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Update on sexed semen technology in cattle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

G. E. Seidel Jr
G. E. Seidel Jr*
Affiliation:
Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1683, USA
*
†E-mail: george.seidel@colostate.edu
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Abstract

The technology in current use for sexing sperm represents remarkable feats of engineering. These flow cytometer/cell sorters can make over 30 000 consecutive evaluations of individual sperm each second for each nozzle and sort the sperm into three containers: X-sperm, Y-sperm and unsexable plus dead sperm. Even at these speeds it is not economical to package sperm at standard numbers per inseminate. However, with excellent management, pregnancy rates in cattle with 2 million sexed sperm per insemination dose are about 80% of those with conventional semen at normal sperm doses. This lowered fertility, in part due to damage to sperm during sorting, plus the extra cost of sexed semen limits the applications that are economically feasible. Even so, on the order of 2 million doses of bovine semen are sexed annually in the United States. The main application is for dairy heifers to have heifer calves, either for herd expansion or for sale as replacements, often for eventual export. Breeders of purebred cattle often use sexed semen for specific matings; thawing and then sexing frozen semen and immediately using the few resulting sexed sperm for in vitro fertilization is done with increasing frequency. Beef cattle producers are starting to use sexed semen to produce crossbred female replacements. Proprietary improvements in sperm sexing procedures, implemented in 2013, are claimed to improve fertility between 4 and 6 percentage points, or about 10%.

Keywords

sexed semencattlefertilityeconomics
Type
Full Paper
Information
animal , Volume 8 , Supplement s1: New Science ‐ New Practices International Cow Fertility Conference 18‐21 May 2014, Westport, Ireland , May 2014 , pp. 160 - 164
Copyright
© The Animal Consortium 2014 

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