Sex Sorted Semen Part II
Transcript of Select Sires' Reproductive Moment Program
on DairyLine Radio Which Aired March 23, 2006
With Ray Nebel,
Senior Reproduction and Herd Management Specialist, Select Sires Inc.

Ray, we continue our discussion on sex-sorted semen. Let’s talk a little bit about their research with heifers.

We have been very cautious to use it in heifers because all our research would say that conventional semen gets about 60 percent on average conception in heifers, our sex-sorted semen gets 45, and this is over three years at about roughly 3,000 heifers bred with sex-sorted semen. We know there is a reduction in fertility, so in the embryo transfer procedure we are looking for four sperm that’s needed, and they actually put in two, four, six, eight million semen that is about half a straw. Normally we put in two straws of semen, and they were getting not as many eggs but when you figure the ratio to heifers would be much greater they felt they would be way ahead.

How about giving us an update about what is going on at headquarters for Select Sires in Plain City, Ohio. How many straws are there right now and what is going to be going on there in the future?

Sexing Technologies moved up four machines to Plain City, not directly at our facility, but it is in a facility right down the street from us that was our export facility when we had Select Embryos. It is where the recipients were at, so it is a facility that we modified to accommodate the machines that are very highly specialized machines. They brought in four machines; they have three eight-hour shifts. These machines run twenty-four hours a day. It started commercially the last week in February, I think it was the 26th of February, and they are running somewhere between 500 to 700 units per day that is being sorted and the third day they were in operation I was there and it put goose-bumps up and down your spine because it is really high-tech and it was amazing to see it all in action as it was going through there and it was working – it was really kind of neat.

Before it seemed like you were cautiously introducing these Gender-Selected sires to the market.

We have enough breedings now, we know that we have a spreadsheet to look at that individual producer’s economic impact on that farm; again, with the gender ratio we are very confident that we are expecting about 90 percent heifers. The conception rate, we say, is going to be about 60 percent conventional, 45 percent on sexed sorted semen in heifers. We are currently doing a research project in lactating cows and again in heifers at three different sperm concentrations, again to tweak the process if needed. But, I guess the confidence we have seen through the experiments that we have done and again commercially farms using it we are getting more and more confidence behind it. Right now we are currently sexing 10 to 15 new bulls that are currently not available, and in about a month we will release those bulls, which will give us some new genetics, maybe a little bit higher genetics than what has been available. I think things are really evolving and there is a lot of optimism as far as the gender SELECTed™ semen.

Can anyone purchase this?

Yes. All of the co-ops have it on their price list, eight bulls are currently available in the gender SELECTed line-up and in about a month there will be about fifteen additional bulls.

Thinking is, Ray, when you are out and about again visiting more farms you probably see more and more of this.

Right. What I see is the larger farms that can scale, because if we take a 100-cow dairy they can also add a few more heifers, but on a 1000-cow dairy it is just ten times that many. Again, it really doesn’t depend on scale, either to grow within or have heifers to sell on the market today the heifer price is still up there. So, either sell a few heifers or grow within and expand is where we are really seeing them taking off.

Somebody listening here, a producer who is interested in this, what would be his or her first step?

To contact the local Select Sires member, all ten members are selling gender SELECTed semen; tell them of your interest in gender SELECTed, I am sure they would be glad to tell them what bulls are available and at what price.

Ray Nebel, Select Sires’ reproductive solutions specialist.