Terms for Frozen Semen contracts

KarynK

KarynK

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Would like to know what people consider to be fair terms around a contract for the use of Frozen semen.

Would you expect/offer a live foal Guarantee? or would you like/offer a Free return or how many "free" goes would be fair?

Do you charge or have you been charged a different fee for frozen than live cover? Do you charge/ have been charged by the pregnancy or by the dose?

How many doses do you send/expect initially? Would you trust someone to destroy extra?

Do you include/ would you prefer the transport costs in the fee or leave them for the person storing and or the buyer to arrange?

A lot of questions I know but the contracts differ so much and there seems to be so many different alternatives and no real standard approach.
 
Frozen semen is such an amazing tool, and yet, due to bad marketing and bad contracts it is very underused and often feared.

In my opinion (and this opinion is shared by a number of repro experts, freezing technicians and breeders) is as follows:

As long as the stallion is ALIVE, AVAILABLE for collection and FERTILE, the terms of the breeding should be based around:

1) Offering a live foal guarantee - if additional doses are required (see 2), then these should be supplied at COST (of collection and freezing) plus a small mark up, and transport.
2) Offering THREE insemination doses per stud fee (allowing one to be dropped on the floor, one for first cycle, and one for a second cycle, which covers the average number of AI's required with frozen)
3) Offering the use of any remaining semen, within the same season, for a reduced stud fee. This promotes effective use of frozen semen and promotes the use of the stallion.

Giving people 3 0.5ml straws per stud fee and not giving them a live foal guarantee is totally ridiculous, and is part of the reason that frozen semen has such a bad reputation (thanks for the mostpart to Germany for that one).

Do you need people to destroy extra? You can limit their covering certificates... it is perfectly simple for someone to synchronise mares and split a chilled dose 2-4 ways, so why make any special exceptions for frozen semen? WE NEED TO PROMOTE IT AND MAKE IT MORE ACCESSIBLE!

Transport costs should be shown up front, and be kept to a minimum. There are great single use, disposable nitrogen shippers now which are pretty cheap, and great for getting frozen around the UK and Europe.

Finally, and this is VERY important to me: 0.5ml straws are totally ridiculous. They were designed for cattle, where 1x0.5ml straw is an insemination dose - not 3-8 as we have in horses. They are difficult to handle, a lot of semen is lost in transfer (on sides of the straws etc), and they provide you with tiny insemination volumes which are horrible to try to manipulate, and may not create a good enough contractile response in the uterus of the mare. We NEED to start using 5ml straws, where one straw is an insemination dose, it contains a workable volume, and is far easier to handle and ship.

I hope my post provides some discussion points, and helps to give my opinions/answers to your questions
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I do love your posts AP - this is our first year using frozen (assuming I stick to the stallions I have in mind so far) and what you say makes so much sense. It's not the frozen semen itself that worries me, its the terms and conditions and different studs using different size straws, doses etc etc
 
Why thank you
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One thing I will say is - contact the stud, and talk to them about their terms; some are really reasonable and will change the contract for you. Ask why they do things as they do.

I'm in the process of making a flyer to send out to studs to try and persuade them to make more user friendly frozen semen contracts. Let me know if you want me to send it to your particular studs/centres/owners by PM
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Great post AP - and I do very much agree with you that frozen semen needs to be promoted better.

I wish more vets and breeders were willing to use frozen, and I even knock a little bit off my boy's stud fee if they do so, as the frozen stuff is already there and stored, which means no wear and tear on my stallion - unlike all the constant collecting for chilled/fresh semen.

My boy's terms are the same for fresh, chilled and frozen - 'Live Healthy Foal Guarantee', with no booking fee or deposit; no stud fee at all to pay until the breeder has a live, healthy foal on the ground. I wait 2 weeks after the foal is born, to make sure it is healthy and thriving.

All breeders get 3 straws per mare. So far, he's got everything in foal with the first straw, and I've given discounted breedings for the remaining straws.
 
Great thanks for that somewhere to start, hopefully this will bring about a standard for stallion and mare owners, there are so many differing conditions it's really confusing and unhelpful.

Will PM you for the leaflet and some advise on collection and storage for a friends stallion.

I think Frozen is the way forward, it's so much more convenient to both parties, its there for the mare and you don't have to rely on couriers and you dont have to collect at awkward times.

Re size of straws, totally agree with you, have used both on my mares, had some from canada single dose and they are brilliant according to my chap and I watched the whole process. I did not get guarantee at all with those (novice going internet shopping at the time! did the import myself argh).
This year got the multiple straws for a single dose totally fiddly and unhelpful!

