ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION MAKES SLOW PROGRESS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28471, 28 December 1957, Page 13

ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION MAKES SLOW PROGRESS

Although 160,000 cows were artificially inseminated in New Zealand last year compared with 1600 in 1949 when the procedure was first put on a commercial basis, Dr. J. W. McLean, head of the veterinary department at Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, says in a bulletin published by the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce that only about 8 per cent, of the national herd are as yet artificially inseminated and compared with other dairying countries the practice is therefore not yet highly developed in New Zealand. Dr. McLean says that in 1954 89 per cent, of dairy cattle in Denmark were stated to be artificially inseminated, 55 per cent, in the Netherlands, 55 per cent, in England and Wales, 24 per cent in the United States of America, and 22 per cent, in Sweden. Since these figures had been quoted the

percentages had almost certainly increased. For the United States this meant that some 6,000,000 dairy cattle were inseminated each year. “While reference is frequently made to the supposed use by the Arabs of artificial insemination in the breeding of their horses, the earliest reliable reports describe the activities of the Italian physiologist, Spallanzani who, in 1780, experimented successfully with dogs,” says Dr. McLean. «

“The first authentic records concerning work with cattle came from Russia as late as the beginning of this century. Much of the later research dealing with large animals was done in England at Cambridge after the First World War. Russia was first to adapt the procedure to commercial animal breeding on a large scale, followed by Denmark, the United States of America and Italy.”