about A.I. School

[LoveMoo11]

Genex is offering a two day A.I. school nearby and it happens to coincide with my spring break and I was thinking about doing it..I had a few questions, so if anyone has been I would appreciate hearing about it before spending my money. What is A.I. school like? What do you do? Is it more lecture or hands on? Do you need to bring anything?

 

[jcarkie]

one day classroom and one day hands on, that is what we did at the one i attended. you learn the reprodctive tract and then the fundamentals of inseminating, we practiced on utereses in a bag, semen handling, it was interesting. then we did live cows.

 

[Double R Ranch]

The school I went to (all west/select sires) was a full week. 5 full days of school, half of the day was in a classroom, the other was working on live cattle. Part of the classroom work was using dead repro tracts which was the best way (in my opinion) to get the idea from bookwork to live cows.
When you inrole they should give you a list of things to bring. I also recomend a pair of clamps (to hold your glove to your coveralls) which wasn't on my list of things to bring, but I wish I had every day of class! I know with a full week of live cattle, I wish I had a shoulder cover also! Your coveralls get mighty nasty. Just some recomendations. Breeding your own cattle is very rewarding!
Best of luck!
Double R

 

[smallrancher]

LoveMoo, I have been to the Genex AI school twice, once in college and once in Wisconsin at their headquarters since I had just gotten a job with them. They were both 5 day schools, half classroom and half hands on. However, if you are going to a 2 day school, I would bet it would be mostly hands on stuff, and it will be up to you to do your own homework on much of the other stuff. At least that's what I would hope for. If you are interested, I would highly recommend it. They will probably go over semen handling, passing the pipette thru real reproductive tracts right in front of you on the table-- this is very helpful so that you can see and feel at the same time to start with. Then you will likely go to the stockyards to work on cows that will shortly be killed. Your arm will get VERY tired, as you will be slow at it to start, but this goes away completely once you are good at it.
Things to bring--OLD **** CLOTHES , also a t-shirt underneath your sweatshirt, or an old sweatshirt that you could cut the arm off if you feel the need. Leave your rings at home.
Good Luck!