Strategies for the Successful Implementation of Sex Sorted Semen for Beef Females

Abstract

The ability to predetermine the sex of offspring has tremendous managerial and economic implications in the beef cattle industry. With a world population close to seven billion, there is a growing need to produce more beef via the more muscle laden male. In commercial dairy cattle, the situation is just the opposite: the male is an unwanted by-product of breeding for female replacements.
 Rabbit sperm was first stained and sorted in 1989, and within a decade the technology was improved through use of high speed flow cytometric sorting of DNA stained sperm. Sorting of bovine sperm has been available for the bovine industry in the US since 2003. The demand is high, but there are significant differences in how sorted sperm is processed before freezing compared to traditional non-sorted sperm. Also, the sorted sperm is packaged differently than traditional non-sorted sperm, which creates handling issues during shipping and thawing samples in the field. These differences have a significant effect on the conception rates of inseminated females. There are many management considerations on the farm or ranch that must be taken into account before a veterinary practitioner recommends sex sorted frozen semen to his clients.