Male sex semen for steer calves

[sue]

This topic comes to mind every spring when I am driving around looking at customers calves. Why dont we sort for male sexed semen? I would use some club calf bulls even carriers if Iwas guranteed a bull? 

 

[jbzdad]

there is (or has been) some hollywood out there

 

[rtmcc]

Many of the clubby bulls may not produce good enough semen or enough of it to sort.

Also, if you are marketing a bull that is strictly aiming at producing male calves, why sort it?  You would sell half as much semen to produce the same number of steers. This way you have to breed twice as many cows than the number of steers you hope for.

 

[DCC show cattle]

in response to the number of straws sold if it was sexed i would pay double just to know the chances of having a carrier heifer born are slim to none. So they would keep the same dollar value of semen sold.

 

[cytime]

Ya but in reality you would have to pay around 300 or more to get that sexed semen.. It cost a lot of money to get it done and takes a lot of good quality semen to be able to get sexed...

 

[drl]

What I have read they have to throw away 90% of the semen after sexing because it is damaged from the sexing process. Then they don't have as much semen to sell. So on these better steer bulls that are selling out anyway, they should charge 10 times as much in order to keep the same income. With how much some of these guys pay to get these bulls bought, advertised, and collected it doesn't make sense to sex it for them. Trust me, I would love to get sexed Heat Wave or many of his sons or clones but I understand the economics and sexing enough to understand why it doesn't get done.

 

[WFCC]

there is naughty pine sex bull semen out there.

 

[The Show]

Like said above, it mainly has to do with the quality of the semen. That's why only some bulls have sexed semen and some don't.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

Genex has just came out with gen choice semen. With it you can choose male or female sexed semen at 75% or 90%. The 75 and 90 are the percentage of that selected sex being born.. The male doses are $25 to $45 and the female $25 to $50. I would say the sexed semen for club calves is just around the corner. Genex is offering it on a 5 major breeds they sell. Angus, Red Angus, Simmental, Charolais, and Herefords. They offer it on 23 different bulls so I am guessing the cost of doing it is coming down a bit.

 

[Bawndoh]

Genex has just came out with gen choice semen. With it you can choose male or female sexed semen at 75% or 90%. The 75 and 90 are the percentage of that selected sex being born.. The male doses are $25 to $45 and the female $25 to $50. I would say the sexed semen for club calves is just around the corner. Genex is offering it on a 5 major breeds they sell. Angus, Red Angus, Simmental, Charolais, and Herefords. They offer it on 23 different bulls so I am guessing the cost of doing it is coming down a bit.

Genex has actually built their own barn just for sorting bulls with sexed semen.  It is in Shawano, WI.  Not sure that the cost will come down any time soon, but I do know we (Genex) is striving to provide the people with the best customer service possible by doing this.  Refering to the sorting process, some bulls simply sort better than others.  It is not necessarily the quality of their semen.  We have one bigtime bull who collects AWESOME regularly, but his semen just will not sort.

 

[justintime]

Another factor is the price of sexed semen. I find it strange that most semen is priced lower now than it was 30-40 years ago. I find more people complain about semen that costs $40/straw now than would have complained about it 30 years ago.

Sexed semen is going to cost more money, and I think it is usually worth the extra money especially if you are trying to raise steers. I don't think sexed semen suffers from the sexing process as can happen in the sexing of embryos. Embyro sexing usually causes a drop in pregnancy rates of about 10 % but I do not think this occurs in sexing semen. Sexing semen is a more costly process, and it also results in less semen to sell, so it has to be priced higher.

If I was flushing a clubby cow and was hoping to get some good steers, I would try to find sexed semen from the best sire I could and I would be willing to pay much more for it.

 

[kanshow]

Just got the ABS Journal yesterday and there are several bulls listed that you can get bull or heifer semen on..  the bull semen is cheaper than the heifer by a considerable amount.

 

[dutch pride]

When "sexing" semen, is it divided into male and female or is a batch just processed for one sex and the rest thown out?

DLZ

 

[justme]

lol I didn't pay for sexed semen for bulls but doggone it...I think I got it! lol (lol)  5 calves=5 bulls.  I wish the cow gods above would grace my kids with a couple heifers! lol (thumbsup)

 

[common sense]

I had some Gigolo Joe semen sexed at Trans Ova. If you ever get a chance to visit you should go to the lab and watch the process; it is fascinating. In layman's terms, when they seperate the sexed semen the female sperm is "stronger" (imagine that) and a very high percentage seperates away from the male sperm during the process. The male sperm however has a lot of seperate issues and many of the smaller female sperm will filter in with the male sperm. The reason they don't use the male is because your chances of actually having a bull calf from that semen is almost the same as if you used a normal straw of un-sexed semen. Also, if I remember correctly, the machine that is owned at Trans Ova which cost seriously large amount of money is not even capable of retaining the other part of the semen i.e. the mixed male semen. It simple gets washed away.

 

[Bulldaddy]

I think as the technology improves you will see more club calf sires sorted for sex.  It just makes sense like it does for dairy but the opposite way.  I can't think of any of the carrier bulls you would use trying for heifers.  Folks want steers and they will pay more to improve the odds.  If they can clone them, they can sex them.  Wait and see.

 

[clubcalve]

That is what we should do with all heat wave semen And Throw all the female stuff at the bottom of the tank  (lol)

 

[WFCC]

probably wont see more sexed composite semen because the quality of semen isnt good enough to sort. thats why they dont have it right now.  Not sure how the quality will get any better, maybe worse?