A.I. (and I don't mean Artificial Intelligence)
Below is a photo of me and 250HO12961 DOC at Select Sires in Plain City, OH. He has sired nearly 16,000 daughters in over 4,000 herds across the world.
Artificial Insemination (AI)
Tracing back to experiments in the late 1700's, artificial insemination gained commercial traction in the 1930's. The dairy industry, still today, uses artificial insemination more than any other livestock industry. 60% of all dairy cattle and 85% of registered Holsteins are bred using artificial insemination.
AI gives breeders the opportunity to choose from a more vast pool of genetics, and the genetics they have to choose from are the most elite. By utilizing the traits these bulls offer, farmers can create future generations of healthy, productive cows. Contrary to having a herd bull, most dairy farms today have frozen straws of semen to breed their cows.
The semen is collected from bulls. It is quality tested, and eventually frozen in a straw. Then it is stored in tanks filled with liquid nitrogen until it is ready to be used to breed a cow.
Breeding using AI is much safer for the farmer and the cow. Bulls are huge and can be unpredictable. They also weigh about a ton, so it is safer for the cow in this way. You can also mend issues in cows for the next generation of your herd. For example, if I have a cow that has issues with her feet, I can choose to breed her to a bull that has traits for great feet and legs to try and mend that issue for her offspring.
In the late 1990's, sexed-semen rose as the newest innovation to the AI Industry. Obviously, only females produce milk, so with this innovation, farmers can be nearly certain the cow's offspring will be female. The chromosomes are sorted, and sexed-semen offers about a 90% chance the offspring will be female.
Wrap it Up
Artificial Insemination has helped us advance the dairy industry in cow quality, efficiency and productivity. In just the past 10 years, milk produced (in millions of pounds) in the US went from 196,164 in 2011 to 226,258 while the number of cows decreased by 300,000. While management and nutrition have a role in these productivity advancements, genetics plays a huge part in it as well. It expands the opportunities for farmers, and improves safety.
If you're curious about some of the traits included in the bull's data that farmers can use to select their bull, visit DOC's bull page! These numbers are called PTA's (predicted transmitting ability) and they are in relation to the average of that breed.
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