Sexed semen- yay or nay?

GrasstoMilk

Very very frustrating here the last few seasons.

Last 2 years our heifer count is v low. (30% )
Now, we're nearly finished autumn calving and we gotten 95% bulls.
Really annoyed as i wont even be able to sustain herd size going forward let alone increase, we always would have been 50:50

I don't know what's causing but seems to be getting worse year on year.

I guess my only option is to try sexed seen on my autumn herd and see how it goes.
Quite a fertile herd.
Autumn - 6 week breeding 10% empty
Spring - 12 week breeding 4.5% empty

Is anyone here using sexed semen?

Edit- I want my own replacement's, I do not want to buy in

GiantPencil

Have used it once,bought 3 straws and used on 2 heifers. One kept and I was delighted only to get a bull calf out of it. Nature is a strange thing

whelan2

I have used sexed for a few years, happy enough .Used it on cows not heifers. Can you order what bull you want them from now. I had to wait a few weeks for them to send the semen to England the last time I ordered. Conception rate was good and I did get nearly all heifers . Used pbm and ksk.

GiantPencil

whelan2 wrote: »

I have used sexed for a few years, happy enough .Used it on cows not heifers. Can you order what bull you want them from now. I had to wait a few weeks for them to send the semen to England the last time I ordered. Conception rate was good and I did get nearly all heifers . Used pbm and ksk.

First I've ever heard that you can request sexed semen off any bull? Understandable that it'd take a few extra weeks but do they lump the cost back on you? Or else you must be buying a huge amount of straws maybe?

mahoney_j

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Very very frustrating here the last few seasons.

Last 2 years our heifer count is v low. (30% )
Now, we're nearly finished autumn calving and we gotten 95% bulls.
Really annoyed as i wont even be able to sustain herd size going forward let alone increase, we always would have been 50:50

I don't know what's causing but seems to be getting worse year on year.

I guess my only option is to try sexed seen on my autumn herd and see how it goes.
Quite a fertile herd.
Autumn - 6 week breeding 10% empty
Spring - 12 week breeding 4.5% empty

Is anyone here using sexed semen?

Edit- I want my own replacement's, I do not want to buy in

You've a fertile herd ,sexed semen technology no where near reliable enough yet .feetile compact calving herd is hard achieved so I'd say nay.seems a very high %male to female .i find it always balances out

whelan2

Didn't buy any last year. Got 20 the year before. It wasn't to dear over the normal cost and scanning man was surprised how many did turn out as heifers.

GrasstoMilk

mahoney_j wrote: »

You've a fertile herd ,sexed semen technology no where near reliable enough yet .feetile compact calving herd is hard achieved so I'd say nay.seems a very high %male to female .i find it always balances out

My autumn herd is calving early as is.
If I was to go with sexed I'd start same time as last year, if they held well and good bit if not id be back 3 weeks.
Granted I'd have had a v expensive 1st round of breeding

Bass Reeves

Sexed semen seems to be dying a death. All advice at present is not to use it. The technique in makeing it is a washing method that washes male denoted sperm out of sample. However this damages the remaining sperm. I presume that they give you as little of the product as they can get away with. Because of this you end up with a weak small sample.

AI by it nayure is a fight against nature anyway. The earlier a cow is bulled in a cycle the better the chance taht she will have a female calf. The later in the cycle increases the odds on a bull calf. Know of more than one farmer that solved his heifer and fertility issue by introducing a bull into the herd.

A few years back a contributor to the FI lost his job over highlighting these issue. We might get banned from boards for discussing it as well.

GrasstoMilk

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Sexed semen seems to be dying a death. All advice at present is not to use it. The technique in makeing it is a washing method that washes male denoted sperm out of sample. However this damages the remaining sperm. I presume that they give you as little of the product as they can get away with. Because of this you end up with a weak small sample.

