Semen Handling in Cold Weather Part II
Transcript of Select Sires' Reproductive Moment Program
on DairyLine Radio Which Aired Dec. 14, 2006
With Ray Nebel,
Senior Reproduction and Herd Management Specialist, Select Sires Inc

This week we continue our discussion from last week where we were talking about semen handling during the winter months.
Let’s start off with how many straws you can thaw at one time.

Research data has moved up to four straws that are thawed simultaneously. Our recommendation is the number of cows that you can inseminate within ten to fifteen minutes. From the time that you remove that semen, if it takes you more than fifteen minutes to breed five cows, then your limit should be four cows. So the time it takes to inseminate that number of cows, whatever number of cows. If it’s three cows, if it’s two cows, if it’s five cows. Then we don’t want that semen to be out from the thaw box to the time it’s put in the cow to be more than fifteen minutes.

Anything that comes into contact with that should probably be around 95 degrees as well, you would think.

That’s correct, because the semen temperature in that half mil straw has a large surface area so it cools off very quickly. The stainless steel gun is a very good conductor of heat so we want to make sure it’s up to body temperature, or close to body temperature. The sheath that is going to go over it and that when we protect it or put a paper towel or a covering over that gun and put it within our clothing that we maintain close to our body to maintain that body heat and that so that once we get it into the cow that we can then put it back and let her take care of it. Another point that a lot of the companies are now selling electronic or thermal gun handling apparatus, these normally handle about five guns. It is an electronic warmer, a gun warmer, that we can make the guns up, put them in the heater and hold them. It is almost like a scabbard that you would use to go bow hunting. The guns are all loaded and put into this electronic holder and brought out to the cow. It is really the best method to hold the semen to the proper temperature.

What about the hygiene of this process?

Another good point is we want to have the highest level of hygiene possible. In fact the first point is, and probably one that most inseminators forget to do is, before we start to prepare the gun we need to wash our hands. A lot of times we have been out checking the cows, we observe the cows to see which ones are in heat, which ones are not in heat. When we come into the room where the semen tank and the AI kit is located the first thing is to wash our hands so we start off with clean hands when we start handling the semen. For the whole process from the time we start and the time we breed the cows the highest possible hygiene is of the utmost importance. When we get to the cow we need to make sure we clean off the vulva and make a clean entry into the cow.

Good tips, Ray. It’s pretty straight forward on the dos and don’ts of this. I mean there are a lot of factors that are involved in the fertility of dairy cattle, but this is really something you can get a hold of.

That’s right. A lot of times we get in a hurry and take short cuts, especially on an Ovsynch day when we have a lot of cows to breed like some of the big farms I‘ve been to lately, breeding 150-200 cows--that’s a day when we have a lot of cows synchronized and we’d like to take shortcuts. It sure would make our day easier but in the long run it doesn’t. These are standard procedures that we really can’t take shortcuts on. We have to maintain the highest of semen viability going into that female.

To brush up on these procedures in your herd, contact your local Select Sires Reproductive Solutions Specialist