{"id":55609,"date":"2020-06-03T09:00:25","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T14:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=55609"},"modified":"2020-06-02T08:45:43","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T13:45:43","slug":"%ef%bb%bfmarketing-calves-before-they-hit-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=55609","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffMarketing calves before they hit the ground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Lane Pfannenstiel<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hays senior<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to\nranchers having a good understanding of their own calf crops, wouldn\u2019t it be a\nlot more helpful to know what sex they were going to be before they even hit\nthe ground? This may be a possibility in the future with the introduction of\nsexed semen to the beef cattle industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is also an\nextremely helpful tool for seedstock producers. Sexed semen is used through\nartificial insemination where the cows are bred without using a bull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sexed semen first came\ninto use in the dairy industry in the late 1990s. Dairymen strictly use sexed\nsemen on all of the first lactation females to produce their replacements. The\nconception rates in the early years of development compared to conventional\nsemen were very low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Sex is the most\nimportant genetic trait,” said Colorado State University reproductive\nphysiologist George Seidel. Seidel helped pioneer semen sorting processes and\ntheir use in beef cattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two different\ntypes of semen, sexed and conventional. Sexed semen is sorted male and female.\nFrom there, it is put in straws and stored in liquid nitrogen to freeze it.\nConventional semen is not sorted male to female. Sexed semen straws are usually\n3 milliliters, meaning around 2 million sperm cells, vs. the conventional 5\nmilliliters of around 20 million sperm cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an\nunderstandably higher price tag on sorted semen. These straws can range\nanywhere from $50 to upwards of almost $500 per straw depending on the demand\nand availability of the bull. That same bull\u2019s conventional semen is generally\nhalf that price, again depending on the demand and availability. Prices also\nmay vary if that bull has a reputation of producing good maternal traits, or\nbeing a more terminal sire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conception rates with\nsorted semen got off to a rocky start. With it being a relatively new technology,\nthere are differences in how to manage herds when using sorted semen. These\nsmall steps and practices have taken a few years for producers to master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conception rates have\nbeen found to increase when heat-detecting rather than fixed-time artificial\ninsemination, which goes hand and hand with conventional semen use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conception also has\ngone up because the sorting technology improves year by year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If conception rates are\nthat much worse, then why not make sorted semen straws the same cell count and\nsize of conventional straws? This is because of the production cost vs. the\nactual improved fertility rate when increasing the cell count in the straws. As\nof today, sorted semen conception rates are just below conception rates with\nconventional semen use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sexed semen can be\nfound in most sire catalogs across the country. Often, they have both sexed\nmale and female of that specific bull in their catalogs. Some of these\ncorporations are: Select Sires, ABS, SEK Genetics, and Cattle Vision. Semen can\nbe ordered online or by phone. Basically, what this means is that sexed semen\nis not any more difficult to acquire than conventional semen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, not every\nbull in the beef industry is going to have his semen sexed. It will depend on\nhis popularity and whether or not it is worth having his semen sorted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So now comes the\nultimate question. Is it worth it to me, as a beef producer, to use sorted\nsemen on my operation today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a couple of\nanswers, one is that it depends on what phase of beef production the rancher is\ncurrently involved in. If a seedstock rancher needs to market bulls every year,\nthen yes, sorted semen may be a good investment for his operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A rancher may not even\nbe a seedstock producer but would like to produce some replacement females with\nsome of the genetics that he likes. That is also a justification to use sorted\nsemen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel that sorted\nsemen has not yet found its forever home within beef cattle production as a\nwhole. It may not be worth it today, but technological breakthroughs are\nconstantly happening and it is only a matter of time before we see sexed semen\nbeing used on many different levels of beef production for many different\nreasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lane Pfannenstiel, a\n2017 Hays High School graduate, is a junior majoring in animal science at Fort\nHays State University. He is the son of Jill Pfannenstiel, Hays.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lane Pfannenstiel Hays senior When it comes to ranchers having a good understanding of their own calf crops, wouldn\u2019t it be a lot more… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12323,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/AGRI-610-2020-Pfannenstiel-Lane.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55611,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55609\/revisions\/55611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}