Investigation of the effectiveness of artificial insemination of cows and heifers with non-sorted and sex-sorted semen

Abstract

The research findings on the effectiveness of artificial insemination of cows and heifers with cryopreserved non-sorted, with a concentration of 15 million sperm cells per dose, and sex-sorted sperm, with a concentration of 2.1 million sperm cells per dose, are discussed. The analysis of data on animal breeding and husbandry accounting of breeding farms from 40 regions of the Russian Federation for Holstein, Ayrshire and Jersey breeds from 2018 through 2023, and data from our own research for the same period was made. The following parameters were studied: the conception rate after the first insemination, abortions and stillbirths, culling of pregnant females, and female calf crop. Also, the fertilizing ability of non-sorted and sex-sorted semen of Holstein bulls (n = 5) was studied depending on the biological characteristics (motility and survival ability, degree of nuclear DNA fragmentation) of their semen. It was found that the fertilizing ability of traditional seed on cows was 38.7% on average by breed, and 55.1% on heifers. The fertilizing ability of the sex-sorted semen when used on Holstein heifers (47.2 %) and Ayrshire heifers (46.1 %) was higher as compared to Jersey heifers (39.2 %). The use of sex-sorted semen led to increased female calf crop on average in the group of cows by 36.5%, in the group of heifers - by 34.7%. There was no significant difference between the degree of fragmentation of sperm nucleotide in the samples of non-sorted and sex-sorted semen.