PREPOTENCY OF BULLS

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28314, 27 June 1957, Page 11

PREPOTENCY OF BULLS

D.SJ.R. Division’s Research

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON. June 26.

The Microclimate Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, with the help of the New Zealand Dairy Board, has developed a method of testing the keeping qualities of bull semen which has considerably increased the number of successful artificial inseminations. The board found in 1955 that when semen was not used on the day of collection some of it deteriorated. The rate at which it did so depended upon the bulls from which it came. The bulls all of which were capable of producing good butter-fat-producing daughters were divided into three groups—those whose semen kept in storage: those whose semen was good only for twd days, and those whose semen was only good on the day of collection.

The board’s technical staff reasoned that if a method could be found of determining which bulls , produced semen which would still be good on the third day, the conception rate among cows inseminated at a distance from the collection point would be improved. In its experiments the Microclimate Division found that the rate at which sugar in the semen was used was a measure of the vitality of the sperm. Good sperm used sugar rapidly. The application of the method by the Board has contributed to a rise in the conception rate from 49 per cent, in 1955, to 58 per cent, this year.

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