Frozen or Chilled ?

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brownswiss

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Is it worthwhile to opt for frozen when it is half the price of chilled semen ? If any of you have switched to fozen for a number of years has your conception rate changed ?

What extra costs have you incurred ?...


Thanks.
 
brownswiss said:
Is it worthwhile to opt for frozen when it is half the price of chilled semen ? If any of you have switched to frozen for a number of years has your conception rate changed ?

What extra costs have you incurred ?...


Thanks.
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In general how long has your mare been kept in the AI centre ?
 
I'm sure everyone does this differently and there are no hard or fast rules for anyone so here's what I do.

I use fresh and frozen semen. I use a great reproduction vet clinic to do my inseminations and I haven't noticed any difference in conception rates over the years however I do only buy frozen which I know has good motility and good conception rates. This year I have used frozen semen exclusively on all of my mares but many are waiting for their 16 day scans to confirm pregnancies so I can't give you figures as yet.

I have a nitrogen tank so I store my own frozen semen and don't have to pay storage charges. I take the tank with me when having mares bred and leave it at the clinic until all mares are confirmed pregnant then it comes home again. I keep a fair amount of frozen semen on hand and will dip into it in emergencies. Most of my frozen is bought per dose although some stallion agents sell multiples for a discount. Some frozen is sold with stud terms, most of the semen I have in my tank is not therefore I pay per dose with no foal guarantee.

All of the fresh I use does come with a LFG.

I take my mares to be bred just a day or so prior to them ovulating so I'm able to keep vet AI costs down. I know my mares well and know what size follicle each one usually ovulate at. This keeps my scanning costs down until immediately prior to and after ovulating when they are obviously scanned more frequently. Once they have ovulated and been inseminated I take my mares home.

I will not breed on a single dose of frozen. Too many things can go wrong so I always have at least 2 doses of frozen before I consider using this semen. When buying per dose it can end up being cheaper than buying a full breeding however if those doses don't get the mare pregnant then you have to fork out more money for extra doses for the next cycle.

Buying the semen can often be the cheapest part of breeding unless you use a clinic which offers breeding packages. I don't, so I pay for each service my mares are provided with and if I have a tricky mare then these vet costs can spiral very quickly.

As said, everyone does things differently but the way I do it works for me :)
 
Thank Your for your reply. The AI centre I am thinking of using charges €230 per breeding cycle plus €20 per day B&B. Chilled will cost me about €120 per cycle at home.
 
An interesting post, Spring Feather, and valid points.

I've always been terrified of frozen semen, until now. I've bought in 4 straws, from a stallion who is known to have particularly active semen, post thaw, and have been offered a full report, from the batch which I've agreed to. Detailed analysis of all frozen semen, by batch, is vital, I feel sure. There will be a variation between different batches, from any given stallion, and then there will also be those stallions, who's semen doesn't survive freezing, as well as it might.

With the use of modern drugs, ovulation can be predicted, on virtually every mare, and as you will have a history of your own mares cycles, and the likely timings, then there should be no reason, that I can see, why success shouldn't be the same as with chilled.

I have no particular wish to be shot at now, and whilst there are many who will have had spectacular success with a visiting vet, whilst the mare stays at home, it's my honest opinion, that all AI work, is better done at an established stud/AI centre, where the vitally focused and determined approach will give greater chances of success.

Alec.
 
Alec Swan said:
I have no particular wish to be shot at now, and whilst there are many who will have had spectacular success with a visiting vet, whilst the mare stays at home, it's my honest opinion, that all AI work, is better done at an established stud/AI centre, where the vitally focused and determined approach will give greater chances of success.

Alec.
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I agree Alec. Knowing that timings are crucial with frozen insemination, I simply cannot see how it could be possible to have many successful frozen conceptions with a mare using frozen at home. Even using fresh, where you have a whole lot more leeway, I still think the AI centre is the place for mares to be so that they can be monitored for the latter part of their cycle. It doesn't make sense to pay 2 grand for semen and then to just throw it in and hope for the best. Timing, even with fresh, is the make or break of success.
 
brownswiss said:
Thank Your for your reply. The AI centre I am thinking of using charges €230 per breeding cycle plus €20 per day B&B. Chilled will cost me about €120 per cycle at home.
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That's an incredible deal! What does that include? Scannings every 6 hours for frozen? Every 12 hours for fresh? Or is that the basic price with everything extra added on?
 