AI by it nayure is a fight against nature anyway. The earlier a cow is bulled in a cycle the better the chance taht she will have a female calf. The later in the cycle increases the odds on a bull calf. Know of more than one farmer that solved his heifer and fertility issue by introducing a bull into the herd.

A few years back a contributor to the FI lost his job over highlighting these issue. We might get banned from boards for discussing it as well.

No bull used by my father or me. All Ai.
Ai OAD cow might only have started bulling and gets served.

I don't know how in the space of 3 years I can get less heifers than when we had half the herd size we do now

whelan2

Last 10 calves here 9 of them were angus bulls. Glad they weren't in calf to fr

Genghis Cant

Bass Reeves wrote: »

The earlier a cow is bulled in a cycle the better the chance taht she will have a female calf. The later in the cycle increases the odds on a bull calf.

Any studies that you know of that back this up?

I've herd it before, our own AI man swears by it and a few year ago I took some notes on times of observed heat and AI times. I sorta lost interest in it and didn't keep doing it but I did think there might be some truth in it.
So I'd be interested to see is it backed up by proper science.

charolais0153

Used it once on a 2nd calver she had a horrid long gestation but hada heifer so ended well .I wouldn't like too many repeats .

C0N0R

Used it here on heifers for a few years, this year wasn't just as good a conception rate with it but the previous year was better. Never got a bull calf out of it, have used it the odd time on cows and worked all right, you would want to pick your cows carefully, and want to be good at handling the straws too. The downside is the choice of high quality bulls is less but a lower ebi etc heifer is still a better milker than a bull!

Buford T. Justice XIX

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

No bull used by my father or me. All Ai.
Ai OAD cow might only have started bulling and gets served.

I don't know how in the space of 3 years I can get less heifers than when we had half the herd size we do now

Has there been a change in timing of AI in the last 2 years or in observation of heats?

Change in breed of bulls?

A change of AI man?

It might be something small has changed or you just might have hit a run of bad luck in the past 2 years.

I would be slow to use sexed atm. As someone said above, it's still in development for another while.

GrasstoMilk

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Has there been a change in timing of AI in the last 2 years or in observation of heats?

Change in breed of bulls?

A change of AI man?

It might be something small has changed or you just might have hit a run of bad luck in the past 2 years.

I would be slow to use sexed atm. As someone said above, it's still in development for another while.

Nothing changed much really. Any cow bulling since last time tech was on farm is served - same we always did.
Using same supplier for bulls
Main Ai tech is same

Only thing that I can think of that's changed is we've changed minerals we use during breeding but that's what has been getting us such good breeding results

Coolfresian

Have had good results with it. Used
20 straws a year for the past 2 years. Used it on heifers. Over 80% conception rate the first year and 70% the second. Always got heifers, no bulls yet. Have a high yielding Holstein herd with good fertility and it works well. As far as I can see it's important to get the timing of ai right when using it. In general it's been 60:40 heifers to bulls with the rest of the herd over the same period. Use stock bulls on a lot of the cows. I find the stock after the bull as good as ai bred cows.

whelan2

I dont get that timing of ai has anything got to do with it, sure wouldnt the bull serve the cow before we would even notice a standing heat and theres always a mix of bull and heifer calves, I go by the theory if they have a heifer calf this year they will more than likely have a bull next year.

Coolfresian

whelan2 wrote: »

I dont get that timing of ai has anything got to do with it, sure wouldnt the bull serve the cow before we would even notice a standing heat and theres always a mix of bull and heifer calves, I go by the theory if they have a heifer calf this year they will more than likely have a bull next year.

Yea, sorry I was referring to the timing being important for conception rates. I found better conception when using ai with the am/pm rule .One of my neighbours gets his done when they are noticed. So both can work. As for bulls or heifer s isn't it the bull that determines the sex? I checked back thru herd records on icbf and found a cow that has had 5 fresian heifers in a row. Often have the same cows having a few bulls or heifer s in a row.

Bass Reeves

Genghis Cant wrote: »

Any studies that you know of that back this up?

