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Bad Habits Are Hard To Break, But - Good Habits Maximize Fertility

By Mel DeJarnette, reproductive specialist

Have you ever stopped to notice in the morning which leg you put into your pants first, which arm goes into your shirt first or which shoe goes on first? Chances are you go through the exact same routine every morning without realizing it. I tried to break my routine the other morning by putting my right shoe on first instead of the left. I’ll tell you, it screwed up my whole day!

These are what we call habits. We do things the same way day after day until it just feels natural to do it that way and unnatural to do it any other way. For any task performed on a routine basis, there is a natural tendency to develop habits. Once the habit is established, we don’t have to think about what we’re doing or why were doing it. For most tasks, habits are of little consequence as long as the job gets done.

However, bad habits can spell problems. This is particularly true when it comes to you’re A.I. breeding program. If you are currently breeding your own cows, you probably attended an A.I. training course where the instructor stressed the importance of proper semen handling and A.I. technique. Unfortunately, there are many places in A.I. technique where people have a tendency to take shortcuts. Shortcuts lead to bad habits. Bad habits lead to problems.

Let’s review the important aspects of your breeding program and define some good habits to develop that may help to achieve higher conception rates.

Good Habit #1
Wash your hands. Inseminating cows is equivalent to a surgeon performing an operation. Bacteria on your hands would likely be transferred to your insemination gun during the loading procedure. If carried into the uterus during insemination, these organisms could thrive and grow rapidly resulting in metritis and infertility.

Good Habit #2
Keep unused straws cold. Avoid the phenomenon known as semen exposure. When raised above the frost line in the neck of your tank, ice crystals within the straw begin to change shape and size. This shears delicate sperm membranes resulting in less than optimal semen quality. Specifically, good habits to avoid semen exposure include:

Keep semen below the frost line in the neck of your tank.
Keep an up-to-date semen inventory card. By doing so, you can go directly to the canister containing the desired bull and avoid searching the whole tank.
Use forceps to remove straws. This allows you to keep the canister and semen further down in the neck of the tank during straw retrieval.

Good Habit #3
Thaw only as many straws as can be used in 15 minutes. Once thawed, sperm cells begin to burn up their limited energy reserves. You want them to burn this energy on the way to the oviduct, not swimming in circles inside the straw.

Good Habit #4
Regularly calibrate your thaw bath thermometer. An improper thermometer calibration will result in improper thaw rates and damaged sperm cells.

Good Habit #5
Protect semen after thawing. Cold shock occurs when thawed semen is subjected to sudden temperature declines. While we think of cold shock as only being a factor during the cooler months of the year, this is not the case. 70°F on a warm summer morning feels very comfortable to you and me. But it represents a sudden 25°F change in temperature for a sperm cell taken from 95°F thaw water. If good habits to avoid cold shock are practiced throughout the year, you need not worry as cooler temperatures prevail come winter. Good habits include:

Thaw semen and load the insemination gun in a warm environment.
Warm the gun by stroking it with your hand prior to loading.
Wrap the loaded gun in a paper towel or use individually packed sheaths for insulation.
Placed the loaded gun and protective cover inside your shirt for additional insulation. DO NOT place the gun between your teeth as you walk to the cow.

Good Habit #6
Take your time when breeding the cow and depositing semen. Inseminating cows too rapidly can result in improper semen placement with much of the semen deposited into one horn or in the cervix. You may even damage the uterine lining. It only takes a few extra seconds to make sure semen is deposited correctly. Faster is not always better. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare.

How Are Bad Habits Developed?
On average, a semen straw contains approximately 20-25 million sperm cells. However, only one sperm is needed to penetrate the egg to obtain fertilization. Shortcuts in semen handling can cause many millions of sperm cells to be destroyed. But if enough cells survive to gain access to the oviduct and result in fertilization, you may get a false sense of security that the shortcut adopted or the procedure omitted has no affect on fertility. That’s short term luck. In the long run, the best way to maintain high fertility is to maintain the maximum number of live sperm cells in each straw from the time it is purchased until it is ultimately deposited in the cow.

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