but I also use full doses.
I have never split a dose of semen and use the entire dose per cycle
So… any changes or additions???
bits, IMHO your poll will be meaningless. There will not be enough results to matter. It will represent only breeders who go to a lttle known internet bb and take the time to answer a poll that is not terribly well written.
Much more telling would be stats gathered by SO or agents asking whether a semen sale resulted in a pregnancy (or pregnancies) with no penalty for acknowledging successful dose splitting. Of course, getting people to answer such a questionnaire will be hard to do - unless they are reporting failure, as people love to complain and are more slow to praise.
One needs to know how many pregnancies occur from the number of doses sold. Even with that information, there will be examples when good semen was wasted by bad practices or on infertile mares. So, it will be very difficult to interpret.
Apples and oranges.*
All I want to find out how common it is to split doses.
Is it a common practice or not? *
Semen quality/success rate per stallion is something else entirely.*
[QUOTE=back in the saddle;7078586]
For an informal semen splitting dose poll I’m putting together for the UDBB I came up with the questions below. (The only reason I’m going with UDBB is because it will be an anonymous poll so nobody will know what anyone else does.)
DO ANY OTHER SITUATIONS APPLY? I want to make sure I’ve worded the questions correctly BEFORE I start the poll.
DO NOT ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS HERE. Either add to or suggest different questions.
When breeding with frozen semen:
I always split one full dose of semen in half for use on two separate cycles
I use each straw in one full dose of semen individually per cycle
I split doses in half but I also use full doses.
I have never split a dose of semen and use the entire dose per cycle
So… any changes or additions???[/QUOTE]
My vet decides how much to use based on ultrasound result
My vet decides how much to use pre-ovulation and post ovuation
My vet decides based on direct motility examination
My vet attempts to reserve some for a second try
I tell my vet to use it all- semen may not be very good
Just a side note - I have been breeding since the early 90’s. I have never ever bred an ‘extra’ foal from a split dose of frozen, and my vet, whom I pay for his expertise, makes the decisions to split or not. My vet has, thru his expertise, managed to get me more than one try where the second try resulted in a live foal.
Some times, the first cycle you try, ends up not quite right for timing, in my experience.
I have also bred quite a few from embryo transfer and have never managed to get more than one embryo.
I have managed to come up empty many times.
So, frozen stallion owners can rest assured, that they have never been cheated by me.
Edits to add: if I don’t get a pregnancy from frozen, I look elsewhere. I avoid stallions with poor frozen results no matter how nice the stallion. If stallion owners start cutting the straw size, they will reduce their business and mare owners will be forced to use local fresh stallions. Maybe that’s for the best for local stallion owners.
Another Scenario
Suppose you buy 2 doses from a stallion to get two foals. No LFG.
You use one dose on one mare, she conceives, but fails to deliver a live foal.
Would you be allowed to split the remaining dose between two mares to end up with two foals ?
Not a theoretical question, thanks !
The whole point of shipping a full dose is to maximise the chance of conception.
Halve the dose, halve your chance.
Half a dose = double your chance = bad math!
i can only answer for Australia but here it is common to split dose as we have several semen agents who sell the semen under those terms - you can buy one dose only and get as many pregnancies as you like from that dose
A lot of the german and dutch stallions are sold with no restriction on the frozen semen so you can happily split the dose if you can buy it under these terms
I also import my own semen direct from Germany and Holland so I can do this, otherwise some semen agents sell at only one pregnancy per dose
I only ever use 1 straw, or I work on a quarter of a dose
so if a stallion is sold in 3 or 4 straws per dose, I use 1 straw
if a stallion is 8 straws per dose - I use 2 straws only
I have been doing this long enough now to know it is not the amount of semen that matters , but provided we are talking about good quality semen of course
I started out doing it this way just by accident
my first time was with a dose of Lord Sinclair which is 4 straws. I put 3 straws in a mare who did not take and had 1 left over
so I put that 1 straw in the same mare the next cycle and bang she went in foal
this sort of thing happened a few times and then I got in the habit of using a quarter of a dose
and it works. its also better for mares who get fluid, you get far less of a reaction to the semen using small doses
the semen agents here do take statistics but are not good at passing on the 1 straw successes. they would rather sell you 3 doses for one pregnancy - they don’t make as much money from 1 straw pregnancies
Paulamc
Here in Nz we are similar to Paulamc. often there is nothing in the contract that stops you from splitting doses. In the past I have seemed to buy semen that comes with a ‘one foal only’ contract. Thus far I have not been brave enough to split a dose. I bow to your bigger goolies Paulamc 
I do not have as much problem the stallion owners raising the prices when thinking they are having their doses split. But, I do think both hitting the mare owner with both a higher per dose price AND smaller dose size is perhaps taking it a bit far. Sure lower the dose size to make splitting less desirable…fine, but both limiting the dose size and raising the prices will entice more dose splitting as well if its expensive we certainly want to get more than one shot at it! point in case, I wonder how many Totilis foals have been conceived with partial doses? At that price…I would be treating it like it was gold!
I must add that I do all my own breeding work, ultrasounding and inseminating. I don’t think I would be doing the one straw thing with a vet - too many variables. I often put semen in BEFORE ovulation as well which I think makes an enormous difference.
Not always but I often do. I really don’t think that more than 1 straw or quarter of a dose is necessary, I have trialled it enough times to be sure
Paulamc
Hpwever, lowering the dose size to the point where conception is not a high likelihood (all else going smoothly) is never acceptable, regardless of pricing.
