Collecting and Sorting

[WalnutCrest]

I'm considering collecting our herdsire and having some of it sorted.

Some have told me it's a good idea to do it if he'll sort as it'll save years off of a program to build the herd to get 90% of your AI'd cattle to give you heifers for a couple of years ... others have said it's a total waste of time and money (I believe the actual quote was, "You're better off to take your wife and your girlfriend, if you have one of those too, to the casinos for a night of gambling, drinking and eating rich foods").

Looking to broaden my circle on this question since the answers have been so all over the place.

 

[Son of Butch]

I'm sure a math formula could be worked out to give you an answer.
It would have to start with how much do you value the daughters of this bull vs the daughters other bulls available to purchase, and or semen. You also need to consider how many daughters of this bull do you really want?
Is the value of the 100th daughter produced worth just as much to you as the 1st daughter? If not, by how much?
I'm sure your situation and goals are unique and my values would differ enough to render my opinion of little value.
I'm leaning towards it would cost more in days open, lower conception and so on than I would be willing to sacrifice.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

 

[WalnutCrest]

To me, it all comes down to "years saved by having a higher percentage of heifers in the next couple of calf crops" ... and ... "having pre-sorted semen for possible future embryo creation so I don't have to spend an enormous fortune to reverse sort it when doing the IVF".

Since I've never used sorted semen, I am relatively uninformed of the lower conception rates of using 5 mil sorted straws. I know many use 2 mil or 3 mil sorted straws, and I would suspect that is a leading cause of the lower conception rates ... just not sure if that same concern is justified with the 5 mil straws.

So, years saved ... odds of it not working out ... cost to try ... etc ...

Thanks for responding... Sounds like I need to let google search be my friend on this one.

 

[Boot Jack Bulls]

Walnut, search the topic on steerplanet. Those clubby people are big into sexed semen, and have tons of knowledge and opinions on it.

 

[WalnutCrest]

TYVM. Club calves are wayyyyy not my cup of tea. We'll see how that goes.

 

[Boot Jack Bulls]

TYVM. Club calves are wayyyyy not my cup of tea. We'll see how that goes.

Not mine either. But, they sink lots of money into semen and flushes. Some of the members are club calf people, but quite a few are just purebred breeders like us. They should be able to give you insight. Just don't post picture of the meat wagons you own, they might get jealous!! :mrgreen:

 

[WalnutCrest]

Didn't have time to go figure out stuff at Steer Planet ... so, yeah ... we're just going with the plain 'ol regular semen collection. Thanks for the insight / help.

 

[cow pollinater]

The poor fertility from sorted semen is from low cell count not the volume in the straw. I forget the numbers but it has about 1/10 of what conventional straws have. They package it in quarters because semen performs better when it is bunched tighter.
The reason for 1/10 is because they found that there are benchmarks that have to be met to improve fertility. Two straws does NOT increase conception by any sizeable amount. Instead it would take more like five straws to increase conception so they came up with a number that will produce acceptable conception with most bulls and made that the standard.
If you wanted to sort your bull I'm sure you could get it packaged in 1/2 cc straws at a much higher cell count and not experience much of the lower fertility with the commercially packaged product.

 

[WalnutCrest]

...hmmmm...