I have used both chilled and frozen, had excellent results with both. My mares took first time with the frozen so it did work out slightly cheaper.
Using frozen is more evasive due to the extra scans and one of my mares became very fed up and resented being scanned, she is as good as gold with chilled as less scans so I wont go down the frozen route with her again, worth thinking about depending on how good your mare is to scan.
 
Spring Feather said:
I agree Alec. Knowing that timings are crucial with frozen insemination, I simply cannot see how it could be possible to have many successful frozen conceptions with a mare using frozen at home.

I think most Vets insist on mare being resident for frozen cycles due to the critical timing- which is sensible as they could be driving to you a 3am! My mare has been inseminated at this time of the morning.

I have used both with the same mare and two different Vets. This is the result:


Frozen
* Bog standard equine Vets- mare at clinic for a couple of days inseminated then brought home. Backwards and forwards around five times, uterine infection and no foal. Expensive lesson learned.

*Repro vets- left at stud for six weeks on grazing livery- inseminated one cycle and in foal.


Chilled
* Same repro Vets- mare at stud farm now, inseminated at the stud, in foal first time.


I have to say with Willesley Vets my mare got in foal first go with both frozen and chilled. As you can see, you must use proper repro Vets for frozen.

I will be using Willesley again next year, as I am going to be spending alot of money trying to get my mare infoal to the stallion I have always wanted, and he will be frozen with no terms- I wouldnt trust anyone else.


Also - the price you are paying is excellent! I wish we had it as cheap as Ireland!

I paid £480.00 including livery for Frozen last year per cycle, and £342.00 for chilled plus £50.00 visit fees. I wouldnt even bother telling you what I paid the failed vets because I have blocked it from my mind!!!


Good luck whatever you choose
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Spring Feather said:
I have a nitrogen tank so I store my own frozen semen and don't have to pay storage charges. I take the tank with me when having mares bred and leave it at the clinic until all mares are confirmed pregnant then it comes home again. I keep a fair amount of frozen semen on hand and will dip into it in emergencies. Most of my frozen is bought per dose although some stallion agents sell multiples for a discount. Some frozen is sold with stud terms, most of the semen I have in my tank is not therefore I pay per dose with no foal guarantee.

Buying the semen can often be the cheapest part of breeding unless you use a clinic which offers breeding packages. I don't, so I pay for each service my mares are provided with and if I have a tricky mare then these vet costs can spiral very quickly.

As said, everyone does things differently but the way I do it works for me :)
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Hi Spring Feather- just out of interest- how much does it cost to buy a nitrogen storage tank? Sounds a silly question but do you have to keep topping it up etc?

Thanks for your help.
 
I paid just under 1k for the one I have at the moment and it is topped up with liquid nitrogen every 6 weeks. My present one stores 150 doses and is much more managable than the one I had previously which stored 4,500 doses; it was too big and I don't store anything like that amount of semen so it was ridiculously big to transport about and also was expensive to refill every few weeks.
 
I am in Ireland too , Melissa, and the repro vet clinic I use charge €220 for chilled and €250 for frozen packages. This includes all scans, swabs but not antibiotics.
They are excellent and got my 14 yo maiden in foal with chilled at the first attempt.
 
mellissa said:
Spring Feather said:
I agree Alec. Knowing that timings are crucial with frozen insemination, I simply cannot see how it could be possible to have many successful frozen conceptions with a mare using frozen at home.

I think most Vets insist on mare being resident for frozen cycles due to the critical timing- which is sensible as they could be driving to you a 3am! My mare has been inseminated at this time of the morning.

I have used both with the same mare and two different Vets. This is the result:


Frozen
* Bog standard equine Vets- mare at clinic for a couple of days inseminated then brought home. Backwards and forwards around five times, uterine infection and no foal. Expensive lesson learned.

*Repro vets- left at stud for six weeks on grazing livery- inseminated one cycle and in foal.


Chilled
* Same repro Vets- mare at stud farm now, inseminated at the stud, in foal first time.


I have to say with Willesley Vets my mare got in foal first go with both frozen and chilled. As you can see, you must use proper repro Vets for frozen.

I will be using Willesley again next year, as I am going to be spending alot of money trying to get my mare infoal to the stallion I have always wanted, and he will be frozen with no terms- I wouldnt trust anyone else.


Also - the price you are paying is excellent! I wish we had it as cheap as Ireland!

