Defne artificial infemination. what are the advantages over conventional breeding 2
Answers
What is Artificial Insemination (AI)?
Artificial insemination is the breeding of a female with semen that has been collected and inseminated into the uterus or vagina using instruments or equipment rather than by natural service (breeding). Artificial insemination has been around for years in fact the earliest report of AI dates back to 1322 A.D. with an Arab chieftain stealing some freshly deposited semen and breeding his own mare. Artificial insemination can be used to breed mares with fresh semen or the semen can be mixed with seminal extenders and cooled for 24-48 hours or frozen for AI much later on.
What are the advantages of AI?
Disease control. This is accomplished by preventing skin contact such as in natural service. The most important diseases it protects against are transmission of the herpes virus- equine coital exthanema - and contagious equine metritis, which is caused by a bacteria. In addition antibiotics can be added to the semen at the time of insemination or collection and reduce or totally eliminate breeding the mare with any bacteria at all.
Decreases chances of injury. Semen is generally only collected every other day in an AI programme, so there is much less chance for injury. In addition semen can be collected on a phantom and a mare in heat may not even be needed. Not only does this almost eliminate injury to the mare (if she didn’t want to get served) and stallion but also it dramatically reduces the chances of injury to those staff involved in the breeding shed. It may be in future that farms could be in legal trouble when staff are hurt and AI could have been used.
Semen can be collected from stallions with problems. Each year stallions are either injured or have trouble breeding due to inherent libido (sexual behaviour) problems. Because semen only needs to be collected every other day it reduces the effects of breeding pressure and injuries.
Semen is evaluated each time it is collected. With natural service we are flying a bit blind because it is not until pregnancy rates are established can we assume that the semen was OK at the time of breeding. With AI we can look and measure parameters related to fertility every time we collect. One way to look at reproduction is to say that when we feel the testicles we are "feeling the future" and when looking at semen we are "looking at history" as one represents potential and the other the recent event of semen production.
Prevents stallion overuse.
Allows more mares to be bred. AI lets us divide the semen up into as many doses as he is capable of giving in an ejaculate. Typically that is around 10-15 doses on an every other day collection schedule.
Permits breeding of mares with problems. Each year mares are presented for natural service that may not be psychologically ready for service. Sometimes this is due to the mare’s own agitation and sometimes it may be because she has a ‘foal at foot’ and becomes worried about her foal (foal proud).
Permits use of older valuable stallions. As stallions get older their sperm numbers decrease. This typically begins at around 13 years old. Many stallions are already exhibiting quite obvious sperm reduction by the time they are 16 - 17 and many are almost infertile by the time they are 19 - 20 years old. AI allows deposition of the correct number of sperm to be made for each mare and removes the guesswork.
Allows mares to be bred at the best time for conception. Because we can store semen either cooled or frozen mares can be bred when they are most suited for conception. In a natural service programme this would necessitate breeding the stallion as many as 5-6 times per day. Most stallions would not handle a breeding schedule like that for very long.
What are the disadvantages of AI?
Specialized equipment is needed. An artificial vagina (AV), thermometers, warmed containers and equipment non-spermicidal gel and equipment to measure motility (warmed stage microscope) and sperm concentration are all necessary for AI to be practised properly. This is expensive and a well-equipped laboratory may cost in vicinity of $40 000 just for the equipment (without the building and fittings).
Technical expertise is needed. Personnel need to know how to make the AV so that it is right for the stallion and then how to collect and process the semen properly.
Incorrectly practiced AI can cause problems. You would be surprised to learn just how often the wrong lubricating gel is used in the AV and that there have been weeks before anyone realised that the pregnancy rates were disastrous.
As is evident in this article, the advantages to Artificial Insemination far outweigh the associated risks.