I've herd it before, our own AI man swears by it and a few year ago I took some notes on times of observed heat and AI times. I sorta lost interest in it and didn't keep doing it but I did think there might be some truth in it.
So I'd be interested to see is it backed up by proper science.

I saw an article on it written in I presume an agri publication.

whelan2 wrote: »

I dont get that timing of ai has anything got to do with it, sure wouldnt the bull serve the cow before we would even notice a standing heat and theres always a mix of bull and heifer calves, I go by the theory if they have a heifer calf this year they will more than likely have a bull next year.

In Humans it is the male that usually decides the sex of a child. Women have two X chromosomes so all eggs will have X chromosomes. The male produces X&Y chromosomes there fore sperm will have either chromosomes in it. Some males will tend to deposit more X or Y in there sperm.

My understanding with bovines is that the skin of the eggs changes (softens) and it is easier for X sperm to penetrate it as length of the heat continues. This will not totally prevent early cycle fertilization of eggs to a male gender but is a subtle method of natural selection in the wild. In the wild as many male progeny are not required as animal run in herds. There fore the production of male progeny is a waste. In alligators I think the ration is 5-1 female to male.

stantheman1979

whelan2 wrote: »

I dont get that timing of ai has anything got to do with it, sure wouldnt the bull serve the cow before we would even notice a standing heat and theres always a mix of bull and heifer calves, I go by the theory if they have a heifer calf this year they will more than likely have a bull next year.

We keep sucklers here. I bought a fr x Angus calf with my 18th birthday money. She calved 20 bull calves over 16yrs in a row. Always had the best calf, so we kept trying to breed a heifer from her, but no every paddys day she would have a bull. Yr 17 she had a heifer. It died 5mins later and she didnt go in calf that yr so i threw my hat. at it LOL

pedigree 6

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I saw an article on it written in I presume an agri publication.




In Humans it is the male that usually decides the sex of a child. Women have two X chromosomes so all eggs will have X chromosomes. The male produces X&Y chromosomes there fore sperm will have either chromosomes in it. Some males will tend to deposit more X or Y in there sperm.

My understanding with bovines is that the skin of the eggs changes (softens) and it is easier for X sperm to penetrate it as length of the heat continues. This will not totally prevent early cycle fertilization of eggs to a male gender but is a subtle method of natural selection in the wild. In the wild as many male progeny are not required as animal run in herds. There fore the production of male progeny is a waste. In alligators I think the ration is 5-1 female to male.

Yea there was talk before of in humans it's the temperature of the testes that determines which sex is produced. If the testes were on the cool side the sperm was more likely to be male and if the testes were on the warmer side it was more favourable to be female.
I thought it was funny when I heard it as it was easy guess then who had the central heating turned up too high or had it off then.

In crocodiles probably same for alligators the crocodile when setting on the nest can adjust the sex of the eggs by adjusting the temperature of the nest.
Not sure which way it was for each sex.

pedigree 6

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

No bull used by my father or me. All Ai.
Ai OAD cow might only have started bulling and gets served.

I don't know how in the space of 3 years I can get less heifers than when we had half the herd size we do now

What is with all you Wicklow fellas and no bulls.:D

You do know you have the perfect opportunity here.
Pick the best bull calf from the best cow who's not related (or much) to the rest of the herd and keep him.
You'll know what the cow is like milking speed, fat, protein, udder, stature, etc, etc.
Get him registered or genotyped as well and just put his tag number down when registering his calves.

If the bull doesn't work out for some reason you can still AI.
Ideal ratio is one bull to 40 cows or older bull one to maybe 50 and younger yearling bull I think 20 is enough.

patsy_mccabe

There's a rule in Mathematics called the Law Of Large Numbers. Basically it is a principle of probability according to which the frequencies of events with the same likelihood of occurrence even out, given enough trials or instances. As the number of experiments increases, the actual ratio of outcomes will converge on the theoretical, or expected, ratio of outcomes.