I paid £480.00 including livery for Frozen last year per cycle, and £342.00 for chilled plus £50.00 visit fees. I wouldnt even bother telling you what I paid the failed vets because I have blocked it from my mind!!!


Good luck whatever you choose
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Thaknks again to all of you for sharing your experience and knowledge.

I have never considered using frozen at home and in fact never thought it practical for me to use it at all as we live over 3hrs from the equine centre.

For chilled we travel to a vet who lives about 1hr from us. He does not provide livery.

How much livery was included in your price of £480?

Do you tease your mare before you bring her to the equine centre or just bring her at about 28 days after foaling.?
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Hi Brownswiss,

Frozen wouldn't be an option for you as you live 3hrs away- unless the mare was resident at the surgery. Timing is critical as thawed sperm life can be as little as 1-6 hrs- ovulation has to occur within that timeframe, and frequent scanning is necessary for this. As I said, my mare was inseminated at 3am with frozen! My bog standard Vet livery was £22 per day- who failed to get her infoal, whereas Willesley were £7 per day. She was at Willesley's for 6 weeks.

She foaled so late in the year last time (end July), she missed a year and was inseminated this year in April. The difference this year is that she lives at a stud farm anyway now, therefore the Vet is there most days and just scanned her to check where is was in her cycle. She has never needed to be teased, as she makes it quite obvious to anything- human or equine, that she is ready!! The scan is included in the package and all scans to heartbeat stage, but with a £10 call out fee. All drugs, and the consequent twinning was all covered with the package. Chilled insemination was carried out at the stud where she lives, with semen from Ireland.

If you use Frozen you MUST get proper repro Vets- I cannot bang on about that enough! I learned the hard way.

What stallion are you considering? I am sure you have told me but cannot remember!
 
Hi Spring Feather- thanks for the info!

By the looks of it, it would be more financial viable for me to store semen at a stud than to buy a shipper.

Interesting though, had never thought of it.
 
mellissa said:
Hi Brownswiss,

Frozen wouldn't be an option for you as you live 3hrs away- unless the mare was resident at the surgery. Timing is critical as thawed sperm life can be as little as 1-6 hrs- ovulation has to occur within that timeframe, and frequent scanning is necessary for this. As I said, my mare was inseminated at 3am with frozen! My bog standard Vet livery was £22 per day- who failed to get her infoal, whereas Willesley were £7 per day. She was at Willesley's for 6 weeks.

She foaled so late in the year last time (end July), she missed a year and was inseminated this year in April. The difference this year is that she lives at a stud farm anyway now, therefore the Vet is there most days and just scanned her to check where is was in her cycle. She has never needed to be teased, as she makes it quite obvious to anything- human or equine, that she is ready!! The scan is included in the package and all scans to heartbeat stage, but with a £10 call out fee. All drugs, and the consequent twinning was all covered with the package. Chilled insemination was carried out at the stud where she lives, with semen from Ireland.

If you use Frozen you MUST get proper repro Vets- I cannot bang on about that enough! I learned the hard way.

What stallion are you considering? I am sure you have told me but cannot remember!
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.

If I use frozen it will probably be Sir Shutterfly.

I am hoping that the mare and foal will not need to be in the equine centre more than a few days.
 
brownswiss said:
.

I am hoping that the mare and foal will not need to be in the equine centre more than a few days.
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It's all down to how intuitive you are with your mare. If you know her well then she needn't be away for more than a few days. My mares (with foals at foot) are rarely gone from home for more than a couple of days. I often leave maidens there for longer pre-ovulation as I like to track their initial heat cycle but thereafter they also only go for a 2 or 3 days.
 
My experience of frozen and chilled is that they are both stressful. :lol:

Having a specialist AI vet is an essential. Using anyone else is like playing the lottery.

The plus side of frozen semen is that it can be ordered ahead of time and live at the AI clinic so no matter what time or day of the week your mare decides to ovulate the semen is available. The down side of frozen is that the quality is hugely variable and unless you're lucky enough to hear on the grapevine that a particular stallion is not getting pregnancies from his semen (like Vivaldi a couple of years ago) you can waste a huge amount of money using semen that is essentially useless. There's never a refund... The other down side to frozen is that it is much more irritant to the mare's uterus than chilled so if you have an older mare or a maiden mare or one with uterine clearance issues you're probably better off using chilled. I did get a pregnancy (I used Flemmingh) from 1 cycle of frozen despite being told that the semen looked terrible. I think I was very lucky but it is true that some semen works well even when it looks bad. The only way to be sure is to ask other breeders and AI vets what the success rate is. The numbers you need are how many cycles per pregnancy. The average is 1.6 cycles for every pregnancy. This is why its a good idea to have enough frozen for 2 cycles. Numbers such as "95% fertility" don't mean much at all if some of those pregnancies took 5 cycles before they took.

