Semen containers

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mulberry river whitetails

Joined
Jun 13, 2012
Messages
150
Location
Blountsville, Al
Hey guys, I want to ask y'all about semen containers and the efficientcy of them in keeping semen properly at my farm. I know that they are filled with liquid nitrogen and they leak over time. How often should i add the nitrogen, is it required to remove the semen when adding nitrogen, and is it feasable to keep it at my farm for an extended period of time or should i obtain an account at a sire service until i get ready to use the semen? If you can think of anything else to touch on i would appreciate it. Thanks for the replies.
 
We would suggest getting an account somewhere and just getting the semen when you want to use it. Then you don't have the headache of constantly checking to see if your tanks need recharging etc. All you have to do is forget once and you could lose all of your semen. The cost of an account is very small.
 
We keep all of ours on the farm. We have them topped of once a month, no you do not remove the semen when filling. Cost is minimal either way, but when it comes to breeding and you have a bad straw I am never without semen.
 
I keep all but the new straws i buy before Oct of that year in my tank at home. It takes about 3 months for mine to get down to about 8 inches after having it refilled.

I never pull the straws untill im ready to use them. You do not have to take them out while they fill the tank. The age of the tank has alot to do with the time between refiills!
 
I keep my own semen here in a semen tank as well . Every type of tank has a different shelf life for filling , some are 12 week tanks up to over 20 week tanks. What I do is keep my tank where I see it allot and I put a tag on one handle with the date of the last fill in big magic marker letters so I never forget to check it and have it refilled . I refill mine every 3 months but watch it close if it's really hot in summer ! I don't like to rely on someone shipping the semen I need on the exact day I need it, as most shipper tanks are only good for a few days ! I set my tank on the front seat , belt it in with the seat belt and take it in, it's no big deal and costs about $45.00 for each fill ! The draw back for me is having semen you no longer want to use ! I think when you have your own tank you tend to buy more semen than you need ..lol Just a thought .
 
Ok guys, let me throw this at you. Dont have a handling facility. will have to knock down for everything. is there a method that anyone has used to cervically ai deer without a drop chute and facility? needless to say, if there are no methods then i will have to ai them while they are knocked out on the ground. trying to get out on my own instead of sending my deer to someone. if i do that, then i would have to use their semen and continue to stay in the same genetic rut.
 
You have to knock them down. Maybe you want to look into a handling system. You'll never be sorry. It has so many uses and if you add up the cost of drugs for darting all the time it may not be as expensive as you think.
 
Yes, we have a handling facility. But I run my does in and give them the shot and into a stall they go to sleep. Then I bring the does out and into a stand 2 at a time or 3 and they get bred. The less stress your does have the better the conception rate you will have. And one main thing we do is the pen the does come from they go back to the same pen with the same deer that was in there originally.
 
Just a point to add about your personal semen tank at home . If you have a deep chest freezer that you can keep it in during the off season, it will hold a lot longer. Im with several farmers on here about keeping semen at your farm and at a facility like GLSS. I try to keep the majority of it off the farm, but when you have chosen what your breeding with its always great to have plan b. Extra straws in case of emergencies!!! Then like in our case we shipped back semen drawn from a couple of bucks from the year before. And again we drew two more this January. Ill have to maintain this batch till next fall and so on..............unless I ship early which tends to cost too much!

DEER CREEK WHITETAILS

Jason & Kristy Savage

318-791-9196
 
I keep a 20L tank, I fill it 4 times a year. I dont let is get real low. I keep it in a building outside during the winter then bring it in during summer.



I have to put my deer down 3 time's to breed them, looking into a chute for next season but will still put them down for the ai even with the chute.
 
We have done all of our AI in the chute. Unless you are doing lap AI the chute works great. We usually have a 75% or better success rate. It took approximately 2-3 minutes per doe. Very little stress when you move them in and out so quickly, back to their home pen with their previous pen mates.
 
The handling system would be ideal. Right now for me, it is not feasable; i only have one pen and no runs. Is there a cradle for adults like there is for fawns? Or, can you just ai them from the ground? Seems like there would be too many contaminants. Thank you all very much for your replies.
 