So when it comes to heifer/bull ratios, given enough calves the ratio will always be close to 50/50. If you look at the data on ICBF the ratio is always close to 50/50.
A few examples;
Malibu - Limousin - 16,225 calves - 51% male
CF52 - Char - 17,009 - 51% male

OP, how many calvings are we talking about? It must be small numbers. The probability of getting 95 bulls from 100 calves, for example is very close to zero. Nearly impossible. You'd be more likely to win the lotto.

pedigree 6

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Nothing changed much really.

Only thing that I can think of that's changed is we've changed minerals we use during breeding but that's what has been getting us such good breeding results

Out of interest what minerals have you changed to?

You can send me a pm if you want.

C0N0R

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

There's a rule in Mathematics called the Law Of Large Numbers. Basically it is a principle of probability according to which the frequencies of events with the same likelihood of occurrence even out, given enough trials or instances. As the number of experiments increases, the actual ratio of outcomes will converge on the theoretical, or expected, ratio of outcomes.

So when it comes to heifer/bull ratios, given enough calves the ratio will always be close to 50/50. If you look at the data on ICBF the ratio is always close to 50/50.
A few examples;
Malibu - Limousin - 16,225 calves - 51% male
CF52 - Char - 17,009 - 51% male

OP, how many calvings are we talking about? It must be small numbers. The probability of getting 95 bulls from 100 calves, for example is very close to zero. Nearly impossible. You'd be more likely to win the lotto.

We calve about 24000 a year and would work on a 60:40 split bulls heifers. Any day I go into the fresh calves pen there would 90% of the time be more bulls than heifers.

From what I was taught in college it all depends when the cow releases the egg. Male sperm travel quicker so reach the egg sooner but then die sooner where as female sperm get there second but live longer. Re timing of ai vs bull mounting, the sperm from the bull has further to travel.

jaymla627

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

There's a rule in Mathematics called the Law Of Large Numbers. Basically it is a principle of probability according to which the frequencies of events with the same likelihood of occurrence even out, given enough trials or instances. As the number of experiments increases, the actual ratio of outcomes will converge on the theoretical, or expected, ratio of outcomes.

So when it comes to heifer/bull ratios, given enough calves the ratio will always be close to 50/50. If you look at the data on ICBF the ratio is always close to 50/50.
A few examples;
Malibu - Limousin - 16,225 calves - 51% male
CF52 - Char - 17,009 - 51% male

OP, how many calvings are we talking about? It must be small numbers. The probability of getting 95 bulls from 100 calves, for example is very close to zero. Nearly impossible. You'd be more likely to win the lotto.

The last 46 cows that calved here last spring I ended up with 42 bulls and 4 heifers, it's entirely possible....
Only for using a good bit of sexed the past 4 years I would of had a series shortage of replacement heifers, 4 year average here to convential semen is 75% bulls 25%heifers

Mooooo

Are you having low heifers in just fr calves or is it over beef and dairy Ai? As in what is the split over all calves regardless of breed? If it's just dairy use more dairy straws instead of beef. Used sexed once only 9 straws on autumn heifers only one held whereas normally I'd get 90% to first service on autumn heifers. Cousin used it a few years 40 straws each time first got 25 heifers I think was happy enough next year 40 straws only 16 pregnancies and 2 bulls I think. I think batch by batch it seems variable.

Timmaay

pedigree 6 wrote: »

What is with all you Wicklow fellas and no bulls.:D

LOL, it wasn't till about 6 or 7 years ago that my dad accepted it was time to get a beef bull to clean up the end of breeding, after 20yrs of AI, he still flatout refuses to use a fr bull of any sort (too wicked in his opinion), I got a 2nd bull for the heifers this yr, that took alot of effort to convince him ha, there would be war with the 2 bulls around etc etc ha.