The plus side with chilled is it usually has better motility and longer active life than frozen so the window for insemination is not quite so critical. Its a bit more forgiving (but I'd still only use a specialist AI vet!) The down side is actually getting hold of the stuff at the right time and on the right day. The past two years I've ordered semen from Germany and been on tenterhooks as to when my mare would ovulate. You can't import semen at weekends because it can only go on cargo flights which don't fly on Saturdays or Sunday so there are no deliveries on Sunday or Monday. The best thing to do is to arrange to pick the package up from the main depot and drive it to the vet yourself. Packages regularly go missing or get delivered a day late and the majority of those mistakes are made when it is sorted into the wrong van and goes to Scotland instead of Kent.

I used a UK stallion this year and because the delivery was a couple of hours up the road decided to go with their usual form of delivery which was the Post Office. The delivery was supposed to arrived before 9. At 12 I had a phone call asking "where is it?" The dear old Post Office were contacted and said "oops, its been mis-sorted but don't worry, it will be with you tomorrow." Ummmm, no. Tomorrow will be too late. The good news was that the stallion was standing at Tullis Matson's place, Stallions AI and they were just brilliant. Once they knew the first delivery was on a grand tour of Britain they did a second collection in the early afternoon and couriered it up to my mare. She was inseminated at 5pm. They insure the semen they send for losses associated with late delivery so I wasn't charged for the first collection or delivery that went astray and got super-fresh semen just in time to catch her ovulating. I can't say enough good things about the service Tullis and his team provide.

So for me its swings and roundabouts with frozen and chilled. They both cause stress just in different ways!
 
..............and as for TNT !!!!!!!!!!!! Words me. Not enough words in the English language to describe. We are an AI centre and would never use them again to receive semen.

PO every time for us and second your vote for Tullis and Co. Excellent service.

.
 
No luck so far with Frozen. 2 failed attempts with 2 mares and then 2 missed ovulations at about 15 days.

Have switched clinics. First clinic vets are "experts" in single dose ai. The second clinic claim that 2 straws must be used for each cycle. I got 3 straws in the Balou dose and 4 in the Sir Shutterfly. Wonder why 3 if 2 are required per cycle ? I spoke to a breeder attending the first clinic who got 3 foals from his 3 straws. It would be nice if one could get info on conception rates from this clinic. They are charging about €1400 to ai 4 mares with a single dose of 4 straws. This includes 5 days livery for each mare. If their conception rates are as good as the clinic using 2 staws per cycle they are giving a good deal.

The clinic I am using now are happy using the frozen from the stallions I have chosen but claim to have had bad results from the chilled because of transport problems.

Is it true that the extra scanning with frozen delays ovulation? My mare took 5 days to ovulate while at the clinic and was gone off n 2 days at home on her previous cycle. The vet suggested the scanning may have delayed her..BUT! also said they get best results on quick ovulations.
 
I hope all goes well brownswiss with your recent coverings. Did you get it from schockemole? Their stud period ends July I
think, so fingers crossed for you!

They like to dose one before and after ovulation- this is due to research that has shown to be most effective. At least you have enough for a couple of goes with shutterfly at least.

It's a shame about the chilled side of things- I am much more comfortable generally with chilled now.

Fingers crossed for you and good luck x
 
I have never heard of scanning delaying ovulation- this is due to hormones so I cannot see the logic. Maybe Andy Pandy may be able to elaborate on that one!
 
Most of my mares are bred with just a single dose of frozen, although I always store multiple doses just in case. Occasionally we split the dose depending on the amount of straws per dose, but more often than not, we just put the whole single dose in immediately after the mare ovulates. I've had a lot of success with breeding my mares frozen. It is more expensive for vet fees though as they need to be scanned more frequently. I've never heard of scanning delaying ovulation, maybe it's a rational theory and someone with more knowledge than me can say ye or nay, but it doesn't really matter if it does or doesn't as my mares aren't bred until after they ovulate and I know what size follicle most of mine will generally ovulate at. I don't know whether I am lucky with my mares but they are all fairly textbook mares and I know them so well that it makes it easier.
 
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