National Dairy Conference Questions Answered: Sexed semen - synchronisation or natural heat?

With the opening of the sexed semen laboratory at Moorepark, the use of the technology is likely to increase substantially in the 2022 breeding season. One unanswered question at the Virtual Dairy Conference concerned whether or not synchronisation was essential to ensure high conception rate

On the day at the Virtual Dairy Conference Teagasc Specialists were not in a position to answer all of the questions asked due to the sheer volume of questions. Instead over the coming days they will attempt to answer some of those questions on the Dairy Daily. 

The first of these was on the 6-week calving rate and the answer can be viewed here: National Dairy Conference Questions Answered: 6-week calving rate

Today's question is:

Does sexed semen work best with synchronisation or by the cow coming into heat herself?

The presentation made by Dr. Stephen Butler, Moorepark on Sexed semen use on dairy farms, at the Conference showed no difference in the conception rates to sexed semen following AI to either natural heat or synchronisation. The advantage of relying on natural heats prior to insemination with sexed semen is that no cost is incurred. The disadvantage however is the work load required in detecting heats and in situations where insemination takes place only once daily, not all of the animals are at the optimum time for successful insemination with sexed semen when presented for AI. Such animals will be more successfully bred with conventional semen instead.

See more on the Virtual Dairy Conference 2021 here.

The complete Dairy Conference Proceedings can be viewed here and the individual articles were published on Teagasc Daily throughout last week. See Teagasc Daily - Dairy for more.