Anyways back to sexed, whelan I'd agree with you, I'd only use sexed on cows, heifers I still find hard to pick up exactly when they are bulling, so see a sexed straw as a waste of money, however I got on very well the 2years I used sexed on the better early calving 1st serve cows. It helped front load replacement heifer calves which all had the full 2yrs to to make it to the parlour calved down. I only got away with this because I milk all year around so can afford the cow to slip on if she doesn't hold.

The final thing I'd say is if you have had a shocking bad run 2yrs in a row try to remain calm and patient about it, your luck has to change eventually ha!

Brown Podzol

whelan2 wrote: »

I dont get that timing of ai has anything got to do with it, sure wouldnt the bull serve the cow before we would even notice a standing heat and theres always a mix of bull and heifer calves, I go by the theory if they have a heifer calf this year they will more than likely have a bull next year.

I thought you of all people would know about the Whelan method.

http://www.thebump.com/a/whelan-method

Buford T. Justice XIX

Brown Podzol wrote: »

I thought you of all people would know about the Whelan method.

http://www.thebump.com/a/whelan-method

We should just ask her, sure isn't she posting here regularly :pac:

Genghis Cant

Brown Podzol wrote: »

I thought you of all people would know about the Whelan method.

http://www.thebump.com/a/whelan-method

Something about powerhosing her? :-)

whelan2

Was just looking there now out of 44 calves born in this lot I have 20 heifers- mainly angus- 3 sets of twins in that

GrasstoMilk

Think I'll be giving sexed a shot.
Last cow calved and there bull twins.

mahoney_j

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Think I'll be giving sexed a shot.
Last cow calved and there bull twins.

What's the secret ,that's less than 4 weeks autumn calving for u .savage going everything hold to first serve

whelan2

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Think I'll be giving sexed a shot.
Last cow calved and there bull twins.

Are they mainly out of the same ai bulls? Think the range for sexed jersey is dire. Just looked there in pg AWO, JBF,YGD,FR2012,FR2031,WWT,FR2028(all hol/fr) ranging in price from 35-45 euro/straw are available sexed

GrasstoMilk

whelan2 wrote: »

Are they mainly out of the same ai bulls? Think the range for sexed jersey is dire. Just looked there in pg AWO, JBF,YGD,FR2012,FR2031,WWT,FR2028(all hol/fr) ranging in price from 35-45 euro/straw are available sexed

Mainly lwr and fr2007 I'll give it a better look later.

Mooooo

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

whelan2 wrote: »

Are they mainly out of the same ai bulls? Think the range for sexed jersey is dire. Just looked there in pg AWO, JBF,YGD,FR2012,FR2031,WWT,FR2028(all hol/fr) ranging in price from 35-45 euro/straw are available sexed

Mainly lwr and fr2007 I'll give it a better look later.

Is the bull heifer ratio over all calves or just dairy calves?

GrasstoMilk

mahoney_j wrote: »

What's the secret ,that's less than 4 weeks autumn calving for u .savage going everything hold to first serve

Calving since start of September. Last cow aborted on me mid summer. Got calf tested but nothing showed up. This last girl wasnt due till 22 October

mahoney_j

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Calving since start of September. Last cow aborted on me mid summer. Got calf tested but nothing showed up. This last girl wasnt due till 22 October

If calving that early then def give sexed a go ,I think thatsxa minth too early for autumn calving and you could easily afford to chance it

GrasstoMilk

mahoney_j wrote: »

If calving that early then def give sexed a go ,I think thatsxa minth too early for autumn calving and you could easily afford to chance it

Ye very early alright. I was away for a weekend and my father started ealier than we usually do.
I'd be happy with starting 1st Dec till mid Jan and start again then 1st week of feb.
Autumn Cows are milking off grass for majority of year when there out

patsy_mccabe

C0N0R wrote: »

We calve about 24000 a year and would work on a 60:40 split bulls heifers. Any day I go into the fresh calves pen there would 90% of the time be more bulls than heifers... .