The only thing I will say re the large straws, my chap had not seen them before and they would not fit into some of his storage containers, so there was a momentary panick!
 
Until such time as British breeders overcome their fear of frozen semen, British breeding will not be able to take advantage of the fantastic groundswell currently driving it.

I agree, that there is a need for better contracts, and to be frank British breeders need to vote with their feet. Unless you are buying doses of superb quality semen (with one client in 2007, Flipper d'Elle averaged 6 pregnancies for every 8 straws!!!), you should avoid semen which is NOT sold with live foal guarantee. You should listen to those who know, as which stallion has super semen or not.

With the exception of four stallions whom I sell as doses, all of my stallions, both French and Zangersheide are sold with live foal guarantee. That means foal standing and nursing at 48 hours. I'm in the process of setting up Belgian Stallions, and during my negotiations with the stallions owners, we have agreed on LFG, which is not the norm in Belgium. In general, I will only sell LFG because the only thing that matters is getting a foal on the ground. Big vets bills and no foal is not very funny for anyone.

I heard last year that some mare owners were vehement about using such and such a stallion, even though the entire world knew the semen was crap. Result? No foal, but a huge vets bills.......nice work. This was even after the agent (not me) had told them a hundres times not to use it!

The size of straws wil not change, I see your point, but the European industry will not change now.

The next thing to look at is the vets. There are a few (and it is a few) superb repro vets in the UK. If you are serious about your breeding (and a 1 mare owner should be just as serious as a 20 mare owner), then you need to patronise those true repro vets who have a great success record with frozen. A number of vets are trying to boost profits by claiming to be repro vets, they are NOT. You as the mare owner should always be searching out the best vet to get your mare pregnant, and stop worrying about having to transport the mare and foal. You'll find that a little transport can actually save you money and time in the long run, as you increase your chances of a first cycle pregnancy, and you'll not still be inseminating in August!!!

If anyone ever wants any advice as to where to go, just contact me.

If you live within and hour and a half of Quainton, Hobgoblins, Willesley, West Kington, or Twemlows, you're nuts not to use them, even if it means a bit of a trip.

When you use frozen, you open up a world of stallions which will improve British breeding beyond measure. On the practical side, you avoid the need to have your mare ovulating Tuesday to Friday because you generally can't get the fresh on the other days. FYI, I've never known a mare cooperate with the "don't ovulate at the weekend please" rule. 3/7 are not good odds!
 
i am very new to this breeding. i took 18 months to get used to the idea before putting my mare in foal. i used chilled but went to a lot if studs and one thing i remember a well known stud telling me is that if the stallion has good fertile sperm it would not make any difference to it if it is frozen.
 
There is no correlation whatsoever between fresh/chilled/live cover fertility and fertility of frozen semen from a particular stallion.

You can have stallions that have a 90% pregnancy rate with chilled, and then have a 0% pregnancy rate with frozen.

Conversely, you could have a stallion with a 30% pregnancy rate with chilled, and a 50% pregnancy rate with frozen, and anything inbetween the two.

There is no way to know how fertile a stallion's sperm cells will be after freezing, except to freeze them and try to achieve pregnancies with them!
 
LFG is a lovely idea but it will never be done by the majority Germany and Holland. Firstly many of the stallions that are extremerly popular breeding wise over there do not have enough semen frozen to do a LFG. Ken, I wonder are majority of your four stallions that are sold per dose your biggest sellers. You may sell them with LFG because the semen is so good (Big profit for you), but some of the stallions you may sell LFG the stallion owner themselves actually sell per dose ie Kannan who is 2400 euros from you for a pregnancy but direct from the stallion owner it is 500 euros per dose and I have had a pregnancy with every dose . That means you work on an average of roughly four to five doses to get a pregnancy Which I think is rough odds as most studs work on an average of 2 to 3 doses to get a pregnancy. Profit wise for me I know which way I would prefer to choose- research my stallions, try and use good semen and buy per dose or a stud fee that is the same as the stallion owner charges direct. Stuff LFG if it costs me £1810 (or so) on just semen before VAT (IF APPLICABLE) transport, vets fees etc- That is going to make my foals very expensive . For me to do the same thing cost just for the semen £337 ish and even with transport from France it cost under £800 for 1 pregnancy. Calculate that with several doses I would prefer per dose. This is not a personal attack on you but as you are an agent and you promot the benefits of your business i think it is fair to understand the negatives. I think the per dose way of selling has come in for a reason and it really has benefits, but for me I would prefer to use your terms and conditions when I was less sure of the semen quality pay the extra and make sure I get a foal. I am less willing to pay well over the odds for the semen when I know its superb stuff

