Conventional or Heifer Plus? What's that mean anyway?
Will it be a bull calf year or a heifer year? The age-old question that is often on all of our minds during breeding season, while we’re waiting, and then going into calving season. Once upon a time, a 50/50 shot was all we had going into our breedings. But now, thanks to artificial insemination and technology we can shoot for the outcomes we desire.
Conventional Semen is exactly what it sounds like. Bull semen is collected and then frozen with no further serums or processes. This semen, when used for AI, will give you a 50/50 shot for the outcome of a bull calf or heifer calf. With Conventional Semen, studies have shown that you have a 70% change of conception.
HeiferPlus Semen is also exactly what it sounds like. Semen that gives you increased possibility of a heifer calf. HeiferPlus is a serum/agent used that allows us an edge to selecting sex of calves. Adding HeiferPlus increases the overall fertility and shifts calve production to 75-90% female yet still maintains the same 70% conception rate. This method is less invasive than fully sexing semen.
Fully sexed semen is a different creature altogether. It is created by using a laser ablation process to selectively destroy sperm cells carrying the undesired chromosome. Before the laser ablation is done, the semen is often dyed and spun to mark the chromosomes. Then it undergoes a microscope for the laser ablation. This method decreases the conception rate considerably leaving only a 40% conception rate and can be very costly to produce.
I’m not going to lie – much of the scientific research I have read goes a little over my head! There is so much out there to read and think about. What I do know is that the more you “mess with” the semen, the lower the conception rate goes and the higher the price becomes. On a side note: while we’re discussing all of this let me add that the information given in this blog is the information as I understand it (I am a farmer, not a scientist!). We always encourage everyone to do their own research to confirm or form their own opinions on these matters.
At Rocky Bottom Mini Farm, we currently offer two of the above types of semen mentioned from our bulls. Those two types are the first two discussed. Conventional and HeiferPlus. We had several thoughts in our process of making this decision and I’ll discuss those here as food for thought. In the future, we will hopefully add Fully Sexed Semen to our bank.
There is always a reason to need conventional semen, and these can vary widely. Some farms may need a bull calf one year or may not care if they have a bull calf or heifer calf but just want to keep their girl in milk and want the most cost-effective way of doing so. For this reason, we offer conventional semen. For sexing, we could have gone the route of collecting and going through the process of fully sexed semen. We chose not to at this time. Not that there is anything wrong with that process, but we just felt like there had to be a less invasive, less “scientific” way to increase our odds for a heifer calf. For the semen to be fully sexed it would need to be collected, sent off from our collection facility to a third party, go through the sexing process, and then shipped back to our facility. That would cause the pricing of our sexed semen to be significantly higher. In our search for the “there’s got to be an easier way to do this” thought, we learned about a different process that “just made good sense” to us. HeiferPlus. HeiferPlus is offered right at our collecting facility. This means the semen doesn’t have to be shipped out to undergo the process (cost saver number one). Then, adding a serum is way less expensive than going through the laser ablation process (cost saver number two). We felt like there is less room for error when the semen is collected, handled and stored by the pros at our collection facility, all done in one place, and then subsequently shipped to our clients by the same people. With an increase in the odds giving you a 75-90% chance of a heifer calf and the much lower costs of the serum based additive versus the laser ablation combined plus a stronger conception rate in using HeiferPlus over fully sexed semen, we truly felt like this was a win-win. Do we still have a small chance of a bull calf? Of course. But when weighed against everything else, we felt like this was the best use for us to offer our clients to have 1) a better change of conception, 2) a much higher probability of a heifer calf, and then 3) a lower cost in the process. If money were no object, then sure, maybe we would all go the fully sexed route because it wouldn’t matter as much if it took more than one or two tries. But let’s face facts – the economy is rough! Money does matter. And we are farmers. Calculated risks and money saving efforts are the lane we want to be in.
So for all of these reasons, we personally have chosen to go the HeiferPlus routes when our goal is a heifer calf. Again, do your research! Come up with your own answers and thoughts. These are just our “two cents” so to speak. I don’t know about you, but I want a good shot at a heifer at a lower cost to my pocket. Everything is a risk and a gamble. But this one is a pretty calculated one. Have some thoughts on this? Shoot me an email! I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.
