How Many Straws To Ai A Cow

Download Article

Download Article

Artificial Insemination (AI) is the 2nd-virtually mutual practice of breeding livestock--well, it'due south the only culling to convenance livestock next to natural breeding using a male over females. AI is, nonetheless, much more common in dairy production than in beef production, though AI is gaining ground in beef breeding herds due to the increased access and marketing of superior and favourable proven sires. Knowing how to AI cattle is important in order to reach a loftier success rate in cattle breeding herds where owning a herd bull is not assisting nor recommended.

The following steps are a reasonably detailed article of what is involved in AI'ing cattle. In guild to fully understand how AI is done and to even proceeds certification for beingness able to AI livestock, visit a bull semen marketing company similar Semex, Genex, Select Sires, or any other balderdash-semen dispersal company. Check to see if they host any programs for AI certification or becoming a certified AI tech that y'all can attend to learn more about artificial insemination.This is helpful if you have non yet got a balderdash to assist you breed.

Please also consider using an experienced certified AI tech to AI your cows. These people are better to apply than training yourself to do it.

1. i

   Watch your cows and/or heifers for signs of estrus. Females go into heat in one case every ~21 days, and the heat periods themselves terminal for 24 hours.^[1]

   • Check out this article: How to Tell if a Cow or Heifer is in Estrus for physiological, behavioral and concrete signs of rut.
     • Nearly estrus periods first or end around dusk or dawn.

2. 2

   Twelve (12) hours after estrus is when females should be AI'd. This time period is when the female ovulates, sending an ovum out to the fallopian tube to await fertilization from sperm from a bull.^[2]

3. iii

   Calmly, with proper handling practices put the heifers or cows in to the working alley to the clasp chute (or alleyway with merely a head gate is good plenty), and catch the get-go female in the caput gate. If there are others backside her, brand sure they are back behind another gate to foreclose them from squishing you when they endeavour to move upward farther in the race. If you have a squeeze chute with a palpation cage attached to it, utilize this equally a means to do your AI'ing. Some barns are gear up upwardly so that each cow is in a stanchion or caput-catch lined up beside i some other. This is very convenient for the AI tech who has to AI over l cows in one mean solar day!

   • If doing AI outside, it is best to do it on sunny warm days, not when the weather condition is rainy or windy or even stormy. If you lot have a facility that is ready upward within a shed or barn, so much the better!

1. 1

   Prepare a h2o bath that is between ninety to 95 degrees Fahrenheit (or 34 to 35 degrees Celsius) in a thermos. Use a thermometer for amend accuracy.

2. 2

   Place which canister contains the semen y'all demand. A semen inventory on the tank that keeps runway of the location of each bull prevents any unnecessary searching.

3. 3

   Remove the canister from its storage location to the center of the tank. Elevator the canister just loftier enough into the neck region of the tank to grasp the desired pikestaff of semen. Continue the tops of the canister or canes no college than the frost line, or two to three inches from the height of the tank.

4. 4

   Grasp the desired cane and then immediately lower the canister to the tank floor. Go on the cane as low inside the tank every bit possible while removing the straw of semen with tweezers.

   • You lot only have 10 seconds to take the semen straws out!!!

5. v

   Shake the harbinger to remove excess liquid nitrogen (nitrogen quickly goes into a gaseous state when exposed to air and warmer temperatures)

6. 6

   Immediately identify it the prepared thermos of water and keep it in in that location for 40 to 45 seconds. ^[iii]

   • The warm water should exist effectually 95ºF (35ºC) for optimum thawing of the semen straws.

7. seven

   Later the straw is put in to the warm h2o, put the tin back in the canister by raising the canister upwards and over the pikestaff and return the canister to its storage position. ^[4]

   • Anytime it takes over 10 seconds to locate a cane the canister must be lowered back into the tank to cool completely. Never return a unit of semen to the tank once y'all've removed it from the cane.

8. 8

   Get your AI gun fix by having it pre-assembled (this should exist done earlier/after you prep the thermos with warm water. If it's cold outside, warm the "business end" of the gun upwards in your coveralls close to your torso so it warms upwardly completely. Rubbing a newspaper towel on the rod besides helps warm it up. If information technology's hot outside, keep information technology in a cool place. The AI gun should not exist extremely hot nor cold to the touch.

9. 9

   Remove the harbinger from the thermos and wipe it dry with a paper towel. It should be completely dry before you do anything else with it. Flick your wrist slightly, while holding the crimped end, to adjust the air bubble in the straw. The moving picture should move the chimera to the terminate y'all are property

10. 10

    Put the straw in the rod. Clip 1/2" (or one cm) from the crimped end of the straw. Use sharp pair of scissors or peculiarly designed straw-cutter scissors should be used, and cutting in the area that the air chimera is located.

