success with AI?

[Anonymous]

What is the success rate with AI? I've got a black simmental cow, and had her inseminated with angus semen. What are the chances that she'll take? Is there a pretty good success rate with AI?

Also, about the price. The guy who did this charged 10 bucks for the semen and 20 bucks for his work. Is that a decent price?

It almost seems like it would be easier to deal with having our cows inseminated every year than to mess with having a bull. Are there drawbacks to having cows inseminated versus having "mother nature" take it's course?

Thanks for all your insight and answers. I'm a beginner here, so I love all the information I've been helped with.

rwhite

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[Anonymous]

Given quality semen properly handled and stored, a competent technician, accurate heat detection, and breeding at the proper time. You should have well over 85% first service conceptions. Really it should approach 95% but there are always the strange things that can happen. Cow very upset/nervous, one of those early or late ovulators, etc. That is with natural heats, induced heats and timed breeding it will slip to more like 65%. Semen from good to very good quality angus bulls will run from 10-20 bucks a unit, depending on the bull, the stud, etc. I don't know what a tech would charge, it would be less per cow on a larger number of cows at one time. That's the reason people like to induce heats with one of the synch. programs. Now for your last statement. When we ran several hundred head and now that we are down to 20 or so, we used 100% AI. Yes it's more managment intensive, but there are so many benefits. You can use the appropriate bull for different cows/heifers, you have access to the top bulls of the various breeds, you can cross breed some cows, straight breed others, you can use highly proven and repeatable bulls, you knoe exactly what date a cow is bred and who she is bred to, you can really tighten up your calving season, you can better manage your cows for the profitable ones and cull those that don;t settle to at least the second service, no worries about too young of heifers getting bred. I think you get the drift. I don't know why anyone with the time even messes with bulls.

dun

> What is the success rate with AI?
> I've got a black simmental cow,
> and had her inseminated with angus
> semen. What are the chances that
> she'll take? Is there a pretty
> good success rate with AI?

> Also, about the price. The guy who
> did this charged 10 bucks for the
> semen and 20 bucks for his work.
> Is that a decent price?

> It almost seems like it would be
> easier to deal with having our
> cows inseminated every year than
> to mess with having a bull. Are
> there drawbacks to having cows
> inseminated versus having
> "mother nature" take
> it's course?

> Thanks for all your insight and
> answers. I'm a beginner here, so I
> love all the information I've been
> helped with.

> rwhite