Zangersheide from my knowledge have always offered frozen per dose basis no guarentees and the chilled under different terms. Therefore if you have LFG on their frozen is this a special arrangement to launch the stallions more heavily into the Uk and in a couple of years time will we still see the same terms (With no increase in stud fee)- I would be surprised as it wouldn't pay as well as the way they work now. The stud fee would have to increase to warrant and cover them for any extra semen that would be used (good semen or not- mares loose foals- it will cost the stallion owner extra semen)

Most studs over there are moving away from frozen stud fees and getting customers to pay per dose so it is unlikely to do a complete u turn in the market and give away semen

A few other points, in the UK because of the organistation anybody can write covering certs so there is a big problem of extra foals being born NOT paid for and still registered (Although it should - this is unlikely to change), and not nice but harsh reality the UK market is not big enough for the major studs and stallion owners to worry about, we are a bonus to their business and therefore we will never dictate how they sell their semen.
 
"Ken, I wonder are majority of your four stallions that are sold per dose your biggest sellers." Yes, in fact Flipper d'Elle was my biggest selling stallion last year by a long way, and he is sold by dose only.

"You may sell them with LFG because the semen is so good (Big profit for you)" Correct, I could do, but that's not how it's sold to me, so I prefer to pass this superb semen on to the British breeding market.

"but some of the stallions you may sell LFG the stallion owner themselves actually sell per dose ie Kannan who is 2400 euros from you for a pregnancy but direct from the stallion owner it is 500 euros per dose" Those doses are not from the stallion owner, they are from Guido who still has some doses. There are a few doses left in the UK, but they are not LFG which I have found British breeders prefer. In fact, once the first mare is pregnant under the LFG, you can cover any number of mares in the same season for only 300€ pre pregnancy, which is a superb deal.

"Zangersheide from my knowledge have always offered frozen per dose basis no guarentees and the chilled under different terms." Mostly incorrect. Zangersheide have in recent years offered LFG, whilst at the same time offering doses if mare owners prefer.

"if you have LFG on their frozen is this a special arrangement to launch the stallions more heavily into the Uk and in a couple of years time will we still see the same terms" No.

"you are an agent and you promot the benefits of your business i think it is fair to understand the negatives" And by the same token, you should highlight the negatives of selling semen by dose, namely that if your mare isn't pregnant and you've used all your straws................................you get nothing.
 
Firstly please note my mistake earlier I said 500 euros I meant pounds and below is the actually price on the exchange rate at the moment

Yes- Negative and positive for both- but i think the negatives are quiet evident for per dose whereas LFG has complicated strengths and weaknesses

My point was surely Flipper as an example is sold per dose because supply and demand often states it. I am presuming Flipper very popular , little semen available and therefore could never have enough semen allocated per mare to offer a LFG and if they did it wouldnt be worth it when they can sell per dose for less hastle.

Without going on and on in a basic form I would say at the mo LFG in Europe is only used on stallions who are not used very heavily and it is very unlikely you will ever get a LFG on stallion in high demand in Germany or Holland.

The semen for Kannan was offered to me per dose for approx £470 per dose direct from the Hecarts (although that was for several doses) and my point was using Kannan as an example of a stallion who has great semen. LFG can be very costly my point still stands at the cost of Kannan per dose you seem to be working on just under 4 doses to get a pregnancy when he is priced at approx £470 per dose, whereas most studs work on an average of 2 a few work on 3 doses allocated per mare. Again if the semen is not so good LFG is brilliant and good for the client as stud fees tend to be higher with LFG. Using a good repro vet, semen and broodmare i think if you do the sums LFG works out a lot more expensive. I like the dutch way not to risky but not over inflated stud fees. I also find if you loose the foal before its born or during birth they are usually very fair if you wish to return to that stallion for a minimal fee.


I apologise for punctuation but have to go out and so response slightly rushed
 
Maybe LFG will lose ground in this country with the growth of the infrastructure supporting AI, & particularly frozen.

However, I'm using AI for the first time this year, and am glad of the safety net, especially as this is a maiden mare. I wouldn't have the faintest idea how many straws to order if I were buying per dose, but would obviously be tempted to compromise- and might then regret it.

I wonder if suppliers who offer LFG are carrying any extra risk of being used by people who are trying to hedge their bets in the face of uncertainty. It would be interesting to know whether those who buy per dose are the experienced breeders who are more likely to have AI sussed, and who are more likely to be successful.
 
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Without going on and on in a basic form I would say at the mo LFG in Europe is only used on stallions who are not used very heavily and it is very unlikely you will ever get a LFG on stallion in high demand in Germany or Holland.

