How many of you are planning to....
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travlnusa
Well-known member
I talked to my AI lady about it and she tells me that the conception rate drops quite a bit due to fewer units in each straw.
I will pass.
I will pass.
vs_cattle
Well-known member
In The Comming Years I Would Try
Anguscollegekid
Well-known member
Think what it would do to different markets if it really got going. If you just want to sell steer calves, you'd buy male semen and have to buy replacement heifers. Haven't totally thought this through, but it would change a lot of things.
Boldcat
Well-known member
What company or companies are marketing it ?
My semen salesman hasn't mentioned anything about it .
My semen salesman hasn't mentioned anything about it .
Proverbs 12:10
Well-known member
I'm gonna try on some brahman heifers with angus or herford this spring.
Select Sires is the main one that comes to mind, but I think Accelerated Genetics and at least one other are doing some serious work on making sexed semen available. I heard that the company that produces Posilac (the co. name has escaped me at the moment) is working on ways to sort semen and maintain the same conception rates. I've been a little out of the loop lately, but I believe they were planning to have their technology available to the semen companies by December ('06).
Boldcat
Well-known member
I copied this article off the internet a year ago and have'nt heard anything about it since.
All The Sex You Want
By Lorne McClinton and Suzanne Deutsch
Apr 1, 2006 12:00 PM
Choosing your calves' sex may soon be as easy as picking a colored straw of semen. Want a heifer, select a pink straw; a bull, take a blue. A new technology to be marketed by Toronto, Canada-based Microbix Biosystems is said to be a fast, inexpensive, non-invasive technique to separate male and female sperm.
In mammals, the male sperm determines the sex of an offspring. Females produce egg cells with only X chromosomes, while males produce sperm cells with either an X or Y. If the fertilized egg is a double XX - an X from the male and an X from the female - it will produce a female. If it is an XY, a Y-bearing sperm fertilizing an X egg, it will produce a male offspring. Microbix's process works by separating the X from the Y sperm.
"The process will be marketed as two kits (male and female). Each kit will contain the sex-selecting chemicals, packaged in a powder formula and a sterile saline solution for mixing. Just add the appropriate sexing solution to the ejaculate and twirl gently for 15 minutes," explains Microbix spokesman Peter Belcher. "The sperm of the undesired sex clumps together and gets trapped when you pour it through a very basic filter."
Belcher says laboratory and field-testing indicate the sperm remain completely unharmed. In fact, he adds, you end up with a much higher-quality sperm.
"One of the fortuitous side-effects is the filter process not only traps the sperm of the undesired sex, but also fractionated, broken and immotile sperm of low quality," he says.
Targeted selection
Livestock producers pay billions of dollars annually on artificial insemination (AI) without certainty they'll end up with animals suitable to their needs. Producers want their best animals to produce heifers to improve herd genetics; they want the rest to produce bull calves to take advantage of the male's improved gain efficiency. The laws of probability, however, dictate 50% of all offspring will be the wrong sex.
"Every animal producer operates on 50% efficiency,"Belcher says. "When you multiply this - given the multibillion dollar size of this global business - it's mind boggling."
Technically producers would be able to build a herd twice as fast than with conventional breeding methods.
"From a producer's standpoint, you'd get a lot of cost savings. Being able to maintain the heifers' bloodline and have bull calves out of the rest, that would be the perfect world," says Tim Nerbas. He runs a 100-head, cow-calf operation near Waseka, Saskatchewan. "If it's priced reasonably, about the only downside of sex-selection technology I can think of is it might reduce the genetic diversity in the North American herd."
Belcher says males convert feed to lean-muscle mass 15% more efficiently than females.
"Anything in agriculture that improves efficiency by 2-3% is considered significant. If, all of a sudden, you can create a landscape where all your feeder animals are male and converting feed, which is your largest variable cost, into lean-muscle mass at 15% or 16% greater efficiency, that's very significant. It's win-win on a lot of different angles," Belcher says.
Early 2008 rollout
Belcher claims Microbix's sperm-sexing technology is simpler and less invasive than the flourescent-activated cell (FACS) technology currently used. With FACS, the sperm nucleus is stained and X and Y sperm are identified one at a time as they pass through a small aperture.
Since the nuclear material in an X chromosome is physically larger than that in a Y, the X chromosome picks up more stain and glows more. Staining the nuclear material of the sperm you'll use for fertilization is invasive and costly, he says.
"Our technology doesn't involve any genetic altering; there's no staining or flourescents or other manipulation of the sperm," Belcher says. "The sperm is left completely unencumbered. It's simply collected and frozen, exactly the way it's been done for AI the last 40 years. The only thing we're doing is separating off the sex we don't want."
Microbix expects to complete development and field trials over the next 1?-year period, and have the technology on the market by early 2008. Prices are yet undetermined but Belcher expects it to only nominally increase AI cost.
Lorne McClinton is a freelance agriculture writer based in Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan, Canada. Suzanne Deutsch is a freelance writer based in Greenfield Park, Quebec.
Not just cattle
Since sperm sex markers are very similar in all mammals, Microbix Biosystems' sperm-sexing technology will work for all, with minor variations.
"There are only very minor differences between the markers in cattle, hogs, horses and dogs, or any other mammal you can think of," Microbix Biosystems spokesman Peter Belcher says."Once we've developed and commercialized the kit for one species, we believe it will be very straightforward to do all others."
