refilling semen tanks

Help Support CattleToday:

hopalong

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 4, 2006
Messages
506
Reaction score
0
Location
my little place of heaven
At what point do most of you refill your semen storage tanks, had been using a service and decided to buy my own, supposed to have 140 day static time
but I do not want to trust that just yet and would like some freindly advice regarding the point to refill

Thanks
 
When I had to haul my tank 150 miles to get it filled Idid it at about 2 inches.
 
They say you can wait till 1 inch i dont really trust that i have 2 20/20s have them filled every 4 months cost is 35.00 i thought about what your doing checked with the local place that does that they wanted 45.00 with me bringing it to them so it was a no brainer for me to just let the rep keep filling it at my place. And i usually have around 4 to 5in left at the end of 4 months.
 
hopalong":9516k3t9 said:
That is when you have it filled, at what point did you head off to get it filled? that is my question
At 2 inches!
 
I bought a new 20 - 20 a few years ago cause the rep had em on sale and he wanted to stretch out my refill interval.

I picked it up one day to move it for something and it was empty. the darn tank had failed.

biggest loss was some embryos from a couple of our cows.

was only a little semen in it at the time.

I told him I would rather pay him to keep it full than risk running out so he comes every other month now.

if i take it to have it filled at the local gas shop they are crazy about what they charge. I checked into getting nitrogen from them to brand and they were insane. weird thing is my semen guy fills his big pressureized tank there. I know he gets a volume price but they were high enough that I walked out.
 
My semen is usually around 4 inches when it is refilled... I would buy a measuring stick so you can check it when the it gets close to time to have it refilled... That way you can make sure it doesn't go dry... My embryo tank is kept around half full... My embryologist recommends keeping it 15-20 inches...
 
Our semen salesman comes every 3 months to refill our tank. That leaves a min. of 6 inches in summer and 8 in winter usually. A lot of it depends on how often I'm opening the tank or freezing embryo's. I check my tank every couple weeks and write it down on my breeding callender. That way I can tell if my tank starts losing nitrogen faster.
Semen and embryos are to costly to throw away. Especially when it takes less than a minute to check and document.
Double R
 
Ideally you want the semen to stay immersed unless you're pulling it out for use. The temperature differance between immersion and sitting above nitrogen will damage the semen to a certain degree... That being said, the degree of damage is fairly minimal. I've run my tanks almost dry a few times and still had good results and I breed on average a hundred a day. There is a differance but I doubt you'll ever see it on a few head of well maintained beef cows.
 

Latest posts

Top