The World's source for Bovine Genetics
Select Sires Surpasses 1.5 Million Units of gender SELECTed Semen



PLAIN CITY, Ohio, September 26, 2008 — Select Sires is pleased to announce that it has produced and sold its 1.5 millionth unit of gender SELECTed semen.

"This major milestone is indicative of our unmatched experience and dedication in producing and marketing sexed semen," said David Thorbahn, general manager for Select Sires. "While other companies are following Select's path in marketing sexed semen, Select Sires is the clear industry leader with the most experience, research and production capacity."

Always on the forefront of new technology, Select Sires has researched the semen-sexing process since 2000 and became the first major A.I. company in North America to market gender SELECTed semen in 2005. "Our mission is to increase the productivity and profitability of dairy producers and we were confident that this technology would help achieve that mission," Thorbahn said. "It was a bit of a risk for us at the time, but we are proud to have lead the industry in offering sexed semen. We hear every day how gender SELECTed semen is exceeding our customers' fertility expectations and helping dairy producers improve their bottom lines. We couldn't be more proud to have had a hand in helping our customers achieve this success."

Select's experience in researching sexed semen has been critical in offering such a high-quality product. "Our research allowed us to understand that individual bull fertility is critical to quality," Thorbahn said. "With the industry's largest lineup and collecting more than 1 million records per year to analyze fertility, we have more bulls to choose from and more information on bull fertility to achieve the highest fertility possible." At Select Sires, a large battery of gender SELECTed sires allows highly trained sexing technicians the opportunity to pick and choose those with the highest quality sperm cells for processing during each collection period. "Our customers have come to expect the highest fertility possible and we work hard to deliver that superiority every time!" Thorbahn said.

Expanding Production
Construction is underway for greater sexed-semen production capacity at the Select Sires headquarters. "Even after producing and selling 1.5 million units of gender SELECTed semen, there is still a great demand for the product and we are doing everything we can to satisfy our customers," said Blaine Crosser, vice president of dairy sire product line and sales management for Select Sires. "We're adding more sorting machines to our facilities in order to produce more straws of sexed semen from our expansive and elite lineup."

Select's Best are Sexed
One reason Select Sires has succeeded in selling 1.5 million units of sexed semen is because many of the best bulls on the lineup are available sexed. Select's gender SELECTed lineup includes bulls that excel in many traits. Of the 33 Holstein sires with sexed semen available at Select, nine of those are +1700 or higher for TPI - that's more than any other A.I. company. In addition, 16 are greater than +1,000 for Milk yield, 16 are positive for Protein and 17 are positive for Fat. Select's gender SELECTed lineup also includes the No. 1 sire for JPI in 7JE1000 Richies Jace TBONE A364 and breed-leading Brown Swiss, such as 7BS766 Blessing Banker AGENDA ET *TM.

Based in Plain City, Ohio, Select Sires Inc. is North America’s largest A.I. organization and is comprised of 10 farmer-owned and -controlled cooperatives. As the industry leader, it provides highly fertile semen as well as excellence in service and programs to achieve its basic objective of supplying dairy and beef producers with North America’s best genetics at a reasonable price.

Tgender SELECTed is a trademark of Select Sires Inc



To order product contact:
Select Sires Inc., 11740 U.S. 42 North, Plain City, Ohio 43064 / Phone: (614) 873-4683 Fax: (614) 873-5751