SELECTIONS - Summer 2003
Some Things Never Change
By Mel DeJarnette, reproduction specialist
In today’s ever-evolving dairy industry, the only constant seems
to be change. However, some things never change, like the semen
quality and fertility you've come to expect from Select Sires.
For more than 35 years, a cornerstone of our mission statement
has been, is and always will be to provide our customers with the
highest quality semen available in the industry. What follows are
but a few of the steps in semen production and quality control that
ensure every straw of Select Sires semen has what it takes to get
your cows pregnant.
Healthy Semen
Reduced transmission of venereal disease is one of the major benefits
of artificial insemination. However, A.I. also is a means for disease
transmission if appropriate testing protocols are not implemented to
ensure adequate health status of donor bulls. Certified Semen Services
(CSS) regulates minimum standards for health testing in participating
U.S. A.I. centers. These guidelines call for each bull in the A.I.
center to be repeatedly tested for six different diseases at admittance,
and regularly retested at six-month intervals thereafter.
Last year, Select Sires resident veterinarians performed in excess of
55,000 health tests on about 1,750 bulls, while screening for at least
12 different diseases. No matter how you measure it, that’s more than
twice the minimum standard. This is just one example of the many "extras"
you get in every dose of Select Sires semen.
Processing Controls Ensure Quality
Select Sires’ staff of highly trained laboratory technicians averages
more than 15 years per person of on-the-job experience. Their attention
to every detail in hygiene and temperature control through every step
from collection to processing and freezing ensures optimum post-thaw
sperm survival. The number of checks, double-checks, rechecks and
calibrations in the semen-processing program is incredible. Thermometers,
water baths, scales, sperm-counting equipment, pipettes, dispensing pumps,
thermostats, freeze tanks and even semen evaluators routinely are
re-calibrated to guarantee the numbers they produce are reliable. Every
batch of extender is measured for osmolarity and pH to ensure appropriate
formulation prior to use. Antibiotics are added to extenders and raw
semen to ensure adequate control of microbial growth. Culture plates
are routinely submitted for bacterial testing from all processing
laboratories to make certain a hygienic environment is maintained...
this could go on all day!
Quality Control For Highly Fertile Semen
The semen-quality-control program at Select Sires is unmatched in
the industry. It’s not good enough that a sample simply has motile
sperm after thawing. Several straws from each collection are subjected
to a "stress test" before measuring both motility and sperm membrane
integrity. Research has shown evaluations after "stress" have much
greater correlation with fertility than simply evaluating motility
immediately after thawing. In addition, sperm morphology routinely
is evaluated on every bull. Any collection that fails to meet strict
minimum standards is discarded. As opposed to more opaque extenders,
such as milk, Select Sires extender formulation facilitates the evaluation
procedure and accuracy in estimates of semen quality.
Routine Audits Validate Procedures
If the above standards were not enough, Select Sires routinely contracts
leading researchers and experts to observe and evaluate processing
procedures. We ask them to tell us what we are doing right and, more
importantly, what we can do better. This critique serves to validate
the program and ensures that all measures are exhausted to identify
potential weak links and correct them before they have the opportunity
to become real problems.
State-of-the-Art Conception Analysis
Select Sires state-of-the-art quality-control programs are further
validated with systems designed to monitor sire fertility. For more
than 50 years, Select Sires has used technician non-return rates to
calculate an estimate of sire fertility known as Relative Breeding
Efficiency (RBE). More recently, insemination records from many
progeny-test herds now are routinely collected for use in sire fertility
estimates that we call RBE II. The new RBE II system accounts for
the effects of herd, month of A.I., lactation number, milk production,
days in milk at A.I. and A.I. interval. The initial RBE II evaluation
included 200,000 inseminations obtained during a four-month interval.
As data are added, the yearly rolling average is expected to grow to
more than 1 million services. Select Sires’ innovative RBE II analysis
is but another example of our commitment to provide you with the highest
fertility semen in the industry.
Research Keeps Our Customers on Cutting Edge
Select Sires is an industry leader in research related to bovine
fertility. We sponsor an annual symposium that brings together
leading experts to share ideas and discuss needs for future research.
In the past 20 years, our competitive grants program has contributed
more than $1 million to university research programs for the betterment
of our industry. These funds are in addition the research sponsored
through National Association of Animal Breeders (NAAB) dues and our
"in-house" research program, which is quite extensive in itself. So
extensive, in fact, that it became necessary to establish a new program
to orchestrate and implement the numerous ongoing field trials.
The Program for Fertility Advancement™
The PFA™ establishes a core group of herds willing to participate in
research projects on an ongoing basis. Incentives are built into the
program to reward herds for prompt semen usage and return of data,
while performance standards allow for replacement of herds that fail
to meet expectations. This organized approach allows for more prompt
completion of projects and/or implementation of promising new technologies.
In the PFA logo, you will note a distinctly different font type for
the "p" compared to the "fa." In scientific research, the "P-value"
represents the probability that the observed differences are "real"
differences or just numeric bounces of random chance. The special
consideration given the "P" in the logo is intended to signify the ethics
and integrity that are instilled in the PFA program. From alternative
extender formations to novel freezing techniques to investigations of
fertility associated sperm-membrane and seminal-plasma proteins, the
PFA program ensures that Select Sires rapidly can leverage the latest
advances in cutting-edge biotechnologies.
The end result is that you can count on Select Sires to provide
the most fertile semen in the A.I. industry. Some things never change.
™Program for Fertility Advancement and PFA are trademarks of Select Sires Inc.
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