Sex of Foal

A

alleycat

Well-Known Member
Joined
13 March 2006
Messages
764
Visit site
http://www.theaicentre.co.uk/index.html

Got this link from Springfallstud when asking for info about importing semen. Under Stop Press it says you can now <font color="red"> choose the sex of your foal </font>. Has anyone tried this? What's the success rate? Is there value in this to a commercial breeder; are colts worth more than fillies? Myself, I'd rather ride mares, but a lot of people seem to specify geldings in the "wanted" adverts.
 
Just seen that there's an earlier post on foal-sexing; at that time there was some doubt as to whether or not this was commercially available. Well, it looks as if it is.... I take it that this is the work of the Mike that AP mentioned in the other post?
 
Just to clarify:

The method of sexing that the AI Centre offers uses a set of liquids which allegedly kills either the X-carrying sperm OR the Y-carrying sperm. The only commercially available product like this is designed specificially for bovine semen, and so will not work for equine semen.

From the reports that I've read, and from anecdotal evidence, this system is extremely unreliable, and even in small samples, the rate of success is about 50:50.

At present, the only way to sex-sort sperm, is to use a specially adapted flow cytometer cell sorting machine (which costs £100,000+), and I'm pretty sure that noone offers it in the UK.
 
I don't really know I feel about chosing the sex of your foal (if it was available).

It just seems wrong to me. Although I would prefer some more fillies, I wouldn't actually change any of my colt foals.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top