Use of Sexed Semen anyone ?

[tdarden3k]

I know that a lot of you are AI'ing your cattle and I was wondering if any of you had used sexed semen before and with what results.
I did some reading on it a year or so ago and the article writer said that the semen production houses tended to use semen from bulls that were lower quality than non-sexed semen.

Also mentioned that the "concentration" of sperm cells was less in sexed semen as well as the actual sperm cells for female sex semen were a lot smaller and a lot less mobile/motile ?

More expensive as well.
Any thoughts anyone ?

 

[bse]

I tried a few straws with no luck not really enough to be fair but it was on cows several yrs ago and now I think they say use it on heifers. I don't think they use less quality bulls because most of the sexed semen is on there front line bulls. it is less sperm in it and not 100% sexed I think its around 95% so even if you get them settled it could be the other sex. I think they are making advances in it, its been awhile since I checked on it so they could already be ahead of what I know. so unless they have advanced a lot ill take my 50/50 chance and save myself half the cost.

 

[insurman]

used sexed heifer semen from Uno Mas on a very nice Simbravieh heifer...did not take.

I will try again at some point since I have some straws left.

 

[Till-Hill]

Every year since came out I have used Genex, Select, ABS, Accelerated, and Semex's. All beef heifers usually get it first service. It has been talked about before on here. But #1 rule is natural heat or at least NOT TAI! If you want good success. Cows make sure they are fertile as all get out. But stick with heifers in a good standing heat. Used 100's if not 1000's units and achieve same results as conventional semen if you use your head.

 

[Putangitangi]

I have wide experience ... I bought and used one pink Jersey straw. I watched my intended recipient's heat timing very carefully and while my partner held the torch, I inseminated her at around midnight one summer evening. The resulting calf is now our Jersey-Angus housecow in her second lactation.

I understood that timing and careful handling was quite crucial with sexed semen because it is not as forgiving as unsorted. I don't ever use TAI, all insems done on natural heats.

 

[cow pollinater]

I've used literally tens of thousands of units of the stuff and most of it was on lactating dairy cows and most were TAI. Your best option is far and away heifers and even then you'll be off some but you can get cows pregnant with it. I have one large herd where most of it went that averaged three services per conception on wet cows at sixty days in milk. That's WAY better than most people's results but it can be done. I used it across the board as in no picking and choosing just every cow that fit the timeframe got it. There was a lot more early embroyonic death with it as compared to conventional.
You'll want to be picky about who you buy it from. Some companies have cheapened it by running the sorter at a faster pace and the result is higher conception(since there's a bunch more semen in the straw) but lower accuracy(since a bunch of male semen gets by). Don't waste your money on low accuracy stuff. You'd come out with more heifers by using conventional and getting more cattle pregnant.
Personally, I wouldn't touch the stuff for beef cattle. The economics of it don't make sense to me.

 

[Jake]

I've used literally tens of thousands of units of the stuff and most of it was on lactating dairy cows and most were TAI. Your best option is far and away heifers and even then you'll be off some but you can get cows pregnant with it. I have one large herd where most of it went that averaged three services per conception on wet cows at sixty days in milk. That's WAY better than most people's results but it can be done. I used it across the board as in no picking and choosing just every cow that fit the timeframe got it. There was a lot more early embroyonic death with it as compared to conventional.
You'll want to be picky about who you buy it from. Some companies have cheapened it by running the sorter at a faster pace and the result is higher conception(since there's a bunch more semen in the straw) but lower accuracy(since a bunch of male semen gets by). Don't waste your money on low accuracy stuff. You'd come out with more heifers by using conventional and getting more cattle pregnant.
Personally, I wouldn't touch the stuff for beef cattle. The economics of it don't make sense to me.

I know Finks was going to flush with sexed bull semen to try to eliminate heifers that werent' needed. Not sure how it ever turned out. Anyboyd ever had experience with this?

 

[cow pollinater]

You can get sorted semen that is packaged just for embryo production. I don't know what the cell count is as aposed to regular sorted or conventional semen but it's got a lot more semen in it than the regular sorted stuff does.

 

[cow pollinater]

I also forgot to mention in my first post that there is a lot of variation amongst bulls. Some sort really well but the end product is poor fertility, some are hard to sort but the conception is bad, some bulls that are superstars on fertility in conventional packaging are poor when sorted and the opposite is also true. You really want to buy sorted semen on bulls that have been offered as sorted for quite a while from companies that have been doing it a long time. You can really get burned if you don't.