05/26/2021
Breeding with shipped semen:
I am sure that breeding farms and stallion stations know what Industry Standard Doses are for cooled shipped, frozen and farm dose semen. But do you? It is becoming increasingly important for you as a mare owner to educate yourself on just what a "dose" of semen should be. What is the minimum number of sperm/cells for a single dose of shipped cooled? The answer is 500 million, BUT they need to SHIP, 1 BIllion per dose. A farm dose or on site dose would be 500 million because they do not need to ship it. Ask the farm "how does this stallion ship" and listen closely. Some stallion's semen will live a long time, two, three days or even more, but just as many need to have that semen inseminated within 24 hours or less. Many times when I have asked that question they will answer that they prefer to do counter to counter or "fly It' because that stallion does not ship well with overnite services like Fedex. Ask your vet how the motility was when he checked it after AI. Almost all vets will hold back a few drops to look at in under a microscope and get a visual. The number that comes on the stallion report is sometimes a lot higher than what you actually receive, but sometimes it is pretty darn good. I have received several shipments in the last couple of years with NO stallion report in the box or else a very brief report that didn't tell me much. I recently called about a stud at a well know station that I have used before and like. The office manager gave me actual numbers of his stallion breeding reports for the last week and she told me they don't send less than 1 billion in a single dose. They don't send a half dose of 500 million, which has become commonplace. I sent in a contract. If you don't know the questions to ask, you are setting yourself up for failure. Do not assume they will automatically send you an Industry standard dose. I have made that mistake, in thinking that they will be fair and honest and that they are professionals, unfortunately that is not always the case. I understand that every time a stallion collects it may not always be up to par, I understand that they have many orders to fill and may not have a good collection or simply too many orders, but if they cannot send a standard MINIMUM dose then they need to notify you before shipping. Period. If they can send you a deep horn dose it has to be of a certain volume and concentration and you should be made aware of that ahead of time. Maybe you would chose to have them send frozen. Regardless, if there are issues with the semen quality they need to give you a heads up. We are buying breedings not lottery tickets. I just lost about $4,300 in breeding fee, chute fee, counter to counter fees, shipping fee and Flushing fees because of very poor communication from the stallion manger/owner and a sub standard shipped semen dose with poor motility. It was for ET on an aged mare. I had her timed and primed and then I get a horrible dose of semen. I won't get that money back. They charged me $875 for shipping on that dose. They knew better, because as I said, they know what a standard shipped dose should be. #blindsided #creshaaaron #aaronranch