60% bulls from 24,000 calvings. Someone stealing your heifers during the night and leaving their own bulls.
Sorry but that sounds impossible. The numbers are too high for that to happen.

Mooooo

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

mahoney_j wrote: »

If calving that early then def give sexed a go ,I think thatsxa minth too early for autumn calving and you could easily afford to chance it

Ye very early alright. I was away for a weekend and my father started ealier than we usually do.
I'd be happy with starting 1st Dec till mid Jan and start again then 1st week of feb.
Autumn Cows are milking off grass for majority of year when there out

Your breeding season would then be in the middle of spring calving. If you start in Oct you could do a month of ai for Jan at least most of breeding would be out the way before calves start landing.

croot

Genghis Cant wrote: »

Any studies that you know of that back this up?

I've herd it before, our own AI man swears by it and a few year ago I took some notes on times of observed heat and AI times. I sorta lost interest in it and didn't keep doing it but I did think there might be some truth in it.
So I'd be interested to see is it backed up by proper science.

Not a study but my own experience. I looked up my records this year. 20 calved in spring and 10 so far this autumn. All were served the day after seeing them in heat.

In Spring I had 14 bulls and 6 heifers
So far this autumn I've had 8 heifers and 2 bulls.

The only difference really is the Autumn calvers are all on a bit of ration when AI'd

Brown Podzol

D.P. BerryA.R. Cromie

Abstract
The objective of this study was to determine if natural mating affected secondary sex ratio. Data consisting of 642,401 calving records from the Irish national database, during the years 2002–2005, were used in the analysis. Factors affecting the logit of the probability of a male calf being born were determined using multiple regression generalised estimating equations with sire of the calf included as a repeated effect. Month of the year at calving, sex of the previous calf born within dam, breed of service sire, parity of dam and type of mating (i.e., natural or artificial insemination) significantly (P < 0.05) affected the likelihood of a male calf being born. Male calves were more likely to be born in the warmer months of the year, when the sex of the previous calf born to the same dam was male, in older cows and when the service sire was a beef breed. No significant interaction between the main effects existed. The odds of a male calf being born, following adjustment for confounding effects, varied from 1.04 to 1.08 (P < 0.01) across the years of analysis when artificial insemination was used compared to natural mating. This equates to a 1% unit increase in the probability of a male calf being born following artificial insemination.

C0N0R

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

60% bulls from 24,000 calvings. Someone stealing your heifers during the night and leaving their own bulls.
Sorry but that sounds impossible. The numbers are too high for that to happen.

I'll check the figures for certain when I get back but I know from looking at them there are more bulls

whelan2

whelan2 wrote: »

Was just looking there now out of 44 calves born in this lot I have 20 heifers- mainly angus- 3 sets of twins in that

47 calves now 23 heifers. Normally balances out here. 1 left now

Who2

Have a bull here that I bought for maternal . He's about here five years now and I was getting around 85% bulls year on year until this autumn where he's after throwing 19 heifers to 3 bulls. I think if you look at most bulls figures they balance out over the years and every second farmer will have another reason why it is and most will be pure spoof.

charolais0153

As far as I can rember back its 17 bulls to 15heifers

The man in red and black

charolais0153 wrote: »

As far as I can rember back its 17 bulls to 15heifers

Checked ICBF, we're at 22 heifers to 20 bulls, close enough too!

charolais0153

The man in red and black wrote: »

Checked ICBF, we're at 22 heifers to 20 bulls, close enough too!

Looked at our bull tracker report on icbf. Out of 343 calves 172 heifers and 171 bulls. Much bigger sample size

Signpost

Too pricey with such a low guarantee. Really wanted to push heifers in a few cows so last 2 years got the 95% straws, between not keeping & calving bulls I got a 50% success rate which I thought would nearly be standard probability with breeding. I did end up keeping the bulls as pure bred so at least have a high EBI bull I can run with the heifers and then sell on. Spending 3 times the price on a normal straw and seeing so many bulls put me off it thou so didnt use any this year as a result.