Semen sexing

State of the art

Abstract

Can we indeed, predetermine the gender of farm animals through the use of sexed semen? For years, animal scientists, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, soothsayers, Ouija boards, barbers, and shoe salesmen have all boasted about a 50% success rate. Not bad, but cattle ranchers across America need a little more substance than that before opening up their pocket books for sexed semen.

To be accepted in the real world of cattle breeding, sexed semen should be predictable to the 90% level, provide pregnancy rates comparable to existing AI standards, and affordable. Currently, the world offers no such services to the cattle industry. However, there is some promising technology in this field that at least offers some hope for the future.