Artificial Insemination, AI is a breeding procedure in which sperm cells of a male animal is collected and injected in the female reproductive track at the right time of conception using special equipment.
It has great benefits in livestock breeding, although, it has some disadvantages. Some of disadvantages are that this procedure requires specially trained professionals and kits to carry out, and it may be difficult for human to know when the female animals enter estrus and when they are ready for conception, to conduct the procedure. Collected sperm cells live only for about an hour unless kept refrigerated. Also, it limits variability of genes in the offspring.
Despite the little disadvantages, Artificial Insemination is a veritable method of livestock breeding under the conditions that will be discussed here. While using artificial insemination method to breed your animals, ensure you use the right instruments and professionals. Read requirements to set up mechanized cattle ranch
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| Artificial Insemination Kit |
As a measure to control spread of venereal diseases
Venereal diseases are transmitted through mating. Healthy bulls can be carefully selected for breeding. Artificial Insemination prevents vaginal diseases and other venereal diseases caused by mating. This is done by carefully selecting healthy bull donors, screening of semen quality before insemination.
To cut cost of production
The weight of male animals are usually higher than that of the females, and consume more feed. Other costs are cost of housing, health and biosecurity, farm maintenance cost. So with the use of Artificial Insemination, there wouldn’t be need to keep bulls, bucks and rams with their attendant costs.
Small size farm
Small farm wouldn’t be able to house too many livestock, and bulls, bucks and rams are not easily housed. They need spacious environment especially during mating. In this situation Artificial Insemination may be recommended to maximize the little farm space.
Best genetic selection
When there are much bulls, bucks and rams there may be mixture of ones with poor genetics. To get offspring with best genetics or particular genetic, Artificial Insemination is recommended because bulls with best genetics can be selected to reproduce their kinds. AI procedure can be used to solve the problem of infertility in male animals
Cross breeding
Cross breeding is the process of allowing genetics of a breed of animal to pass to another breed of animal. This is done by allowing the male breed mate the female of another so that the offspring reproduced carry the genetics of both breeds. Cross breeding helps to improve the genes of livestock breeds which are not hybrids or exotic by transferring the genetics of the hybrid or exotic breeds to them. The two different breeds may not easily come together to mate which makes the cross breeding difficult. With artificial insemination, sperm cells of the exotic breed can be collected and manually deposited in the vagina of the non exotic female breed and vice versa.
Maximum usage of the bulls
When there are too many bulls, they tend to engage more in fighting than mating. Instead of having much bulls that wouldn’t do the job well, the farmer can consider using artificial insemination method. Also, natural breeding wastes sperm. When the male animals mate with the female, there is release of more than required semen for fertilization. But with artificial insemination, semen from one ejaculation can to used to get more than one female animals pregnant. Natural breeding requires the male and female animals to physically meet, but in artificial insemination, semen sperm can be collected, diluted, stored, transported to inseminate female animals in different locations.
Safety
Male livestock (bulls, bucks and rams) are usually violent and engage in fight when they are many in one place. This poses safety threat to both the animals and the farmers. So for safety the animals and the farmer, even that of the farm equipment Artificial Insemination can be adopted using few semen from few males.
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