All The Sex You Want
By Lorne McClinton and Suzanne Deutsch
Apr 1, 2006 12:00 PM
Choosing your calves' sex may soon be as easy as picking a colored straw of semen. Want a heifer, select a pink straw; a bull, take a blue. A new technology to be marketed by Toronto, Canada-based Microbix Biosystems is said to be a fast, inexpensive, non-invasive technique to separate male and female sperm.
In mammals, the male sperm determines the sex of an offspring. Females produce egg cells with only X chromosomes, while males produce sperm cells with either an X or Y. If the fertilized egg is a double XX - an X from the male and an X from the female - it will produce a female. If it is an XY, a Y-bearing sperm fertilizing an X egg, it will produce a male offspring. Microbix's process works by separating the X from the Y sperm.
"The process will be marketed as two kits (male and female). Each kit will contain the sex-selecting chemicals, packaged in a powder formula and a sterile saline solution for mixing. Just add the appropriate sexing solution to the ejaculate and twirl gently for 15 minutes," explains Microbix spokesman Peter Belcher. "The sperm of the undesired sex clumps together and gets trapped when you pour it through a very basic filter."
Belcher says laboratory and field-testing indicate the sperm remain completely unharmed. In fact, he adds, you end up with a much higher-quality sperm.
"One of the fortuitous side-effects is the filter process not only traps the sperm of the undesired sex, but also fractionated, broken and immotile sperm of low quality," he says.
Targeted selection
Livestock producers pay billions of dollars annually on artificial insemination (AI) without certainty they'll end up with animals suitable to their needs. Producers want their best animals to produce heifers to improve herd genetics; they want the rest to produce bull calves to take advantage of the male's improved gain efficiency. The laws of probability, however, dictate 50% of all offspring will be the wrong sex.
"Every animal producer operates on 50% efficiency,"Belcher says. "When you multiply this - given the multibillion dollar size of this global business - it's mind boggling."
Technically producers would be able to build a herd twice as fast than with conventional breeding methods.
"From a producer's standpoint, you'd get a lot of cost savings. Being able to maintain the heifers' bloodline and have bull calves out of the rest, that would be the perfect world," says Tim Nerbas. He runs a 100-head, cow-calf operation near Waseka, Saskatchewan. "If it's priced reasonably, about the only downside of sex-selection technology I can think of is it might reduce the genetic diversity in the North American herd."
Belcher says males convert feed to lean-muscle mass 15% more efficiently than females.
"Anything in agriculture that improves efficiency by 2-3% is considered significant. If, all of a sudden, you can create a landscape where all your feeder animals are male and converting feed, which is your largest variable cost, into lean-muscle mass at 15% or 16% greater efficiency, that's very significant. It's win-win on a lot of different angles," Belcher says.
Early 2008 rollout
Belcher claims Microbix's sperm-sexing technology is simpler and less invasive than the flourescent-activated cell (FACS) technology currently used. With FACS, the sperm nucleus is stained and X and Y sperm are identified one at a time as they pass through a small aperture.
Since the nuclear material in an X chromosome is physically larger than that in a Y, the X chromosome picks up more stain and glows more. Staining the nuclear material of the sperm you'll use for fertilization is invasive and costly, he says.
"Our technology doesn't involve any genetic altering; there's no staining or flourescents or other manipulation of the sperm," Belcher says. "The sperm is left completely unencumbered. It's simply collected and frozen, exactly the way it's been done for AI the last 40 years. The only thing we're doing is separating off the sex we don't want."
Microbix expects to complete development and field trials over the next 1?-year period, and have the technology on the market by early 2008. Prices are yet undetermined but Belcher expects it to only nominally increase AI cost.
Lorne McClinton is a freelance agriculture writer based in Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan, Canada. Suzanne Deutsch is a freelance writer based in Greenfield Park, Quebec.
Not just cattle
Since sperm sex markers are very similar in all mammals, Microbix Biosystems' sperm-sexing technology will work for all, with minor variations.
"There are only very minor differences between the markers in cattle, hogs, horses and dogs, or any other mammal you can think of," Microbix Biosystems spokesman Peter Belcher says."Once we've developed and commercialized the kit for one species, we believe it will be very straightforward to do all others."
Herefordcross
Well-known member
I would do my own conception rate testes but, it's not available around here.
cjpherford3
Well-known member
i have been breeding my bosses holstien heifers with sexed semen over a year now and he says i get 65 percent breed with the sexed, he has more heifer calves then he has ever had in past years. on our polled herefords i am happy to get heifers or bulls, the semen cost 50 dollars for dairy. i work with all west and i havnt heard that they have collected beef bulls yet just dairy bulls.
Susie David
Well-known member
Put a new bull on the payroll....won't be AIing for at least two years...
cjpherford3":1ia3rsa8 said:
What's your conception rate with unsexed semen?
I'm thinking about using Forbidden (DBH-6, Rel99%) -- just need some holstein heifer calves that'll slide right out. Have you seen calves out of him, and would he be a good choice?
*Cowgirl*
Well-known member
Conception rate with sexed semen is significantly lower than "mixed" if that could be remedied, I would try it.
Jeanne - Simme Valley
Well-known member
Was planning on having some "sexed" semen drawn on my bull Macho, but just heard today that the research company has put things "on hold" for now.
Other sexed semen being offered is pretty low conception from what I've heard, but Accellerated is using the same technology as my guy has been researching - with great conception.
Buying sexed semen doesn't mean you will have all one sex - just MORE of one sex.
Other sexed semen being offered is pretty low conception from what I've heard, but Accellerated is using the same technology as my guy has been researching - with great conception.
Buying sexed semen doesn't mean you will have all one sex - just MORE of one sex.