Gosh in my opinion if your raiseing deer you can't afford not to have and use a chute for not only breeding but testing and treating sick or injured animals . If I had to dart my deer to breed or treat them for something then I'd just plain qiut, thats how much I like having and using a chute . I can run deer into the chute for a shot or tag by myself with no darting . In my opinion darting is hard on deer and in the chute they're only in there for a minute or two and they get used to it . When I AI I only load the doe into the chute from the cubical once the semen is ready to use so she's only in there for a very very short time . If I split the straw I just have the next deer paired up and ready to load asap after the first doe has left the chute . The chute will end up to be MUCH cheaper than all the drugs and darts needed for darting . I would not farm without my chute and I rarely ever dart one of my deer, I hate putting them out like that . Just my opinion
 
Wooden acres said:
Gosh in my opinion if your raiseing deer you can't afford not to have and use a chute for not only breeding but testing and treating sick or injured animals . If I had to dart my deer to breed or treat them for something then I'd just plain qiut, thats how much I like having and using a chute . I can run deer into the chute for a shot or tag by myself with no darting . In my opinion darting is hard on deer and in the chute they're only in there for a minute or two and they get used to it . When I AI I only load the doe into the chute from the cubical once the semen is ready to use so she's only in there for a very very short time . If I split the straw I just have the next deer paired up and ready to load asap after the first doe has left the chute . The chute will end up to be MUCH cheaper than all the drugs and darts needed for darting . I would not farm without my chute and I rarely ever dart one of my deer, I hate putting them out like that . Just my opinion
Click to expand...





I totally agree! The initial costs are quickly forgotten and the BENIFITS of having a handling facility PAY big dividends for EVER!!!!:)
 
Thats the good thing about deer....You can do it different ways and have great results. I must have been at the wrong farm when they worked deer because i can say for a fact that i have helped many farms and had many in the chute and i dont remember one that when that door flipped open their eyes were not as big a saucers and scared sh!tless. I helped jake glick work his buck fawns and a few does and if they were not held down they were in your lap. To me..That is stress!!! I believe the best deer to breed and have the best rate is a dog tame bottlefed doe with a 1/4 or maybe 1/2cc cocktail prick in the butt while you are scratchin her ears...Thats what i call the less stress possible. Maybe i have just got lucky 15 times in a row!

Knock on wood!!!
 
mulberry river whitetails said:
The handling system would be ideal. Right now for me, it is not feasable; i only have one pen and no runs. Is there a cradle for adults like there is for fawns? Or, can you just ai them from the ground? Seems like there would be too many contaminants. Thank you all very much for your replies.
Click to expand...



You can do them on the ground, I have and as of yet never had a problem. You will clean the doe before you do the ai and you keep your tool's spotless. Most time's I just bring the doe's in on the streatcher and put them on a table to do the ai. It has worked out well for me, I have been just a bit over 75% average the past 4 year's and would been better if not for a couple week straw's. I split straw's and seem to have just as good of luck that way. I would prefer a chute for a lot of thing's but am only working around 10 head of doe's, less this fall after ehd.



One thing I forgot to add, if you do them on the ground it's a lot harder to see what you are doing or at least seem's like it to me. So much better to have them up on a table so you can get yourself in the right position to do the ai.
 
You can AI fine without a chute. We built stands to put the does in. I have well over 100 deer and have never had a chute, really don't see a need, darting works great!
 
Four Seasons Whitetails said:
Thats the good thing about deer....You can do it different ways and have great results. I must have been at the wrong farm when they worked deer because i can say for a fact that i have helped many farms and had many in the chute and i dont remember one that when that door flipped open their eyes were not as big a saucers and scared sh!tless. I helped jake glick work his buck fawns and a few does and if they were not held down they were in your lap. To me..That is stress!!! I believe the best deer to breed and have the best rate is a dog tame bottlefed doe with a 1/4 or maybe 1/2cc cocktail prick in the butt while you are scratchin her ears...Thats what i call the less stress possible. Maybe i have just got lucky 15 times in a row!

Knock on wood!!!
Click to expand...



I agree with Mike

I have helped run deer in a chute with about 6 guys

Looked to me like the deer in my opinion were very stressed. But I can guarantee they were not as stressed as much as I was.

I dart my deer, at first my stress level was pretty high when darting but after you do it enough your stress level goes down.

Thank to advice from everybody on this forum.

Just my opinion.
 
Running deer through a chute system takes practice and the more your deer go through the less the stress. We've been using a chute system for more than 15 years and there is no comparison. A lot can go wrong with darting. That said I'm sure we've darted 100's and 100's of deer. We used to dart all our fawns out of the breeding pens every fall. We still dart bucks when we move them to the hunt farm. If we have one animal in a pen that needs some sort of care we will dart it rather than run the whole pen through the chute. BUT the chute system is a must! It probably costs about $100 to dart a deer with drugs and darts when all is said and done. Also, if you only have one pen, what are you doing with your fawns in the spring? You need more pens and you need to separate things in the fall.
 

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