Sexed semen use in the Irish dairy industry
The recent developments regarding the availability and uptake of sex-sorted semen in Ireland have been remarkable.
There was no sex-sorted semen produced in Ireland for the 2021 breeding season, and availability was limited to a combination of a small number of Irish bulls that were moved to a sex-sorting lab in another country (e.g., Cogent in the UK) and imports of non-Irish bulls from other countries (e.g., UK, NZ). Since then, Sexing Technologies have established two labs in Ireland. The combined output of the two labs for the 2023 breeding season was approximately 230,000 straws. There continues to be additional imports of sex-sorted semen from other countries (mainly UK and NZ), meaning that approximately 300,000 straws of sex-sorted semen were available for use in the 2023 breeding season (see Figure 1 for current and potential future usage of sexed semen). This rate of increase highlights the rapid growth in enthusiasm for using sexed semen to generate replacement heifers in Irish dairy farms. This enthusiasm for using sex-sorted semen has arisen for several reasons:
- Large teams of high EBI bulls are available sexed;
- Acceptable pregnancy rates are being achieved across thousands of herds;
- Using high EBI sexed semen on the best EBI dams accelerates herd genetic gain;
- Using sex-sorted semen to generate replacement heifers at the start of the breeding season ensures that all replacements are born at the start of the calving season the following year;
- It facilitates a marked increase in the use of high DBI beef semen to generate all non-replacement calves, which could account for over 70% of the total calf crop. These beef-cross calves are more saleable compared with male dairy calves.
Stephen Moore, Teagasc provides an insight into what to expect at the Breeding and Reproduction Village at #Moorepark23, which takes place on Tuesday, 4th July.
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