11. 11

    Wrap the AI gun in a clean dry paper towel or protective sheath and tuck it in your habiliment close to your torso to both ship it to the cow and to maintain a constant temperature.

1. 1

   Motion the tail so information technology's on top of your left forearm or tie it up then it will not interfere with the AI process. Raise the tail with one manus (preferably the right) and with the other (which should be gloved and lubricated), gently achieve inside the cow to clean out any feces that may interfere with the process of feeling for and inserting the AI gun into the cow'due south vagina.

2. 2

   Make clean the vulva with a clean newspaper towel or rag to remove excess manure and debris.

3. 3

   Take the gun out of your jacket or overalls, unwrap it, then insert information technology at a 30 degree angle into the moo-cow'southward vulva. This is and so that you avoid going into the urethral opening into the bladder.

4. 4

   With your left hand in the rectum of the moo-cow (which should take been at that place to brainstorm with), feel with your finger tips through the wall of the rectum and vagina the location of the finish of the AI gun until you reach the cervix. ^[v]

5. 5

   Grasp the neck with the hand in the rectum of the cow (like y'all would hold a bar that is beneath your hand) and hold it steady while y'all thread the rod into and through the moo-cow's cervix.

6. vi

   When the rod is all the way through the cervix, cheque the location with your index finger. The rod should be merely 1/2 to 1/4 of an inch into the uterus.^[half-dozen]

7. seven

   Slowly depress the plunger at the end where your right hand is then that 1/2 or is deposited.

8. 8

   Recheck the location of the semen to make sure you are in the cow's uterus and not in any of her "blind spots" (see tips below), and deposit the other one-half of the harbinger's contents.

9. nine

   Slowly remove the AI gun, your paw and arm from inside the cow. Check for whatsoever claret, infection or semen "feedback" from inside the sheath.

10. 10

    Recheck the harbinger to see if yous used the right bull semen for the cow.

11. 11

    Dispose the straw, glove, and towels in the proper identify.

12. 12

    Clean the AI gun if necessary.

13. 13

    Record breeding information on whatsoever record keeping arrangement you have on hand.

14. fourteen

    Release the cow (if necessary, depending on the convenance set-upward you lot accept) and restrain the adjacent one to be inseminated.

15. 15

    Recheck the temperature of the water in the thermos before repeating the steps above for another cow.

16. sixteen

    Repeat the steps above for the adjacent cow.

Add New Question

• Question

  What is artificial insemination in cattle, in simple terms?

  

  Artificial insemination, every bit noted past the article above, is impregnating cattle with balderdash semen minus the balderdash. Semen collected from the balderdash is frozen then unfrozen and put into the moo-cow as described above. Information technology eliminates the run a risk of having a unsafe bull around, the extra feed and space needed to keep a bull, likewise as the costs of contend repair if the bull should escape because he smells some other cows in oestrus a mile away that need his attention.

• Question

  At what temperature tin can the semen exist preserved and what chemic should be used to preserve information technology before insemination?

  

  Before the insemination the semen can be preserved in liquid nitrogen at -196ºC.

• Question

  Why do I need to put the harbinger containing semen into the warm h2o?

  

  To thaw out the semen. When the semen comes out of the tank, it's frozen, and needs to be warmed to above room temperature so it'southward not and so cold when information technology goes into the uterus of the cow, and so it "wakes upwardly" the sperm in the semen sample so they can start moving and wiggling to the ovum as soon as they're put in the uterus. Thawed semen is too much easier to inject into the uterus than frozen.

See more answers

Ask a Question

200 characters left

Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.

Submit

• Always continue inseminating equipment clean, warm and dry.

• Inseminating equipment should avoid contact with lubricants at all fourth dimension, because most lubes are spermicides.

• Liquid nitrogen is the best solution to utilise to proceed semen cold and keep them for a long time.

Show More Tips

• Low conception rates are mutual in cows done by inexperienced technicians.

• Beware of those blind spots mentioned above in Tips

• AI is actually a lot harder than it sounds. A lot of errors tin can exist fabricated in the location of the pipette (or rod or AI gun) in the cow'south uterine tract, considering often the location of the pipette is easily moved, and it is impossible to check pipette placement.

• Never artificially inseminate cows yourself unless you are very experienced and accept the necessary grooming.

Things Yous'll Demand

• AI tank with canisters and canes inside
• Liquid nitrogen
• Straws with desired semen
• AI gun
• Paper towels
• Straw-cutter scissors
• Thermos (preferably wide-mouthed one)
• OB lubricant
• Shoulder-length gloves
• Tweezers
• Thick gloves

Nigh This Article

Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 423,999 times.

Did this article help you?

Source: https://www.wikihow.com/Artificially-Inseminate-Cows-and-Heifers

Share this post