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I would agree that it can be very difficult to give LFG for VERY busy stallions, but internationally, on average, each stallion only covers 6 mares a season. LFG should be available for the vast majority of stallions. But as I said in my original post, it depends on whether or not the stallion is available to produce more stocks of frozen - and in the case of VERY busy stallion, one could argue the case that they are NOT available to renew stocks of frozen, so the LFG statement would not apply.

I think for the vast majority of, if not all, stallions in the UK should have frozen semen sold with an LFG.
 
We dont sell frozen semen anymore in the UK, but keep it as a back up, now we can provide chilled. But when we did, I sold 3 doses per stud fee with no guarantee.

The semen had been frozen to the industry standard, with all the required stallion health tests & checked for post thaw motility & had produced pregnancies, etc

Mares that went to competant vets almost without fail conceived on 1st cycle, which then meant the mare owner had 2 doses left which they may not want & I didnt want it back in case it hadnt been correctly stored. If the semen is sent out by the dose it incurrs extra courier & container charges.

If the spare doses were then used on other mares or the following season, registration of the foals was still possible - only a DNA test is required by some studbooks.

We have also had occasions of vets using all 3 doses in one insemination without any scanning & 1 even microwaved it for thawing! I did replace the semen free of charge, but found a good repro centre where the mare could be inseminated & she took first time - this wasnt in the UK

We still sell frozen semen where chilled isnt possible, but by the dose with no guarantee - its very common now to split doses & get multiple pregnancies from one dose & again we have no control over the registrations.

I think the mare owner should also take some of the risk & responsibility for maintaining the pregnancy
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Its difficult to strike a balance to be fair to everybody!
 
I totally agree with Sambertino.

I sold frozen semen and the doses were split in a manner that the double of pregnancies were obtained.

GennTrans freezes semen that has a minimum of 30% post thawing motility and is good to achieve a pregnancy per dose. Freezing semen for other countries is very expensive to do and the mare owner is responsible to take a vet that IS ABLE to use frozen semen and not one that THINKS he can deal with frozen semen and that is the problem most of the time.

I highly vote for a change of the straws in size to 1 dose = 1 straw, then this splitting cannot happen anymore.

Also there have been vets following the thawing protocol of the freezing center and achieved pregnancies easily and some vets just ignore this and thaw at what they think should work and no pregnancies have been obtained.

It cannot be the stallion owner to be out of a lot of money for freezing to enable mare owners to take chance on a stallion they would never have the possibility to use AND to have the stallion owner carry all of the risk of a save pregnancy in addition.

I think the selling of three doses is good but the doses should be in three straws then to avoid people to split more and more and achieve lots of unpaid pregnancies. This does not make us stallion owners want to freeze semen anymore.
 
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GennTrans freezes semen that has a minimum of 30% post thawing motility and is good to achieve a pregnancy per dose.

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The problem with this is that motility does not equal fertility. There are NO laboratory tests (or combination of tests) that can give you any real idea of the potential fertility of frozen thawed sperm. Once you've had ten mares or so covered with the frozen thawed, then you have a good idea of it's fertility.

I would suggest that more doses be sent out until you have a true picture of the fertility of the frozen thawed semen.

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I highly vote for a change of the straws in size to 1 dose = 1 straw, then this splitting cannot happen anymore.[p/quote]

Yes. I totally agree. It's one of the many reasons why we should use 5ml straws.

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Also there have been vets following the thawing protocol of the freezing center and achieved pregnancies easily and some vets just ignore this and thaw at what they think should work and no pregnancies have been obtained.

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And unfortunately this is part of the reason why frozen semen has gained a bad reputation, and also why it can take some time for fertility results to become truly reflective of the fertility of the semen.

Is it not possible to put into the breeding contract, a clause which prevents the mare owner splitting doses/using semen on more than one mare, and stating that if they do, they are fully liable for additional stud fees? Then you take them to small claims court (in this country), and then they have to pay up. Probably over simplified, but you get my drift I hope
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AndyPandy,

I totally agree with you. Regarding the clause and what is happening IF they do anyway. Just get the picture of sueing someone in Canada, USA, New Zealand, Australia. You may not even hear what they have done with the semen. You hear it when they have no pregnancy for sure but you do rarely hear it when they have achieved more than they should.

Sueing over such distances is almost impossible and one would be out of more money. We say it is like throwing good money after bad things.

I wish the big straw would come back and the problem would be solved at maximum! Until then I start to refuse to sell semen to overseas countries as nobody is following the rules.
 
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